My Fantoms by Théophile Gautier (1830s - 1870s)

Richard Holmes's 1976 translation.

Mark and I talk about books.

Mark Rooster:  I have some thoughts on this book, but I'm not sure I have them in order here, so I'll just start.

I like the similarities in the titles of these stories. They're all connected thematically, and the simple titles, "The Poet," "The Priest," etc. fit with that.

The writing style is pleasant to read, very poetic but with some quite direct humor mixed in. I love the ending of "The Painter," where the narrator declares, "The reader will think, no doubt, that this is a very commonplace ending to a very unusual story. But he must take it or leave it. I would not utter a single false word. I would rather cut my throat."

There's another line that made me laugh, but I can't recall which story it was from. It's a line regarding a dog, whose sole purpose in life was to provide a shaggy black foreground over a green background.

Many (or all) of these seven stories deal with madness, insanity, and the possibility of supernatural interference of a romantic nature. I feel like with a couple of the stories, rational explanations might be acceptable, and in the others there are most certainly supernatural things going on.

"The Adolescent." There's less discussion in this one about the possibility of hallucination or madness, and it's told more directly, a woman climbs out of a painting, to come to the narrator.

"The Priest." Here the storyteller says quite plainly that he is unsure whether the events he describes happened in a dream or real life. But it seems more like he's saying that as a last-ditch sort of effort to deny what's happened. Because even his superior by the end believes he's been courting a demon.

"The Opium Smoker." I take this one as simply a drug-induced hallucination.

"The Actor." In this story, the Devil himself is involved, and there isn't much discussion about the reality of events.

"The Tourist." This one could go either way. And lastly, "The Poet"--this story threw me off a little bit. It seems less like the others. I'm only halfway through Richard Holmes' introduction (I wanted to save that for after reading the stories, as sometimes the intros in these collections give away more than I want to know prior to reading), but I saw in there that this one is nonfiction?

M. Buozis:  I agree. The thematic connections between the pieces seem to be twofold. First, each, with the possible exception of "The Poet," deals with the dark power of desire. Secondly, there is a supernatural element that is questionably created by the arousal of the protagonist. I was never sure whether Gautier meant his fantoms to be anything more than the manifestation of his desire for women.

Even the Devil in "The Actor" seems like just an extension of the narrators strange uncontrollable utterances. It's almost as if he's created the devil to explain his own devilish behavior. In "The Priest" I never thought of the demon woman as an actual spirit, but only as demonic in the eyes of a holy and celibate priest. Her retinue is described in a supernatural way, but I think the priest is just seeing Africans for the first time and thinking they are the demon's otherworldly helpers.

While Gautier has a fun, relaxed way of telling a story, I thought many of the stories lacked a compelling resolution. This must have been a great lead up to modernism, where the plot is not necessarily integral to the success of the story, but here I was expecting more of a satisfying development of each story. He brings his characters to life in such a vivid way and then lets them drop at the end like puppets who've been abandoned in mid-line.

"The Poet" is not strictly non-fiction. I think it's something like a fictionalized eulogy for his poet body Nerval. In this respect, the piece reminds me of Borges in its radical blending of reality and fiction. Its really meant to be read as truth, and reminds us that in order to enjoy any piece of literature we have to suspend our disbelief and live in the world of the story.

M.R.:  You've got a point there about the resolutions in these stories. They all kind of end in a similar manner. But I like the openness regarding the possibility of supernatural occurences.

After reading the introduction, I have a better understanding of the last story. Did you read the introduction and afterword? I found both to be pretty informative. I guess the afterword is from the original book published in the 70s and the intro was done later on?

M.B.:  Yeah. I read both the introduction and afterword. I think they shed a lot of light on Gautier's importance and the autobiographical nature of many of his stories. You also get a great sense of the romantic nature of his life, and the translators life while he was translating the stories. It helps to further bring together the collection.

I'd also like to discuss, a bit more, Gautier's writing styles. He always creates wonderfully fleshed out settings and characters without ever using showy language or lingering too long on a particular description. It's rare that you find such precise and great writing from a 19th century writer.


M.R.:  I definitely wouldn't figure this for mid-1800's if I didn't know beforehand when it was written. The writing is very fluid, poetic in some places, but also rather modern. Probably the "easiest" to read of any of the classic French authors we've looked as so far. And the humor too; I laughed a few times reading this book.

M.B.:  I'd agree. Despite the dark subject matter, this was a pretty light read, something I wouldn't mind taking to the beach, if I ever went to the beach.

