Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor — New Review, Bookclub Too

Cover: bookshop.org

The third and final book for my reading holiday, Shadowplay fictionalises the life of Bram Stoker, rather than adding to the story of his most famous character. Joseph O’Connor’s prose is probably my favourite of the three, though Shadowplay is arguably the least Gothic of the three novels. It does share some similarities with Dracula and The Deathless Girls; they’re all sad stories, and by being the most realistic, Shadowplay is in some ways the saddest.

But I do sort of feel London is where a playhouse belongs, dashed if I know why. Something to do with the weather.
And Shakespeare. When one knows he might have walked the selfsame street, it rather puts a fizz in one’s blood. You see the Thames, and you feel, golly, the Globe was just younger. He might have got the idea for MacBeth on Southwark Row or The Embankment. Pepys. Kit Marlow. Those ghosts are all about.

Shadowplay, Joseph O’Connor

Jospeh O’Connor conveys a strong sense of how it felt to live in London in the late 1870s to early 1900s. As a character, Bram only infrequently visits parts of the city other than his home and the Lyceum theatre, but his night-time wanderings through the streets philosophising about Jack the Ripper do ground the narrative in a particular place and time. That said, Joseph O’Connor’s London may not be entirely true to life: despite the looming menace of Oscar Wilde’s trial and imprisonment, the LGBTQ characters’ lives seem substantially carefree.

Despite their interpersonal tensions, Joseph O’Connor’s characters are all sympathetic. Their relationships to one another are complicated, troubled by disagreements and competing priorities in the same way that real relationships are. The reader can side with Bram one moment and be frustrated at his dismissive attitude towards his wife the next. Just as there are no entirely unpleasant characters, there are no paragons of virtue either.

And as with real people, it’s hard to say that Shadowplay has any singular plot direction. The reader navigates through Bram Stoker’s life as Bram navigates through his relationships — both interpersonal and creative. The ending is bittersweet, and the final passages reminded me strongly (and positively) of How to Be a Heroine.

According to Shadowplay, Bram Stoker never lived to see Dracula’s success, let alone to know that over 125 years later, people would travel to Whitby specifically to discuss his writing. It’s a thought which is definitely going to make October’s reading holiday an interesting one.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave — New Review

Cover: bookshop.org

As I mentioned when I reviewed Dracula, The Deathless Girls is on the agenda of my ‘Gothic Fiction’ reading holiday. When I agreed to go, I was fully expecting the other books to be along the lines of The Monk or The Mysteries of Udolpho. It came as a (pleasant) surprise to discover that both The Deathless Girls and Shadowplay were published in my lifetime. (I didn’t take the Gothic fiction module at uni, but I certainly heard enough from those that did to put me off 1790s Gothic novels.) What took me even more by surprise was learning that The Deathless Girls is a Young Adult novel. If last year’s singing holiday is anything to judge by, it’s safe to say most of the holiday readers will have left their young adult years long behind them, so I’m intrigued to hear what people have to say about this is October!

I hauled my breaking heart, my hurt, into my throat, and sang something low and sweet: a mourning song. A song for Mamă and for Old Charani, and Dika, and all the other burnt and broken bodies that had once held the souls of those we loved.
I sang their spirits free and safe and unburdened with the knowledge of what had become of us, and sent them spinning up to the stars, or into the trees, or wherever they felt happiest.

The Deathless Girls, Kiran Millwood Hargrave

As a standalone novel, The Deathless Girls is a little underwhelming. Lil and Kizzy’s relationship feels like well-trodden ground: Lil’s the less extroverted sister who follows in Kizzy’s lead and wishes she could stand out more. Similarly, the romance between Lil and Mira is standard Young Adult fare, complete with moments of Lil somehow managing to miss the obvious clues that her feelings are reciprocated. Mira doesn’t get much of a personality beyond their relationship and being a victim, which is a shame. Kiran Millwood Hargave’s prose is nice, especially when she writes about Lil singing, but sadly that subplot doesn’t really go anywhere.

In the forests there would be witch haze and willow bark, other remedies the trees could give to soothe her sore skin. If knowing the land and all it could offer was bestial, I didn’t want to be human.

The Deathless Girls, Kiran Millwood Hargrave

All that said, The Deathless Girls shouldn’t be taken as a standalone novel. It’s a response to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and that’s where most of the interest lies. Lil, Kizzy and Mira could not be more different from Jonathan Harker, Doctor John Seward and Abraham van Helsing. The European characters in Dracula come from a much more civilised world than the vampires, their fears are about that bestial influence on civilised society. Lil and Kizzy come from a society more connected to nature, literally living with wild animals in their midsts. It’s a really interesting flip, over and above the fact more obvious difference that Lil and Kizzy are women with more agency than Mina and Lucy are allowed in the original novel.

Kiran Millwood Hargrave fits The Deathless Girls almost perfectly into the spaces for story that Dracula leaves unexplored. Her Dracul follows the same vampire logic as Stoker’s Dracula, which feels important and respectful to the original text. Even knowing which Dracula characters the story was based on, Kiran Millwood Hargrave managed to keep the ending from being too transparently forecast.

While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend The Deathless Girls over any other Young Adult novel, it should bring up some really interesting discussions when paired with Dracula, so I’m looking forward to my reading holiday! Two down, one to go.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Dracula by Bram Stoker — Reread Review

Cover: bookshop.org

After last year’s successful Dad-goes-walking & I-go-singing holiday, this year we’re trying a Dad-goes-walking & I-go-reading weekend. I’m booked to discuss three books: Dracula, Shadowplay and The Deathless Girls as well as walk around Whitby, where much of Dracula is set. At this point, I have really no idea what the holiday itself will be like, but I’d read Dracula before, so I decided to refresh my memory. I was hoping to read the ‘Dracula Daily’ edition, but it doesn’t come out until November.

Dracula is very much a novel of its time: the attitudes towards women and religion and people from countries other than Britain are entirely 19th-century, as are the long speeches. Some of Bram Stoker’s long passages of description work really well as scene setting for a horror novel, but others are a little tedious if you’re reading purely for enjoyment and with 21st-century eyes.

There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom — apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals.

Dracula, Bram Stoker

That said, it’s not completely possible to read Dracula purely as a horror novel; there are too many things that don’t really make any sense. Why are all Dracula’s victims women, when he does away with plenty of men and has Jonathan Harker at his mercy? What, exactly, does Dracula want in coming to London? Not to mention, there are some pretty huge coincidences which stretch credulity if you’re not looking at Dracula as a metaphor for something.

The essays in the Norton Critical Edition did a good job exploring the many, many different fin-de-siècle fears that Dracula could be read to represent. These are somewhat long and dry if you’re not actually studying Dracula, but still worthwhile in the long-run. (That said, the ones relating to the various cinematic and theatrical adaptations of Dracula aren’t particularly necessary as background information on the novel.)

Truly Miss Lucy, if she be sad in the foes that beset her, is at least happy in the friends that love her.

Dracula, Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker’s characters fall into two camps: vampires (and Renfield) vs non-vampires. As there’s plenty of conflict between the two groups, it doesn’t really feel as though conflict between the non-vampires is missing, but it is a little unlikely that fully fleshed-out people would agree quite so completely about everything. Nonetheless, the characters are distinct with very little chance of muddling them up with one another, which is definitely an achievement.

Overall, it was fun to read a horror novel which really felt like a horror novel, and the Norton Critical Edition has hopefully prepared me for interesting discussions on my holiday!

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.