MILD SPOILERS.
In 1983, Karl Edward Wagner cited Michael Arlen's HELL! SAID THE DUCHESS as one of the thirteen best supernatural horror novels ever written. I can only wonder why.
More novella than novel, the book reads for the most part like a mildly amusing Firbank story without Firbank's melancholy... or one of Waugh's satires without the sting... or a Wodehouse farce without the carefully-prepared pratfalls.
Ninety-five percent of the book is undeniably funny, but the humour is as light and fluffy as meringue:
"Mrs. Nautigale had a pronounced gift for collecting the most intimate friendships possible with men and women who could never overcome their surprise at having been collected. They then found themselves subjected to the alarming process of being pinned down, exhibited and fed in groups of not fewer than twenty, at which it was taken for granted that a good time was being had by all, though no one knew exactly why.
"She was the soul of kindness, gave money freely to the rich, and had built her success as a hostess on having cleverly observed that there is no one like the distinguished Anglo-Saxon for enjoying a series of free meals provided that nothing, and particularly no conversation, is asked of him or her in return."
And so on, page after page, like Saki without the venom. Not even a series of sex-murders committed, it seems, by the chaste and proper Duchess of Dove can darken the mood, and the police investigation into these crimes is played for laughs:
"My valet and I have been taking it in turns to follow her day and night for several days, and we have also searched her rooms in Camberwell."
"An illegal act," said Icelin. "We also found nothing."
As Arlen's cardboard-cutout detectives wander through their investigations, his crisp, imageless prose is consistently arch and amusing, but to little point. The book goes on, with no emotional resonance, no atmosphere, no sense of place, no people to care about, and no sense of horror whatsoever.
But then, in the last twenty pages, Arlen suddenly veers into Arthur Machen territory when his buffoons encounter an Ancient Evil hot for sex and bloodshed:
"He could see nothing at all but her eyes, nothing in the whole world but two eyes. And then he could see two black bright points. He wanted to shut his eyes tight against them, but he was without any will at all. And he felt the coils of a snake around him. He saw the two black bright points of a snake’s eyes reared above his head. He felt his hands caressing the rough sensuous coils. Then he found himself lying on his back on the sofa with her body pressed down on him and her pointed tongue darting in and out of his mouth."
This final scene, with its violent eroticism and supernatural horror, takes the reader by surprise and is undeniably effective. Even Arlen's imageless prose adds to the sense of danger, as his detectives struggle to avoid any glimpse of the thing confronting them. They are completely unprepared for this daylight nightmare; the book ends grimly.
Certain elements in the story, like the hints of a fascist coup and class riots in Great Britain, never come together in any meaningful way, which gives the novel a hasty, improvised feel. The climactic shift in tone reinforces this impression, and its abrupt leap from detached meringue-amusement to sex-and-death evil makes the finale seem like a separate story grafted onto a dying novel.
Sadly, then, I find it impossible to call HELL! SAID THE DUCHESS a good horror novel, despite its admittedly effective final pages.
And I can only wonder why Karl Edward Wagner chose to call it great.
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