Oh, also, I forgot the reason I came into this thread. I just finished reading Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin. It's often viewed as the novel that marks the end of "the Gothic," with The Castle of Otranto marking the beginning. In any case, it's quite a good book, if a little uneven.
It begins with this guy named John Melmoth going to see his dying uncle and seeing a mysterious visitor at the deathbed. He then discovers a secret compartment in his uncles room which contains a manuscript about a Melmoth from the 1600's (this is set in the early 1800's) who is the subject of a portarit that looks just like the mysterious visitor. Anyway, so the first part is John Melmoth reading this manuscript about Melmoth the Wanderer. This part is sort of interesting for the way that it uses lacunae in the manuscript sort of the way Grindhouse uses missing reels, but it's the weakest section of the novel (unfortunate that it comes first).
Anyway, after about eighty pages, a new character named Moncada is introduced, who has firsthand knowledge of the Wanderer, and pretty much the rest of the book consists of his narration to John Melmoth. However, before we get to the Wanderer, we get a few hundred pages of Moncada's story, which entertaining enough in its extreme Gothicness--monasteries, murderers, apparitions, the Spanish Inquisition, etc.--though it is also a little overwritten.
So finally, around page 300, the novel begins in earnest as we get another level to the narration, Moncada telling John Melmoth about a manuscript that he read (which itself contains further level of embeddedness). This manuscript is as close as we get to the Wanderer himself, and he's a wonderful character. Basically his deal is that he made an agreement with the devil that he could have a lifespan of 150 years in addition to all kinds of strange powers, and if he could find someone to change places with him during those 150 years, he wouldn't have to go to hell. So he spends all of his time finding the most wretched people he can (prisoners of the Inquisition, sane people trapped in lunatic asylums, people on the verge of starvation, etc.) and trying to convince them that he will save them if they agree to his infernal bargain. But the great thing about the final half of the novel (pg. 300-600) is that it's not just the story of this evil guy (who's really pretty likeable) but also of this weird castaway woman who falls in love with him. It all leads to a pretty exciting climax (and an amusing denouement). Anyway, if you have the patioence to get through the beginning, the second half of this book is amazing. |
