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Design of darkness
Apr. 15th, 2009 05:57 pmEvery time I read a book by Daphne du Maurier, mistress of the morbid, I wind up asking myself why I'm doing it. The woman scares the daylights out of me. Of course, some people like to be scared, but I don't. I have to really like the artistry of the person creating the work (a la Hitchcock or Shyamalan -- no, I'm still not over liking Shyamalan!) in order to let him or her freak me out.
And du Maurier's got artistry in spades, I have to give her that. The title story of the collection I just finished, "Don't Look Now," is clear evidence of that. One word -- just one word -- at the climax of the story hit me with such a cold shock of horror that I could hardly bear to finish. No, I won't say what the word was -- if you read the story, more than likely you'll know it when you get to it. At first there's something very strange and random about that ending . . . and then when you start thinking back through it, you see how the pieces fit together, and the cunning sleight of hand the author used to get you thinking in one direction while heading off in the other. A really well-crafted piece of work -- so well-crafted that I can't be sorry I read it, even though it gave me a tremor or two after getting into bed last night.
There were eight other stories in the book. Two of them I already had in another collection: "The Birds," which was the basis for the Hitchcock classic (even though Hitchcock changed it quite a lot), and "Monte Verita," which I've never liked much. I'm no "prosperity gospel" advocate, but sitting on a mountain gazing at your navel is not my ideal life of faith, especially not when -- well, I'd better not spoil that either. I didn't already have "Kiss Me Again, Stranger," but I know I've read it somewhere. It's probably one of those stories that gets anthologized a lot. Some of the other stories were pretty good but predictable. The one that really stood out to me was "Blue Lenses," which keeps twisting and turning right up till the very end, and is a stellar example of a theme that permeates du Maurier's work -- "that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain."
Several of du Maurier's stories remind me of this poem by Robert Frost, especially the line "What but design of darkness to appall?" It's not a worldview I can live with for very long, but it's a fascinating one nonetheless.
And du Maurier's got artistry in spades, I have to give her that. The title story of the collection I just finished, "Don't Look Now," is clear evidence of that. One word -- just one word -- at the climax of the story hit me with such a cold shock of horror that I could hardly bear to finish. No, I won't say what the word was -- if you read the story, more than likely you'll know it when you get to it. At first there's something very strange and random about that ending . . . and then when you start thinking back through it, you see how the pieces fit together, and the cunning sleight of hand the author used to get you thinking in one direction while heading off in the other. A really well-crafted piece of work -- so well-crafted that I can't be sorry I read it, even though it gave me a tremor or two after getting into bed last night.
There were eight other stories in the book. Two of them I already had in another collection: "The Birds," which was the basis for the Hitchcock classic (even though Hitchcock changed it quite a lot), and "Monte Verita," which I've never liked much. I'm no "prosperity gospel" advocate, but sitting on a mountain gazing at your navel is not my ideal life of faith, especially not when -- well, I'd better not spoil that either. I didn't already have "Kiss Me Again, Stranger," but I know I've read it somewhere. It's probably one of those stories that gets anthologized a lot. Some of the other stories were pretty good but predictable. The one that really stood out to me was "Blue Lenses," which keeps twisting and turning right up till the very end, and is a stellar example of a theme that permeates du Maurier's work -- "that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain."
Several of du Maurier's stories remind me of this poem by Robert Frost, especially the line "What but design of darkness to appall?" It's not a worldview I can live with for very long, but it's a fascinating one nonetheless.
