Ritual, The Wicker Man and The Loathsome Lambton Worm

I bought The Wicker Man on DVD about 20 years ago. I can’t have watched it more than twice, but the ending of the film has stuck with me since. I was looking for a book to read recently when I came across David Pinner’s The Ritual, the novel that inspired The Wicker Man.

Ritual – David Pinner

From what I have read, it seems as though the movie people bought the rights to Pinner’s novel, but had to change so much of it that he didn’t get mentioned in the credits of the movie. The plot is very similar.

A policeman ends up in remote village investigating the death of a child. The locals are uncooperative weirdoes and at least some of them practice witchcraft. The memorable scene in the movie where the sergeant humps the wall is taken directly from the book. There’s definitely a similar mood and cast of characters in both Ritual and The Wicker Man, but the ending to the book is quite different and falls far short of the horror of the film. Overall, it’s really more of a mystery featuring elements of the occult than a true horror novel. There’s a little more humour in it too. I quite enjoyed reading it.

The Wicker Man – Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer

I was going to post about Ritual last week, but then I read that the novelisation of The Wicker Man was held in high regard, so I decided to read that too. It was published a few years after the movie came out, and it offers a slightly different version of the story. As I mentioned, I’d seen the film before, but aside from the wall humping and the climax, I couldn’t remember too much. I’ve reviewed quite a few novelisations on here before, but I’ve never felt the desire to go back and watch the films after reading the books before. That was not the case here. I finished the book after dinner yesterday and sat down to watch the movie version maybe 20 minutes later.
I wasn’t aware, but there are multiple cuts of the Wickerman out there. I found a version streaming on Kanopy (an awesome library streaming service) that was significantly longer than the version in Amazon. I watched the director’s cut, and to be honest, it wasn’t great. Some of the scenes are transferred from an old reel that looks like garbage in comparison to most of the film, and none of these scenes add anything of much worth to the story. Apparently there is a longer cut in existence now, but I have no interest in watching it. I reckon the short version is totally fine.

It was interesting watching the director’s cut right after finishing the novelisation though. Some very short scenes included in that cut of the movie are explained more clearly in the book, and there are a few little scenes in the book that weren’t included in the movie at all. Sergeant Howie is given more background, and there are a few extra characters. Overall, I quite enjoyed reading this novelisation. If you like the movie, the book is worth a read. The movie is great too. The director’s cut is bloated, and even the original might be a little slow to get going, but the scene when Howie realises what’s in store for him makes it all worth while. I love it.

The Loathsome Lambton Worm – Anthony Shaffer

While I was researching this post, I discovered that the screenwriter of the film had actually written an outline for a sequel to The Wicker Man with the same cast of characters. Anyone who has seen the movie or read the book will understand why that would be difficult, and the resultant screenplay is actually less coherent than you’d expect. It was called The Loathsome Lambton Worm. The brilliance of The Wicker Man is that it’s a horror movie that doesn’t rely on supernatural scares or gore to horrify. The efficacy of the islanders’ rituals is inconsequential to the plot. The proposed sequel includes decaptitions, magic spells, witches riding around broomsticks and a fire breathing dragon. It also features Sergeant Howie doing things that go against everything the audience has been told about him. The proposed sequel is pure crap, and I am more surprised that anyone ever took the time to write it out than the fact that it wasn’t made. Nobody could read it and think it was a good idea even at a time when the bar for sequels was pretty low. The treatment for this awful sequel was published in the revised edition of Alan Brown’s Inside the Wicker Man. I didn’t bother reading the rest of this book because I a bit sick of The Wicker Man at this point. I might go back and watch the Nicolas Cage version in a few years.

Carl Nagel’s The Handbook of Black Witchcraft

I had originally planned to post about a different book today, but I realised I needed to do some more research to do it justice, so I sought out a ridiculous pamphlet of black magic. I found one by my old pal, Carl Nagel. It starts off with a depiction of a badass Satanic human sacrifice, but then it turns out that the author is only describing this scene to say that it’s not true witchcraft. Obviously, this was quite disappointing. I was hoping this would be a grimoire of cool satanic murder rituals.

