Horace Walpole - The Castle Of Otranto

[dem bones]

Castle of Otranto/Nightmare Abbey/Vathek (Wordsworth Mystery & Supernatural, 2009)

Horace Walpole -The Castle of Otranto
William Beckford - Vathek
Thomas Love Peacock - Nightmare Abbey

Blurb:

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. The Gothic novel, featuring dark tales of tragedy, romance, revenge, torture and ancient villainies, tinged with horror and the supernatural, became the vogue in the late eighteen and early nineteenth centuries. This unique collection presents the best and the most diverse of this fascinating genre. In Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, often regarded as the first true Gothic romance, we have a template for such works, which other writers adopted and adapted. With its dark cruelties and fiercely passionate dramas, the power of Walpole's prose remains magically potent today. In Vathek William Beckford developed the form further, introducing Orientalism to the Gothic mix of horror and mystery, creating the finest European imitation of the Arabian Nights. With his novel Nightmare Abbey, Thomas Love Peacock satirises the format to great comic effect while still retaining the essential chilling elements. This fantastic collection runs the gamut of Gothic fiction, presenting an entertaining and a thrilling overview of the genre.

This will most likely be my next Wordsworth as i don't have a copy of Nightmare Abbey, although i'm not so sure that any satire could outdo the sheer 'Carry On Up The Catacombs' lunacy of Walpole's The Castle Of Otranto. i'd only read it once before, and that out of a sense of duty. i remember being disappointed because, in my ever-questionable estimation, although there was plenty of murder, incest, and an old guy perving on a virginal eighteen year old, it had none of the horror, unbridled lust or just plain nastiness of The Monk about it. this time, i'm past the halfway mark and, read it on it's own terms, Otranto is perhaps a little "quaint", but you can't fault a man who lays on his supernatural terrors with a heavy-duty power trowel, and, God help me, i am enjoying it!

there have been billions of words spent on this landmark Gothic novel, but i like to think this hideous plot summary/ unenlightened review combo will plumb new depths of illiteracy.

Horace Walpole - The Castle Of Otranto

"the Castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it"

Italy, circa 12th Century. Manfred, the devious, paranoid and tyranical Prince of Otranto, increasingly mindful of the ancient prophecy, hastily attempts to marry off Conrad, his sickly and infirm fifteen year old son, to the reluctant Isabella, daughter of Frederic, the Marquis of Vicenza who is away fighting the Crusades.

On the day of the Wedding, Conrad is unexpectedly crushed to death under an enormous helmet which falls out of the sky to land on the unfortunate groom. Theodore, a young peasant, notes that the helmet is a scale replica of that which adorns the black marble statue of Manfred's popular predecessor, Alfonso the Good, and is thrown into prison for his temerity.

It is clear that Manfred isn't as as upset at his son's death as he might be. Conrad's body is not yet cold and he's already leching after the fair Isabella - and him already married to the devoted, angelic Hippolita! Isabella escapes his clutches and, via a secret passage, enters the subterranean labyrinth beneath the castle where Theodore assists her through a trapdoor. A hectic first chapter ends with Theodore accompanying Manfred to the gallery where two bungling guards have just been frightened out of their wits by a gigantic figure whose size would indicate that it was his helmet which crushed the life out of poor Conrad. An early manifestation of the supernatural occurs while randy Manfred is interviewing the horrified Isabella.

“Look, my Lord! see, Heaven itself declares against your impious intentions!”

“Heaven nor Hell shall impede my designs,” said Manfred, advancing again to seize the Princess.

At that instant the portrait of his grandfather, which hung over the bench where they had been sitting, uttered a deep sigh, and heaved its breast.

Isabella, whose back was turned to the picture, saw not the motion, nor knew whence the sound came, but started, and said -

“Hark, my Lord! What sound was that?” and at the same time made towards the door.

Manfred, distracted between the flight of Isabella, who had now reached the stairs, and yet unable to keep his eyes from the picture, which began to move, had, however, advanced some steps after her, still looking backwards on the portrait, when he saw it quit its panel, and descend on the floor with a grave and melancholy air.

