This week, my niece and I went to see the film Crimson Peak
. (Rated R).
We were both looking for something scary; and we were both quite pleased with the film. She, because Crimson Peak delivered on it's promise of horror and gore; me, because it was a Gothic romance.
It's the early twentieth century, in Buffalo, New York, and Edith Cushing is more interested in her writing than in balls and society. Also, she sees ghosts -- or at least, saw one ghost, once -- the ghost of her dead mother.
These are not shadowy ghosts, wisps of smoke, faded photographs of dead people. These are rotting corpses, blood and muscle and sinew, in the colors of death: the black of rot, the red of blood. They are bony fingers and sharp fingernails, skeletons and skulls of horror.
So Edith is a bit of a modern girl, and in this she is loved and supported by her father and her childhood friend, Dr. Alan McMichael. In the first frames one can almost see how Edith's life is supposed to play out: the doted on child of a rich father, then the friend becoming love interest, both supporting her writing but their love and comfort keeping her in her safe life, her safe town.
And then they come to down: Sir Thomas Sharpe and his sister, Lucille. When Edith hears of Sir Thomas visiting, she is dismissive, looking down on what she assumes is a spoiled aristocrat. But then she meets him and all I can say is : Tom Hiddleston, in full-on dazzling charm mode, with an accent. Dr. McMichael - Charlie Hunnam without beard, tattoos, or bike - is no competition, especially since Sir Thomas is new, and Alan is known, plus Alan's mother and sister are kind of bitchy. Thomas's sister Lucille may be a bit cold, but she's not as bad as Alan's women folk.
Part of what attracts Edith is she is the wallflower, even though it's by choice. She sits at home, reading and writing, rather than going to balls, and her father is happy with that because it protects her. He sees Thomas as a threat. Her father complains to Edith that Thomas is seeking money and investors, has gone to several countries in his quest for funding, yet his hands are soft. Thomas is soft. Edith sees that Thomas wears good but old clothes; she sees him as an impoverished aristocrat, yes, but one who is trying to turn things around. And he - it seems like he sees her as desirable. He wants her. He looks at her like no one else does -- well, except for poor Alan who just can't compete.
Let's cut to the chase. Edith and Thomas marry, and go back to the family's mansion in England, and soon she starts seeing ghosts. And I don't want to give too much away, but it's a ghost story, of course, so who are these ghosts? And what is going on in this mansion, with areas Edith is warned against entering? And it seems like Thomas and his sister have secrets, many secrets -- what are they?
Why I loved this movie: first of all, it's gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful. The clothes, the settings, whether it's a ballroom in Buffalo or the decrepit mansion, it's just stunning. And the mansion -- it's so dark and mysterious and also falling apart, literally holes in the ceiling and red clay seeping through the floors. The red clay! The house is built on red clay and it seeps into everything, seeps up through the ground so it looks like blood. There are barrels full of it, and it looks like barrels of blood. When the mansion first appears, my niece and I were all "OK, I would turn around and walk right out that door."
But Edith stays. She loves Thomas, and sees the romance of it, and has hope. Hope she holds on to, tight, until the ghosts show up. Also -- to be clear -- she is only slowly discovering she is in danger. Things are shared with the viewer that she doesn't see, and I liked seeing how and when Edith would realize.
Edith! Here is the thing: Yes, she was sheltered. Yes, she was blinded by love (or, possibly, lust. I mean, Thomas is dashing and has an accent.). But she's not stupid. She sees things, she puts things together. She is not passive. (It's actually another thing that the niece and I really liked.)
And there is another thing, that the niece liked. Let's just say she appreciates gore in horror movies, and while Crimson Peak is a more a Gothic romance than horror, the deaths (like the ghosts) are gory. Someone is bludgeoned to death, and it's brutal, and bloody, with torn skin and shattered bone. But here's the thing: it was real. And for all the ghosts and dread, there weren't that many murders shown on screen, so there was enough that it made sense and it shocked like it should, it wasn't too many.
Overall? A thumbs up!!
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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
In the used book business it’s easy to get into a rut, especially in
buying. Like with a lot of things, if you stick with a system you’ve
developed, it often starts to seem like it’s being proved right.
