Book Review
Oct. 21st, 2017 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Little Stranger
by Sarah Waters
This creepy quasi-horror novel is set in the small English town of Lidcote in the late 1940s, when the country was in the throes of post-war poverty and deprivation. The narrator, Dr. Faraday, becomes involved with the Ayres, the diminished local gentry, after being called up to their mansion, the Hundreds, to take care of a sick maid. Once a wealthy and glamorous clan, the family has been hard-hit by the war and are descending into a genteel poverty as the Hundreds crumbles around them. Roderick, Caroline, and their mother Mrs. Ayres also each have their own sorrows and struggles to deal with in the midst of this decline. Soon after Faraday becomes involved with the Ayres and the Hundreds, strange and alarming things begin happening in the house, which quickly escalate into something more frightening and dangerous.
The beauty of this book is the way Waters intertwines a character study and a horror story. Her examination of the dying out of the pre-war lifestyle of the landed gentry and the changes in British life is deft and sensitive. The ghost story is convincingly creepy. I especially like the way Waters created ambiguity about what was going on, and made these ambiguities serve the tension and creepiness. It i never clear whether or not there really is a ghost or if the family is simply succumbing to their own psychological issues. There is also the suggestion that Faraday is perhaps not the objective and reliable narrator he at first appears. Each of these possibilities carries its own kind of horror and the fact that Waters does not give a definitive answer for what is going on only enhances the creepiness.
by Sarah Waters
This creepy quasi-horror novel is set in the small English town of Lidcote in the late 1940s, when the country was in the throes of post-war poverty and deprivation. The narrator, Dr. Faraday, becomes involved with the Ayres, the diminished local gentry, after being called up to their mansion, the Hundreds, to take care of a sick maid. Once a wealthy and glamorous clan, the family has been hard-hit by the war and are descending into a genteel poverty as the Hundreds crumbles around them. Roderick, Caroline, and their mother Mrs. Ayres also each have their own sorrows and struggles to deal with in the midst of this decline. Soon after Faraday becomes involved with the Ayres and the Hundreds, strange and alarming things begin happening in the house, which quickly escalate into something more frightening and dangerous.
The beauty of this book is the way Waters intertwines a character study and a horror story. Her examination of the dying out of the pre-war lifestyle of the landed gentry and the changes in British life is deft and sensitive. The ghost story is convincingly creepy. I especially like the way Waters created ambiguity about what was going on, and made these ambiguities serve the tension and creepiness. It i never clear whether or not there really is a ghost or if the family is simply succumbing to their own psychological issues. There is also the suggestion that Faraday is perhaps not the objective and reliable narrator he at first appears. Each of these possibilities carries its own kind of horror and the fact that Waters does not give a definitive answer for what is going on only enhances the creepiness.