Related Links:

1.  Joy's Blog Review
2.  Bookslut Review

Fireflies by Lacey Reah (2011)

Lacey Reah's Fireflies opens with the narrator, Linda, walking through Central Park, captivated by the fireflies that come out at night. There she is willingly seduced and transformed by a vampire-like creature known as a nymphomite.

The book gets off to a quick start, and from the Central Park scene jumps right into Linda's new life as a nyphomite. These creatures drink blood from their victims, but can only properly feed if the victim is in the throes of an orgasm at the moment of feeding.

Linda holds no grudge against the creature that changed her; she doesn't, in fact, hold onto any kind of nostalgia for her life as a human, and goes through a nightly routine of hunting, seducing, and feeding, and she is, if not happy, at least occupied.

This changes when she meets, and transforms, a woman named Jesse, who subsequently lashes out at her, condemning her for turning her into a nyphomite, instead of simply killing her. For the first time since being changed, Linda feels something human within her, and is forced to contemplate what she left behind in her first life.

Reah keeps the action moving along at a fast pace, while exploring the various moods and emotions Linda struggles with in her new form. It's about halfway into the 95-page book that Linda is confronted with Jesse and what she's done to her. Soon, the complacent but active character we've been with for the first fifty pages transforms, and what we have is a wounded, suddenly regretful vampire, who even takes a shot at going home, knowing there's no future for her there.

It isn't easy to make a sympathetic character out of someone who happily sucks the blood out of anybody who looks like easy prey, but Reah pulls it off pretty well. Linda is pretty much doomed from the beginning, and by the second half of the story, you wish there was some way out for her, despite her easy adoption of her new bloody appetite.

Fireflies is available in paperback and e-book formats, and can be purchased at the folowing links. The Lacey Reah/Fireflies myspace address is listed below.

http://www.amazon.com/Fireflies-Lacey-Reah/dp/145028163X
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Fireflies/Lacey-Reah/e/9781450281638/?itm=1&USRI=lacey+reah+fireflies

http://www.myspace.com/lindafireflies

Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (1910)

One of the things that separates this book very much from its film and stage adaptations is the amount of detail Leroux provides about the Opera's cellars. Some of the details almost seem like fantasy, or at least science fiction, even for current readers. A lake under a functional building? Five cellars in a 19th century urban building? A torture chamber? A 'siren' in the lake protect a fancy house stockpiled with gun powder? Trap doors and fake walls and revolving mirrors? It all seems almost impossible, but Leroux writes it like it's a matter of fact. I haven't watched any of the film or theater adaptations in quite a while, but I remember Erik's layer being more of just a creepy basement. Here it's turned into a magnificent symbol of Erik's almost superhuman abilities and knowledge of physics and illusions. Great stuff.

Erik himself is also made much more of a super-villain here than a tragic monster. Of course, we still get the tragedy in his relationship with Christine, but he's also a mastermind of deception and a bit of sadist. When the Persian relates the story of how Erik grew up in the East, we get a great glimpse of how Erik learned this amazing things. Leroux, of course, makes Erik more than a comic book character by telling us exactly why Erik might be so sadistic and angry at the human race. His mother rejected him, refused to give him any affection unless he wore a mask. No wonder he's such a bastard.

I've noticed with a lot of late-19th century and early-20th century fantastic fiction, authors often used this method, shifting points of view to establish a believable narrative. Dracula is a perfect example. Instead of presenting the story of a vampire as a legend, Stoker manages to create a believable account of what it might be like for a group of people to really encounter a vampire. Here Leroux gives us newspaper accounts and different perspectives from people in the opera and makes his narrator almost a secondary source, a reporter convincing us of the existence of the 'ghost'.

I haven't read much steampunk, but I did pick up a copy of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen about a year ago. Steampunk seems to be a cross between fantastic Victorian literature and science fiction, where 19th century settings are exaggerated in their technology (steam engines and dirigibles are very prominent) and the exoticism of people from the east is very exaggerated. The Phantom of the Opera, in a way, is a proto-steampunk book, in that Erik employs amazing technologies that almost seem magical, and the treatment and inclusion of the Persian is somewhat exceptional for literature of the time.

I certainly like the fact that we don't get too much information about Erik early in the novel. I've been thinking about this, watching some of the old Friday the 13th movies. What made those movies so frightening to me is that you rarely actually see the monster except for a few brief moments and then finally at the end, with the climactic battle. I feel like most horror movies these days show their villains in full light, from the beginning of the picture. While this might be more fun for filmmakers, I think it detracts strongly from the horror value of most new horror films.

That being said, at the end of the first Friday the 13th I think you get a similar reveal, where his mother explains everything that happened to him and why she's killing everyone.

You can check out a nice fan page detailing the film adaptations of the novel here.