Hell House by Matheson
Well, Matheson, for once, I can say you impressed me with a long work of fiction. And all this time, I thought you could only successfully do short stories. Throughout reading this novel, I kept thinking about the trilogy of Hell House LLC. Absolutely no similarities outside of names and paranormal happenings.
Hell House is exactly what you would expect from a "haunted house" story. We had the gullible psychic, Florence, the closet (I say this as reserved and overlooked) wife, Edith, the skeptic, Lionel, and the one who knew it all existed but was in denial, Benjamin. The story just smashes these four personalities together and throws them into a literal hell of a time. They are offered a large sum of money to expel a notorious haunted house. Now, may just be the horror lover and crazy in me, but I would spend a week in a haunted house for 100K, easy. Too bad the money falls through and two lives are lost in the end.
Endings are my biggest F in the chats, you will learn this throughout the term. Most endings I absolutely despise. With that, oh this ending. Belasco is not a big bad spirit but merely a tortured soul full of self-hatred. How original. The ending actually reminded me a lot of Bloch's Psycho. These novels are about 12 years apart, so maybe Matheson took some inspiration with this. I find it extremely unsatisfying when there is a hidden hatch with a decaying body. That is not to say this novel did not touch on heavy realism. AH yes. The horror writer said it. Realism and spirits. Now, if you don't believe in the afterlife, lingering souls, evil spirits, etc., this just seems like another haunted house story to keep your children up with at night. The ending was realistic with finding the physical body of Belasco's tortured soul. I did not enjoy the whole let us belittle the ghost until he cries. That seemed very...unlikely to say the least.
Matheson packs a lot in the minimal of 301 pages (Kindle Version). His imagery is on point, gruesome, and absolutely appalling in some cases (mostly with the sexual tensions and possessions). He hides a lot of real things in his story. From a body in the wall to the answer being in front of the characters the whole time yet none were able to grasp it alone. In fact, they spent a lot of time arguing over who is right. They weren't too different from Belasco and his own ego in that sense.
I would not consider this a traditional haunting story, which is why I WOULD recommend it to someone. Hauntings in the sense of a lingering spirit, yes. However, sit and think about haunted house things you have read or seen (even Scooby-Doo), not a lot of sexual things are integrated into the plot unless there is some form of demonology being discussed as it adverts to the direct religion associated with such beliefs. A haunted house is merely ghosts and the afterlife. Not many focus so heavily on the sexual nature of reserved human beings. While there may be scenes that could be considered pornographic in all haunted works, I feel Matheson moved this to the next level. The film that comes to mind is Thirteen Ghosts. Dana Newman (The Angry Princess) is entirely nude. Her back story is one of self-loathing. She got multiple surgeries to alter her appearance as she did not like how she looked, despite what people said. In fact, a comment by one of the people about her tits drives her to anger. Needless to say, Matheson packs a good punch on his traditional haunted house with the idea of drug abuse and giant orgies that we don't typically get to experience in this sense.
The lack of sexual inclusion is what really makes supernatural fiction so good. It focuses a lot on the fear and suspense than a cheap thrill. I am asexual, sex indifferent, so I am not repulsed by it. Matheson took a great leap with what he did in this novel. I must applaud him for it. He managed to make this story appalling with sex as well as successfully incorporating the traditional idea of a haunted house story.
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ReplyDelete“Belittle the ghost until he cries” made me laugh. You are right about that being unlikely. A man who, in life, tortured and killed and maybe even ate people—and got others to do the same—would not be so sensitive that he’d be driven away once someone realized his legs weren’t his own and he was a bastard. I mean, they had a Bastard Bog for goodness’ sake. Seems bastards were part of everyday life in that house, back in the day.
ReplyDeleteI liked your comment about no one being able to solve the haunting alone. They certainly did spend an inordinate amount of time arguing. But the way Lionel, Florence (Red Cloud), and Ben each contributed to solving the mystery was effective and original.
I wasn’t sure if you were saying that you thought the amount of sexual content in the novel was something that worked, or something that didn’t? I think it’s an original idea to have a house that had a sordid history like this one did, with drug use, orgies, sickness, and death. I just don’t think Matheson tied that history to the psychology of the characters enough. Yes, Edith was repressed, and the possessions brought out her latent sexuality, but I would have liked it better if the house worked on their minds more than it did. The people who lived in the house became downright barbaric. I didn’t see that play out in the haunting. Only the sex was there. (And some brandy-drinking on Edith’s part.)
I'm glad someone else didn't like the belittling the ghost at the end. It felt very anti-climactic and cheesy. I will disagree though that I liked the ending of him decaying in a room. Not because of finding his body hidden in there, but because of the lead filling the room to keep the reader, even at the end, seeing the parallels between science and supernatural.
ReplyDeleteI'm the sex repulsed ace to your sex indifferent, so I did find the sex emphasis in this book appalling, but I think that was kind of the point, whether someone is asexual or not. It turned me off of the book at a few parts, but this book wanted you to be uncomfortable, like many horror stories.
We're all in agreement about one thing. The short bastard shaming ending was unlikely and highly unsatisfying to say the least.
ReplyDeleteThe perverse history of the house was interesting and filed with promise. If only the echoes of past sexual escapades would have come through in the modern manifestations with more art and eloquence, exploring personal choice, responsibility, and the cult of personality. That would have been brilliant. Instead, we get awkward groping, stripping, humping, and bitten breasts.
However, your point about the dearth of sexual awakenings and explorations in ghost stories is absolutely true and insightful. Perhaps ghost stories tend to be devoid of carnal pleasures because sex is thought of as a bodily function whereas ghosts are incorporeal. I thought of Affinity by Sarah Waters, but that's not a true ghost/haunting story. The Madam of Narrow Houses, a short story by Caitlín R. Kiernan, is a dreamy, poetic ghost story with a strong erotic element. Neither would be considered horror.
And yet there are quite a few true ghost encounters where the witnesses describe sexual manifestations, including Grave's End.
Despite my own negative reactions as I was reading Hell House, I was well aware that most modern readers would find this book more compelling and entertaining than Jackson's Hill House. First and foremost, there's actually a haunting. There's clear and present danger. And the characters are actively trying to do something about the miserable situation. GMC is obvious and easy to understand for most of the players in this drama.