Book Review

[kenjari]

Uncle Silas
by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Uncle Silas is an early example of the suspense/horror novel. Maud Ruthyn is a 17 year old girl recently orphaned by the death of her father, who has also left her heir to a very large fortune. She is placed under the guardianship of her sickly yet sinister Uncle Silas, whom she has had no prior relationship due to a terrible scandal that left Silas in utter disgrace. Despite Maud's at times naive determination to see her uncle in a positive and charitable light, her life as her uncle's ward soon becomes frightening as mysterious and menacing events start piling up.
This novel has a lot of the Gothic in it - gloomy old manor houses, brooding landscapes, strange people, dark secrets, and a few hints of the supernatural. It also has a lot of the "sensation novel" as well - suspense, mysteries to be solved,and crimes committed. The combination is very successful and satisfying. Sheridan Le Fanu's writing can at times seem a little overwrought, but it works in Uncle Silas because the narrator, Maud, is a teenaged girl attempting to cope with a very dangerous and disturbing situation. while the suspense does build more slowly than in modern thrillers, it was still effective and made the last couple of chapters exciting reading.

Comments

[sovay]

Uncle Silas is an early example of the suspense/horror novel.

I thnk I knew of this book only through the existence of a film adaptation which I have read about, but never seen. I'm glad it holds up!

(What are the supernatural components?)

[kenjari]

There are a couple of points at which the heroine thinks she is hearing her late father's voice speaking to her from beyond the grave, and the mention of some ghosts that may or may not lurk the halls of the house Maud grew up in. It's pretty ambiguous, though. Maud may have just been imagining or hallucinating her father's voice, and the ghosts are more tales that are told about the house than actual presences in the book.