In the next section, we learn that “Black witchcraft” is “older than the centuries”. I assumed that meant it was prehistoric, but we find out in the next paragraph that it was born in the middle ages, so I’m assuming that Nagel originally meant to say that it was older than “some centuries”.

This is followed by a description of how witches used to be initiated into their covens, but Nagel then acknowledges that the readers of his work won’t have any friends, so he tells them how to initiate themself into a coven of one. They basically light a few candles and think of witchy stuff.

The guts of the pamphlet (about 5 pages) consists of a handful of silly spells. It’s the usual crap: how to attract lovers, how to make a voodoo doll, how to make a rival impotent… There’s really nothing unique or original here.

This is another instance where I find it hard to imagine a person stupid enough to take this shite seriously. When I refer to this as shite, I mean it. This book is smelly, smelly poopoo from a dirty bumhole. Carl Nagel actually has quite a few publications too, and I am very curious as to what his threshold of success is. How many copies of his last book does he need to sell to convince him to write more? Surely there can’t be more than 2 or 3 imbeciles alive who would pay for this heinously soiled adult diaper.

Chuck Tingle’s Bury Your Gays

The first time I encountered Chuck Tingle was when somebody I followed on twitter posted images of the covers of his earlier books. They had some ludicrous titles (check out his bibliography if you haven’t already seen them), and while I am definitely not beyond reading a book purely because it has a ridiculous title, Tingle’s titles were overt gay porn. I was happy they existed, but content to leave them for their target audience.

Recently, a colleague in work recommended me one of Chuck Tingle’s newer novels. I was a bit taken aback, assuming the title would reference anal penetration in some manner, but it was actually called Bury Your Gays, and it was supposed to be a horror novel. To be honest, I’ve been running a little dry for blog content recently. I’ve been busy and largely directing my creative energy elsewhere, so I was quite happy to take my buddy up on a horror book recommendation. I’m really glad I did. This book was actually very enjoyable.

This is the story of Misha Byrne, a gay screenwriter whose characters start showing up in real life. (It’s funny, after writing that, I realise that was the premise of a Brett Easton Ellis novel I read years ago.) I won’t give anything else away. It reminded me a little of David Sodergren’s Rotten Tommy in terms of the manic creativity behind the plot and characters. It’s really enjoyable when capable writers let their imaginations loose.

The book is surprisingly well written. There’s sci-fi elements and social critique, but some scenes are horrendously violent, and I think this definitely counts as a horror novel. The sledgehammer scene made me wince, but also made me hope that this book gets turned into a movie.

I also found that while it’s a gay novel in many respects (gay protagonist, gay title, gay issues…), none of this book felt obscure or foreign to a straight reader. (The last gay horror novel I read was largely gay porn, so maybe it’s just the contrast to that book that susprised me.) I wonder how queer readers feel about how accessible this gay novel is to straight readers. While the book doesn’t trivialise the queer experience, I felt Mr. Tingle framed it in a very relatable manner. Do queer readers want to read something that makes the queer experience relatable to the straights, or would they prefer it to be a little more militantly queer? Is it naive of me to be a little taken back by how easy it is to relate to queer characters?

It’s pretty cool to see how much recognition this novel is getting. It’s a good book, but the author’s story is inspiring too. He did something weird and stuck with it until he got popular. While the title of this book isn’t as overtly self-referential as some of the author’s other works (2017’s Pounded In The Butt By My Book “Pounded In The Butt By My Book ‘Pounded In The Butt By My Book “Pounded In The Butt By My Book ‘Pounded In The Butt By My Book “Pounded In The Butt By My Own Butt”‘”‘ for example), the plot of the novel revolves around that motif in a genuinely impressive manner. It’s really cool to see that kind of integrity and ingenuity. Chuck Tingle is a weirdo, a real weirdo, but weirdoes are awesome.

