The days are getting colder and windier, the
leaves array the trees in a variety of oranges, reds, and browns, and all
throughout my neighborhood pumpkins adorn porches and doorsteps. Fall is
perhaps my most favorite of all seasons and I have been outside as much as I
can to enjoy it before it is gone. There is one more thing that seems to really
be a part of the fall season – and that is Halloween! With this spooky holiday
around the corner, I have put together a list of my three favorite books to get
into the Halloween spirit. For those of you who don’t know, I really hate being
scared and could do without all these horror movie marathons going on right now
and anything by Stephen King. So instead, I give you the Halloween book list
for horror lightweights – these stories are creepy enough to get you into the
Halloween spirit, but not so creepy that you have to sleep with all your lights
on for a week. Enjoy!
1. Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice
When you first start reading Blackwood Farm, you immediately know you
are entering a world created by Anne Rice. The main character, Quinn, lives on
his family estate in New Orleans: a large mansion, huge stone pillars, and the
lure of the dark and mysterious Sugar Devil Swamp that edges the property. The
deep south holds many secrets and when Quinn is made a vampire against his
will, his life is forever changed.
Now
I know what you are thinking – a young man is made a vampire against his will
and now he has to find out how to deal with his newfound powers and newfound
desires. Sounds something similar to what Lestat goes through in The Vampire Lestat and what Louis goes
through in Interview with the Vampire.
Wrong! What makes Anne Rice such a brilliant author is how she uses each
character to develop differently with all their changes and the little twists
and details put into the story that take it to a whole different experience.
In
books such as The Vampire Lestat and Interview with the Vampire, you can
still relate to the main characters Lestat and Louis because they were once
human. Because you can relate to them on a human and moral level, you tend to
look at their vampiric nature and tendencies not as something bone chilling,
but as something part of their human nature that now has a vampiric form. For
example, Lestat always loved to push the limits and loved attention as a human
and does the same as a vampire – often disregarding the rules to get what he
wants. Louis on the other hand, was a very moral and compassionate person that
detested himself and the thought of killing people when he turned vampire.
What
makes Blackwood Farm so frightening
is that the main character, Quinn, was more unusual when he was alive than most
humans. Since he was born, Quinn always had a haunting doppelganger or spirit
that attached itself to Quinn. His name is Goblin. When Quinn is a human,
Goblin is a spirit that is sometimes funny and sometimes kind of scary – more
like a nasty troublemaker than anything else. Above all, Goblin loves Quinn.
The trouble starts after Quinn is turned into a vampire. It turns out that not
only does Quinn now love the taste of blood, but so does Goblin too – and his
hunger for it turns the spirit into a most demonic and unpredictably terrifying
specter.
I
promise that this book will keep you on the edge of your seat (or if you are
like me, huddled under the covers with all the lights in your house on). Lestat
even plays a big role in the story as he teams up with Quinn to try to banish
Goblin for good. There is a plethora of frightening goblin deeds, creepy swamp
scenes, and all the “vampire-ness” you need in this book. Blackwood Farm is still easy enough to follow even if you haven’t
read the other books in the Vampire Chronicles, but it is even better if you
have. So if you haven’t already, add these books to your reading list too:
The Vampire Chronicles
Interview with the Vampire
The Vampire Lestat
The Queen of the Damned
The Tale of the Body Thief
Memnoch the Devil
The Vampire Armand
Merrick
Blood and Gold
Blackwood Farm
Blood Canticle
2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
This book is one of my all time favorites,
but I think it is especially fun to read in the fall when the days are getting
shorter and the nights are getting darker. Mary Shelley originally wrote Frankenstein as part of a competition
among friends to see who could write the best horror story. Contestants were
the now famous poets and authors Percy Shelley (Mary’s future husband), Lord
Byron, and John Polidori. Mary Shelley came up with her idea based off a
nightmare she had and Frankenstein
was born.
