A hopeless wanderer

I am not very good with scary things. Scary films especially - but I remember my first time when I decided to venture into the world of Stephen King and picked up Gerald's Game and despite massively enjoying his writing, I'm not lying by saying the images from that book still haunt me. (So, kudos, Stephen. By the way, I am reading Pet Sematary at the moment, ask me later.)

So I was undecided regarding Sarah Perry's new book, Melmoth. I say undecided, but - somewhat like the characters in the book itself - I feared it and I longed for it at the same time. Eventually, I had to do it.

Reasons being, Melmoth is a book about Melmoth the Wanderer, an ancient legendary figure - shall we say ghost? - who wanders the earth and bears witness to humanity's crimes. She is a he in most traditional tales, but in this setting she wanders alone, looking for lost souls she can tempt into joining her.

Of course, it's not so simple. The plot really follows Helen Franklin, a 40-ish woman living in Prague, who lives a somewhat ascetic lifestyle, the reasons of which we don't know. She is introduced to the legend of Melmoth by a friend, and hereafter begins to form a strange obsession with the tale - all the while increasingly feeling like she is being followed and watched...

What did I like about it?

I haven't read any of Sarah Perry's previous books, but it turns out the Essex Serpent received high praise when it came out, amongst others from The British Book Awards. So to judge Melmoth as a cheesy gothic horror, like I initially did, is clearly wrong.

And so it is! This tale, set in the framework of a gothic mystery unfolds to be a beautiful parallel about guilt, mostly, but also change. It is constructed of several stories, folded into one very neat package, weighing a ton. It's not a happy read; quite the opposite. But the horror, the true horror of it lies not in the gothic storyline, but in that of human stories being told.

Perry has a way with words that makes the book read like a classic piece of fiction - I would easily place it next to Mary Shelley on a bookshelf. I think this plays a massive part in creating a truly gothic novel, and it is a total triumph in this case. Open it on the first page and see: "Look! It is winter in Prague: night is rising in the mother of cities and over her thousand spires. Look down at the darkness around your feet, in all the lanes and alleys, as if it were a soft black dust swept there by a broom...".

One of the storylines in the book especially gripped me - images that are possibly engraved in my brain for good. This particular one concerns a young German boy in wartime Prague under German occupation, and all too realistically it presents that little switch in the brain that makes one go from childish imagination to an act of true horror. Like Melmoth, we are asked to bear witness, and suddenly we understand why the ghost suffers so from her duties.

What was I not massively fond of?

One element that stood out in the plot for me was the coming together of four female characters for dinner who aren't particularly familiar - proceeding to share their most intimate, most closely guarded secrets during the evening. Perhaps that's a bit forced in terms of plot, although if we allow a little for the imagination, later on we can possibly assign it an explanation. (I know this won't make a lot of sense if you haven't read the book. My apologies.)

Another thing, perhaps a bit more significant and as pointed out by the Guardian in this review, is that Perry gives away little in terms of the inner lives of our characters - even though they are all extremely interesting, and we would love to know more of the whys and hows and whens. Perhaps the reason behind this is that we're doomed - as they are - to witness, rather than understand. But it leaves us feeling like the people in the book are a bit cold, a little unfamiliar. I would have loved to know a bit more about them.

Overall...

I could write so much more about the inner workings of this book: metaphors, beautiful touches, favourite quotes... it was a chilling experience, reading this. A dark, heavy experience full of guilt and the haunting of the past. It reads true - and that's what makes it a great book.

I will be reading the Essex Serpent, for sure.

8/10