The Ghost of Paddy Lafcadio Hearn, Japan’s Spookiest Irishman

I first saw this book a few years ago. I assumed it was a collection of folk tales from different authors, but the fact that it was published as a Penguin Classic made me want to read it. I was in Ireland recently, and I needed something to read. While browsing through my library’s collection of audiobooks, I saw this title and noticed for the first time that an author’s name was on the cover. I had never before heard of Lafcadio Hearn, collector of Japanese ghost tales, but a quick google search revealed that his first name was actually Patrick and that he grew up in Ireland. I did my bachelors degree in literature in Dublin, and I believed I had read most of the big names of Irish writing. I was delighted to discover an enigmatic Irish writer on one of my brief trips back to my homeland.

So Lafcadio was born in Greece, spent his childhood in Ireland, moved to the states, became a succesful journalist and then spent the rest of his life in Japan. He married the daughter of a samurai and spent his time collecting and translating Japanese ghost stories into English. Later, these stories were translated back into Japanese, and some sources on the internet claim that these works are now better known and valued in Japan than anywhere else.

While the collection is titled Japanese Ghost Stories, a more accurate title would be “Japanese Stories that Feature Supernatural Elements”. Most of these tales don’t feature pale apparitions rattling chains. There’s a lot in here too, and honestly, some of the stories are quite lame. I noted down the general gist of each tale below and put it into the list below. This is more for my own reference than anything else, and it contains spoilers, so you may want to skip it for now if you plan on reading the book. (It won’t really ruin anything if you do read it. There’s not many surprises in this book after you’ve read the first few stories.) Make sure you check out the ending of this post though. I’m pretty sure my interest in this author led me to seeing a real ghost.

The Stories

Of Ghosts and Goblins
Suitors try to impress girl. She only likes the one who eats a corpse with her.

The Dream of a Summers Day
Fisher boy saves a tortoise and then marries sea gods daughter. Comes home 3 (actually 400) years later. Dies. Just like fairy stories

In Cholera Time
Infant drinks dead ma’s tit milk

Ningyo-no-Haka
Japanese people die in 3s. Ghost of mother comes back for son
More a paragraph than a story.

The Eternal Haunter
Description of spirit that gave man a wet dream. I think.

Fragment
Man climbs mountain of skulls of his past lives

A Passional Karma
First real story. Samurai’s love dies. Comes back to haunt him.

Ingwa Banashi
Dying wife grabs the tits of her husband’s concubine and doesnt let go even after she dies.

Story of a Tengu
A tengu takes a monk back in time to see Buddha talking. Trash.

A Reconciliation
Samurai comes back to see his ex-wife, but she is now a ghost/corpse

A Legend of Fugen Bosatsu
Monk sees a pretty girl turn into some religious figure. Crap and boring.

The Corpse Rider
Priest tells man to ride his divorced wife’s corpse like a pony so she won’t haunt him

The Sympathy of Benten
Goddess introduces man to his wife’s spirit before they get married.

The Gratitude of the Samebito
Sharkman cries jewels to give to his friend to impress his crush’s family.

Of a Promise Kept
Samurai commits suicide to get back to his brother on appointed date.

Of a Promise Broken
Corpse of samurai’s first wife takes nasty vengeance on his second wife.

Before the Supreme Court
Dying girl’s parents make deal with pest god. Pest god kills another girl with same name. Council of gods gets pissed and puts dead girl’s soul into live girl’s body.

The Story of Kwashin Koji
Old man with a magic picture tricks people.

The Story of Umetsu Chubei
Man holds heavy magic baby.

The Legend of Yurei Daki
Woman steals gods money box and they get horrible revenge on her baby.

In a Cup of Tea
Man sees a face in his tea. The own of face later comes to visit him. Fragment.

Ikiyro
Woman hates young man because she thinks he is rival to her son, so her alive ghost haunts him.