“Do I dream?” cried Manfred, returning; “or are the devils themselves in league against me? Speak, internal spectre! Or, if thou art my grandsire, why dost thou too conspire against thy wretched descendant, who too dearly pays for - ” Ere he could finish the sentence, the vision sighed again, and made a sign to Manfred to follow him.

“Lead on!” cried Manfred; “I will follow thee to the gulf of perdition.”

The spectre marched sedately, but dejected, to the end of the gallery, and turned into a chamber on the right hand. Manfred accompanied him at a little distance, full of anxiety and horror, but resolved. As he would have entered the chamber, the door was clapped to with violence by an invisible hand. The Prince, collecting courage from this delay, would have forcibly burst open the door with his foot, but found that it resisted his utmost efforts.

“Since Hell will not satisfy my curiosity,” said Manfred, “I will use the human means in my power for preserving my race; Isabella shall not escape me.”

II. Manfred informs the Monk Jerome of his intention to take Isabella up the aisle. The horrified Holy man tries to dissuade him and blurts out the unhappy and utterly spurious notion that perhaps she and Theodore are lovers? This further prejudices Manfred against the youth and he sentences Theodore to death by decapitation on the spot for assisting Isabella in her escape! Manfred's daughter, Matilda, on seeing the prisoner for the first time, remarks his uncanny resemblance to the gallery portrait of Alphonso the Good, but her father is evidently too busy anticipating a nice gory execution to hear. Just as the sword is about to strike, Monk Jerome notices the mark of a bloody arrow on the young man's shoulder and realises that the boy is his long lost son! Manfred reluctantly spares Theodore's life for the sake of the old fool, but only on the understanding that Jerome assist him in his pursuit of Isabella who, fed up of being molested by him has fled to the convent of St. Nicholas!

to be continued ...

[dem bones]

III. Manfred receives a herald from the Knight of the Gigantic Sabre in the name of Frederic, who demands his daughter be returned him. It transpires that Manfred is a usurper, and the only reason he tried to force through an alliance between Conrad and Isabella was to strengthen his shaky position by uniting his house with that of Vicenza. Manfred is helpless but to allow the cavalcade of Vicenza into the Castle, where he spins the knights a tale of woe concerning his terrible discovery that he and Hippolita are "related within the forbidden degrees" so, sadly, he'll have to replace her with a new wife .... But news arrives that Isabella has gone on the run from St. Nicholas! Shamed and infuriated, Manfred organises a search party. Meanwhile, his daughter, Matilda, much taken with Theodore, has helped him through the subterranean vaults to the forest where he hides out in a reputedly haunted hermitage. And who should he meet in the absolute darkness of the tunnels but the absconding Isabella. After a bit of soul-searching about whether or not it's permissible for them to travel together as she has no formal escort, he wins her over with a reassuring "I respect your virtuous delicacy!" and a pledge to defend her honour with his life. Very shortly afterward, he gets an opportunity to prove it when, due to an early example of the 'hilarious On The Buses mix up', a mysterious knight takes him for one of Manfred's goon squad! At the close of their gentlemanly sword play, the mortally wounded knight identifies himself as ..... Frederic - Isabella's father! Tears are shed on both sides. Profuse embarrassed apologies are exchanged. Can no-one save Frederic's life? Perhaps medical assistance will be forthcoming at the Castle of Otranto.

The party march grimly on toward Manfred's domain.

Twenty-six pages still to go.

At least it's nowhere near as painful to read as Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron, but still, twenty-six pages is twenty-six pages and back at The Offering Gerald Suster has just treated us to a condensed history of Punk rock: the Grundy-Jubilee epoch.

[thecoffinflies]

I think Lovecraft pegged The Castle Of Otranto fairly definitively when he said "...thoroughly unconvincing and mediocre...The story -- tedious, artificial, and melodramatic -- is further impaired by a brisk and prosaic style..."

The bit with the gigantic helmet near the start is fun, but it's hard now to see what was so important about this novel. The Mysteries Of Udolpho has aged rather better imo...