Book-a-month challenge: January

January 14, 2008

Book-a-month challenge: January

The House on the Strand
Daphne DuMaurier

My first experience with DuMaurier came from a decidedly odd moment at the library – while weeding the fiction section, I found Don’t Look Back (a horror short story collection) with some very familiar handwriting in the margins, railing at the idiocy of the works therein. Well, any book my ex-boss could hate that vehemently merited at least a look.

I loved it. Though there were times the details were overly mired in their time and place, I was left with the overall impression of a talented author presenting well-crafted tales. So when I ran across The House on the Strand as an audiobook, I figured it would at least keep me occupied until my Rex Stout ILLs came in.

The story is that of one Dick Young, who until recently worked for a major London publishing house, currently figuring out what to do next with his life. It’s also the story of Roger Kylmerth, steward to a minor noblewoman, and keeper of secrets for another, in the 1330s. The connection between them? A curious drug that transports Dick back over six centuries, to observe lives in a world long since gone. As Dick’s fascination with this other world takes over his life, his relationship with his wife and two stepsons grows increasingly strained, and the side effects of the drug harder and harder to conceal.

While the audiobook (really a radio narration, I think originally from the BBC) was entertaining enough and had a good voice actor, there were moments where the story shifted so abruptly, it made me suspect I was hearing an abridgment. Finally obtaining a copy of the book confirmed it: I was hearing about half of what was on the page. As a dropped the audio in favor of print, I found what I hadn’t heard was in a way the better half: in between the plot-forwarding text were observations and ruminations, characters delicately built from a handful of gestures. As the division between the present and the past begins to crack, odd, isolated memories float through Dick’s mind; these moments contribute little to the plot but are so immersively told, they deepen the overall atmosphere of the story considerably.

Overall, I’d recommend this one to fans of Poe and other Classic (i.e. depends on tension rather than gore) Horror, with the reading level in adult or high-level teen.

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