The Story of O Kame
Wife needlessly haunts ger husband after she dies.

The Story of Chugoro
A beautiful frog vampire kills a young man when he tells his mate about their relationship.

The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi
Ghosts tear off blind musicians ears.

Jikininki
Priest comes across a goblin eater of the dead.

Mujina
Crying woman tears her face off and frightens a traveller. Good.

Rokuro Kubi
Decapitated heads gang up on samurai priest.

Yuki-Onna
Man marries spirit that killed his friend.

The Story of Aoyagi
Man marries a tree.

The Dream of Akinosuke
Man falls alseep and joins insect kingdom.

Riki Baka
Mentally handicapped boy dies and is reborn.

The Mirror Maiden
A beauriful spirit lures people to their death down a well but turns out nice after an evil dragon releases her.

The Story of Ito Norisuke
Man falls in love with ghost.

In truth, this collection felt bloated. If the 10 worst/shortest stories were removed, it would have been much more enjoyable. It seems that this is a ‘complete’ collection rather than a ‘best of’ collection. I do appreciate that really. I’d probably be curious about the crap if it wasn’t included in here. Only 5-6 of the tales live up to the grisly cover that Penguin gave this collection. (I showed my wife the cover, and she asked if it was supposed to be Bobby Hill. Hahaha.) There’s definitely some similarities in the tales here and the Irish folk tales that Hearn must have heard growing up in Ireland. All together, I’d say it’s worth a read.

Photo posted online in 2016. This plaque is now gone.

As I said, I was in Ireland when I found out about Hearn, and I wanted to use this opportunity to understand him, so I set out to find out what his experiences in Ireland had been like. On his wikipedia page, I found a picture of a plaque that used to be on the wall of his childhood home. I went to the address listed, but the plaque is no longer there. A careful analysis of the photo of the plaque and the front of the house confirms it is the same building. Given the numerous statues of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Patrick Kavanagh and other Dublin writers, spread throughout Dublin, I was disappointed to see that Lafcadio Hearn is basically unrecognised in what was once his home city.

48 Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin, Hearn’s Childhood Home

The stories in the book are followed by a brief appendix on the nature of ghosts and nightmares. This was definitely my favourite part of the book. Hearn discusses how belief in ghosts is a global phenomenon that occurs in every culture, and how it may derive from inherited memories from our earliest ancestors. It’s an interesting piece of writing, and it’s made more interesting by Hearn’s descriptions of his own encounters with ghosts as a child. He acknowledges that these spectres were likely creations of his mind, but in the context of his writing that doesn’t make them less terrifying. He explains how he always struggled to describe what they looked like until he saw the images of exhumed, decayed corpses in Orfila’s Traité des Exhumations Juridiques and recognized his tormentors. Perhaps the most chilling passage in the entire book is when he claims how these phantoms started to appear to him in a particular room of his home when he was 5 years old.

Corpses pictured in Mathieu J.B. Orfila’s *Traité des Exhumations Juridiques*

“When about five years old I was condemned to sleep by myself in a certain isolated room, thereafter always called the Child’s Room. (At that time I was scarcely ever mentioned by name, but only referred to as ‘the Child’.) The room was narrow, but very high, and, in spite of one tall window, very gloomy. It contained a fire-place wherein no fire was ever kindled; and the Child suspected that the chimney was haunted.”

I went back to the photo I took of the house he lived in at that point of his life, looking for a room with a tall window. It could be any of them, so I zoomed in, looking for more clues. Then I noticed this:

Hearn’s ghost? This genuinely creeped me out when I noticed it.

Stewart Home’s Fascist Yoga

I have never in my life had an interest in yoga. It always seemed like bullshit to me. I know that it’s good to stretch before and after exercise, but I never really understood why stretching needed a foreign name to make it seem more important.

When I started reading books on the occult, I was a bit surprised to see the concept of yoga popping up so frequently. Aleister Crowley was mad into it, and knowing that several of his books deal with the topic is precisely what prevented me from reading them. It’s clearly all a load of shit. Isometric exercises are important, but there’s nothing mystical about them.