For example: When we opened 6 or so years ago we tried just about every
fiction genre in the shop and online. Romance, thriller, literary,
classics, crime, etc. etc. I should add the caveat that both of us (my
brother and I run the store) have, as the Irish put it, “notions”, so we
were hardly married to the romance and thriller end of the spectrum.
After a few months the Tom Clancys, Danielle Steeles, John Grishams, and
Nora Roberts weren’t exactly running out the door, so we bagged ‘em and
concentrated on books that we knew something about.
Time passed and we were proven right! We didn’t sell any of that stuff
(though we kept a stash of a dozen or so hyper popular authors boxed in
the basement for emergencies). What’s nice about these broad decisions is
that they save a lot of time - you can stop looking at broad swathes of
categories and just put them out of your mind completely. This is
reassuring but not always any more useful than “company policy” is at a
more traditional business.
Last year we moved our shop across town (Boston is a small town so the
move amounted to a longish walk) and the new location had slightly
different tastes, so when people brought in piles of books, I was more
likely to take a longer look. So, in that mode, when a woman brought in a
few bags of vampire books - mostly what they are calling paranormal
romance - I was more inclined to look. Obviously we’ve paid some measure
of attention to Anne Rice (as she’s slowly become impossible to sell) and
the Twilight books have moved rapidly in and back out of the shop, but I
was completely unprepared for how this phenomenon still has legs. We
purchased maybe 50 of these and they have flown out the door.
Now, this phenomenon was ably profiled in this
very space, but I think it may have understated the breadth of this
category - more than just a spiking of vampire popularity, it’s staking
claim to wide swathes of romance territory. Hundreds of novels that were
once romance fiction, romance suspense, romance historical fiction, are
being absorbed under the (increasingly broad) paranormal romance category.
As near as I can tell, there are two types as represented by two general
cover designs.
The super sexualized Goth cover:
and the charmingly cartoonish:
Sometimes the publisher even has a change of heart (focus groups being
what they are) and one is swapped out for the other:
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The cartoon Lynsay Sands covers are generally out of print now. Perhaps
bound to become collector’s items (I’m kidding of course, there must be
100,000 of them out there)? There’s not a big difference in saleability
as far as I can tell, just two different targeted market segments. What’s
most remarkable about these is how they sell though - online, in the
store, and even though they are often 5 years old (which is usually ages
with this sort of thing). It just goes to show that even though you might
think you know what’s going on (I’m down with Twilight, watched the True
Blood mash-up of James Lee Burke and Vampires), you can still be missing
everything beneath the surface. Some of the series just go on and on -
the Laurel Hamilton one is approaching 20 in the series.
So I’ve vowed to be more vigilant, less opinionated, but also to peer more
intently at the horizon. For I’m sure some of you are on top of this
already and have shrugged at my revelatory tone. So you count yourself
ready for the continued love affair with vampires, but are you prepared
for the next wave? What will follow Vampires in a world where Jane Austen
and Zombies is a bestseller with a movie deal?
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Amorous were-wolves (it’s been done - here’s a
whole subsection of Werewolf and “Shifter” stories)? Naughty nymphs?
Lascivious Satyrs? I wouldn’t even want speculate on the narrative
possibilities of centaurs or harpies. Zombies are a tough sell,
romantically, but how about Mummies (you could just un-mummy the mummies
like the movie franchise did so famously. This worked in Twilight - what
if Vampires could go out in the daytime? What if they were unbothered by
crosses, garlic, running water, etc. What if they were exactly like
normal people only much more attractive and awesomer? Sold!). Demon
lovers are as old as the hills, and Patrick Swayze sort of put a stake (so
to speak) in ghosts, but how about lovable poltergeists or revenants.
The list could go on (goblins, golems, ginger-bread men) but whatever
happens, I’ll be ready the next time.
–
Pazzo Books
1898a Centre St.
West Roxbury, MA 02131
617-323-2919
web: pazzobooks.com
blog: pazzobooks.com/blog.htm
twitter: twitter.com/pazzobooks
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