Victor Frankenstein is a young man ardent in
pursuing his studies of natural philosophy or the study of the human body and
how it works. Talented in the sciences and swallowed up by the wonders that
science seems to offer, Victors becomes immersed in a project to bestow life to
inanimate objects and gives birth to his creation. Essentially, with this
creation, Victor himself has performed an act that only God has done before –
create life. Victors cannot handle the fact that he has overcome the qualities
instilled in nature by God and has realized that instead of creating something
beautiful, he has created something horrifying and disgusting.
Born with what is essentially a good soul,
the Creature is spurned, feared, and hated by his creator and by everyone he meets
and quickly becomes bitter and angry with Victor. Instead of finding love and
support from Victor, the Creature faces an angry and inhospitable world alone.
Beside himself, the Creature forces Victor to create for him a wife so that he
will no longer be an outcast. Under threat of the Creature, Victor tries to
create life once more, but he is sickened now by his work and is full of horror
and apprehension.
Unable to create a wife for the Creature, the
hatred between creator and creation reaches its highest level. Both Victor and
the Creature are convinced that their miserable existence is each others doing
and they vow revenge on each other – setting off a series of events that will
eventually lead to their downfall.
This book is not so scary that I had to sleep
with my lights on, but it is scary enough to kind of make you hesitate about
walking alone somewhere in the deep of the night. What I love about this book
is that not only is a good scary story - the tone and setting of this novel
lends itself to the perfect horror story. What I love about this book is the
deeper commentary. Mary Shelley subtitled her novel, Frankenstein, as “The Modern Prometheus.” Prometheus was a god in
Greek society that gave humans the gift of fire in order to advance human
culture. During the Enlightenment, Promethean ideals were so advanced that they
gave people the belief that they could essentially replace God and the rules of
nature through science and the knowledge that comes from it. The novel is a
commentary that shows how ill fitted man is to play God and seems to directly
comment on Promethean ideals. The advances in science and technology always
seem to be pushing the limits of what is natural – combine that with man’s
ambitions and emotions and you have one scary story indeed!
3. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
Anything by Edgar Allan Poe is spooky, but
reading The Fall of the House of Usher
had me tense and jumpy for the rest of the night. The mood is set as the
narrator approaches the house of Usher. His friend, Roderick Usher, has asked
that he come to the house because he was feeling ill, both physically and
mentally, and was in need of a good friend. The house of Usher is foreboding –
dark and silent with crumbling stonewalls surrounded by diseased trees and
swampy water. The description of the house makes it sound nothing less than
evil.
Soon
it becomes clear that the house really is evil. Rodderick is pale and weak from
his nerves and fear of the house itself. His sister is also ill with some
mysterious illness and soon dies. The house itself seems to be the cause of all
of the misfortune of the Usher family. The narrator helps Rodderick bury his
sister in the tombs below the house before the two men retire.
In
an attempt to calm Rodderick’s nerves and to pass the time, the narrator starts
to read a story aloud. Soon, however, they start to hear noises in the house
that correspond to what he is reading aloud. Frightened, the narrator notices
that Rodderick is no longer listening to the story but is muttering about his
sister and how he thinks they buried her alive and that he bets she is trying
to escape. Suddenly, he yells and the narrator turns to see that indeed, Rodderick’s
sister had been buried alive and she has finally escaped. She is on the brink
of death, but is able to attack Rodderick before she dies, and Rodderick seems
to die from sheer terror. The story ends as the narrator runs from the
crumbling house.
This
story is in true Poe form and is vague enough in the details to really let your
mind take a hold of the mood and setting and run wild with it. Was the house
really evil? Was Rodderick a victim of the house or was the house of his
creation? The main reason I find this story so scary is because you are never
quite sure if what is happening is real or imagined. It is a true horror story.
Halloween is the perfect time to read more of Poe’s stories – my other
favorites are classics like The Black Cat,
The Cask of Amontillado, and the Tell-Tale
Heart. And, of course, don’t forget
his poetry – my favorite being The Raven.
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