A friend recently gave me this book. It did nothing but confirm my suspicions. Yoga is a bunch of crap for stupid idiots who think they’re smarter than they really are. The author mostly discusses the key figures who made yoga popular over the last century or so. All of them were lying hustlers. A lot of the books that they put out were the same kind of nonsense as the magical self-help crap I review here. None of it is based in research, and their sources are always mysterious yogis that they met at the top of a mountain.

It also turns out that a lot of these yogis have had links with the far right. Personally, I wasn’t really surprised or interested by this. Stupid people like stupid things.

I assume that anyone who goes to yoga classes is either dumb or really likes the smell of feet.

John Russo’s Voodoo Dawn

John Russo wrote Night of the Living Dead with George Romero. I have been meaning to read something by him for years. I settled on his 1987 novel, Voodoo Dawn.

This was pure garbage. It only took a few hours to read it, but every second of those hours felt as if the author was laughing at me for wasting my time reading his filthy pile of shit.

A voodoo witchdoctor goes on a killing spree in an attempt to make a Frankensteinesque voodoo doll out of human body parts. The premise here is good, but the execution reeks of human excrement. The discussion of the life sized voodoo doll is limited to a few sentences, and the murders take up only a few pages. Most of this novel focuses on the business plans of a gang of up-and-coming advertising executives. It’s shockingly boring. There was a little bit of satisfaction when these boring squares died, but it would have been much more satisfying to witness the author being brutally dismembered with a machete for making me read through his boring, dull, uninspired shite.

At one point the author describes how one of the characters is struggling to flesh out her book on voodoo and how she ultimately resorts to inserting large quotations from other books instead of integrating their main ideas into her work. Russo then proceeds to insert a large quote from one of the books that the character was supposedly reading. He’s literally flaunting his inadequacies to his readers’ faces.

Apparently there’s a movie with the same title that was very, very loosely based on this book. I doubt I’ll watch it. Honestly, avoid this book like you would a leper. It’s a diaper full of diarrhea.

Poppy Brite’s Most Extreme Novel: Exquisite Corpse

Ok, so I know I said that I was going to get to regular posting 2 weeks ago, but I went camping last weekend and had no internet. I finished this novel, Poppy Z. Brite’s Exquisite Corpse, a few weeks ago, and it’s been stuck in my head ever since.

**Gallery Books – 1997 (Originally published 1996)**

I’ve read 3 other books by Poppy Z. Brite. I loved Lost Souls and Swamp Foetus. I didn’t like Drawing Blood so much. It felt more like fantasy than horror, and it was extremely homoerotic. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, and I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to give off “no homo” vibes here. I was able to enjoy the romance between the 2 male characters; I just didn’t like the cum eating. I guess I’m the kind of person who really only enjoys reading descriptions of people ingesting bodily fluids when these descriptions are purposely written to gross the reader out.

Anyone who has read Exquisite Corpse will probably be giggling at my squeamishness right now. Both of Brite’s publishers (Delacorte and Penguin) refused to publish this book after Brite submitted the manuscript. This is one of the most disgusting novels I have ever read.

The plot focuses on the intersection of the lives of 2 gay couples. One of these couples has recently broken up, and the other is comprised of a necrophile and a cannibal. The results are deeply disturbing and depressing. I don’t want to give anything else away, but Jesus this book was fucking grim.

At an early point in the novel, I considered giving up. There were a few chapters that were basically just gay porn. These weren’t just descriptions of what happened. This was clearly erotic writing. I generally skim over lengthy sex scenes in novels, regardless of the genders of the participants. I didn’t do that here because I was half expecting something horrible to happen, but it didn’t, and now I fear that I am a gay man.

