The Little Stranger: Sarah Waters

[poliphilo]

Ghost stories are usually about repression. In the 19th century the thing being repressed was sex; in Waters' version of the late 1940s it's something else, but I can't say what exactly for fear of giving the game away. The Little Stranger is not only a ghost story but a whodunnit- and Waters is as adept as Christie (whose territory she impinges on- mysterious happenings in an isolated great house) at hiding crucial information in plain sight. She writes with wonderful clarity, an eye for the telling image and a profound understanding of the vagaries- the overspilling messiness- of human nature.  Her characters draw you in and implicate you in their unpleasantness .It took me hours after turning the final page to shake off my feelings of guilt. 

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Writers are rarely lookers. That goes for both sexes.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I had the opposite problem. I thought Julian Barnes was hot - I still do - but then read Sense of an Ending and it was as potent and powerful as a piece of wet lettuce. Was well disappointed!

(still would not necessarily kick him out of bed for eating biscuits.)