I’m joking of course, but I was half right. Extremely horrible things do start happening in this book, and they are written about in such a way that sets them far, far apart from the generic splatterpunk book I have read here before. It’s a combination of Brite’s skill with the written word and the juxtaposition with the sexy parts of this book that make the violence in here so disturbing. At the same time, the actual brutality on display here is full on. There’s nothing left to the imagination. The viscera and gore are upsetting, but Brite also describes the psychology of the sadistic murderers too, and it was those parts that I found most upsetting. There’s one bit that genuinely disgusted me where the murderer is describing how the body of their victim acquiesces to the violence its undergoing with a kind of longing.

This book is seriously fucked up. It’s dark, disgusting and depressing. There were numerous points throughout that made me feel nauseous and made me question my sexuality. All in all, I enjoyed it.

The Haar and Rotten Tommy: Two Novels by David Sodergren

Greetings dear readers. I want to offer my apologies for the disruption of my weekly posts recently. I’ve been away, and I had to prioritize my family over my creepy book blog. I can’t remember another month in my adult life where I did as little reading. I’m back home now, so the scheduled creepiness can now resume. I got my hands on some weird stuff when I was away too, so check in again soon.

The Haar – David Sodergren

I noticed this title on my library’s audiobook section a few months ago. I’ve listened to most of the horror novels available there, and I needed something to read, so I gave this a go. I think used to follow the author on twitter or something as I recognized his name as an indie horror author. I had no real expectations.

I loved this book. I genuinely really enjoyed reading it.

An old woman faces pressure to sell her house on the coast of Scotland so that a millionaire can redevelop the land. I’m assuming he was going to turn it into a golf course, but I can’t actually remember. Doesn’t Trump own a golf course in Scotland? Either way, a fucked up sea monster shows up and things get gory and psychedelic. This probably counts as splatterpunk, but it’s enjoyably written. There’s a story and characters at work here.

Rotten Tommy- David Sodergren

Shortly after finishing The Haar, I sought out another book by Sodergren. Rotten Tommy came out last year. I found it a bit weirder than The Haar. It’s about a woman who finds malevolent video tapes in her parent’s old house that lead her getting sucked into a forgotten TV show with an extremely nasty antagonist. This is definitely horror, but there are strong fantasy and even comedy elements at play. Again, I really enjoyed this book.

I often find myself running out of things to say when I review modern horror, especially when I’ve enjoyed reading it. There’s a million other reviews out there if you want more details, but I would strongly recommend just reading these books instead. Both of these novels were a lot of fun to read. I will hopefully get around to reading more of David Sodergren’s books in the future.

Some Books on Jack the Ripper

Sorry, I am still on holidays, so my weekly post is late again. In April of last year, I mentioned my intention to do a post on books about Jack the Ripper. I recently reread Alan Moore’s From Hell for my post on Nicholas Hawksmoor, the Satanic architect, and before doing so I decided to prime myself by reading Donald Rumbelow’s The Complete Jack the Ripper.

The Complete Jack the Ripper – Donald Rumbelow

**Virgin Books – 2016 (First published 1975)**

This is the first and only non-fiction book I have read about the Whitechapel murders, and while I don’t have anything to compare it to, I was very pleased that I read this first. This book, as far as I can tell, restrains itself to the facts of the case. It outlines what is known about what happened in Whitechapel during the Jack the Ripper murders. It provides background on several of the key suspects in the murders, but it does not present any one of these characters as the likeliest candidate. The book does a very good job of making it very clear that this is a very complex case that, for many reasons, will likely remain unsolved. I don’t want to get into the events of the murders here as that information is available in a million other places, and I have no clever insights to offer. If you are interested in this case, I reckon this book is an excellent starting point. I’m actually a little hesitant to read some of the other books on the case as Rumbelow includes some details on why they’re probably not accurate.

From Hell – Alan Moore

**Top Shelf – 2004 (First published 1999)**

The first time I read from From Hell was an upsetting experience. I knew that some prostitutes were going to get butchered, but Moore’s story makes them people, and the violence was actually upsetting. It’s a phenomenal piece of art though. I only read a few graphic novels every year, but this is absolutely my favourite. The amount of research and thought that clearly went into is astounding. I strongly suggest that you keep 2 bookmarks handy while reading through it, one to keep your place in the story and one for the corresponding chapter notes at the back of the book. You must read both. I was very glad I had read Rumbelow’s book beforehand this time. Knowing something of the case made the depth of Moore’s work even more apparent.

White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings – Iain Sinclair

I read a bit of Iain Sinclair’s Lud Heat for my Hawksmoor post. I didn’t like it. I was slightly disappointed to find out that he had also written a book that involved the Ripper murders. I knew this guy’s ideas had influenced Alan Moore, and I decided that I should check out his Ripper book too. I was hoping that his White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings would be a bit more straight forward than his poetry. It’s not. It’s one of those arty books with a plot that’s buried underneath a weight of literary wank. I read it over a couple of days a few weeks ago. I’ve been putting off writing about it because I didn’t want to think about it, and now I don’t remember much of what little coherent plot there was. A bunch of ugly booksellers go on a road trip or something. There’s some flashbacks to the time of the killings, but nothing that was of any interest to me. Load of shite.

I’ve noticed a few times that people get upset when I dismiss books for being too deep or arty or clever. My review of Arthur Machen’s The Hill of Dreams was particularly offensive to one individual, and I recall somebody getting quite upset when I made fun of Stephen King’s attempt at critical writing in Danse Macabre. If you’re one of these people, fuck you, nerd. Kiss my hole.

These three books were my first real foray into Ripperology. I’m certainly not averse to the idea of reading more on the topic, but my curiosity has largely been satiated. I’d be interested in books that attribute Satanic, occult or extraterrestrial motives to the murders, and while I assume such books probably exist, I also assume that they’re complete rubbish. Much of the allure of reading about the Ripper murders is the fact that these brutal crimes have remained unsolved for more than a century despite the attention they have received. There’s so many theories and suspects that reading more facts about the case doesn’t really hold any appeal for me at this stage. I either want a definitive explanation of who was responsible or I want ridiculous (yet sincere) claims that it was a vampire.

Herbert Gorman’s The Place Called Dagon

Sorry for not posting last week. I’ve been travelling, and I haven’t had much time to sit down and blog.

I read Herbert Gorman’s The Place Called Dagon a few weeks ago. I had read somewhere that it had influenced Lovecraft, and its title made it seem like the influence would be pretty direct. I enjoyed the book, and while it did feel very similar to some of Lovecraft’s tales, it wasn’t really what I expected.

A doctor moves to a remote town in New England. He’s largely shunned by the locals. Things start to change when he is called to the home of the local eccentric who has just shot himself in the foot. This lad is a weirdo, but his wife is a total babe. One thing leads to another, and it’s not long until the doctor finds himself at a Satanic coven’s ritual sacrifice.

This is actually a pretty straight forward folk horror story, but the setting and tone is very similar to some of Lovecraft’s work. I was a bit surprised because when I think of what stands out about Lovecraftian horror, I tend to think of the cosmic side of things, strange and terrible gods that are oblivious to the suffering of humanity, but the evil in Gorman’s book is actually quite prosaic. There’s definite Dunwich vibes, but no real Yog Sothothery. The Dagon referred to in the book’s title is literally a place too. There’s no fish Gods involved.

I quite enjoyed this one. I went back and took a look to see what Lovecraft actually said about it. All I could find was a brief mention in his essay on Supernatural Horror in Literature. I remember reading Stephen King’s Danse Macabre, a book about horror fiction, a few years ago and then going back and reading all of the books it mentioned. I did the same thing after reading T.E.D. Klein’s The Ceremonies. I’m a bit surprised that I haven’t gone through Lovecraft’s essay in more detail and then hunted down the books mentioned therein. I’m just glancing through it now and seeing a lot of familiar names. Maybe I’ll get going on that soon.