| Title | : | The House by the Churchyard |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1840225742 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781840225747 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 542 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1863 |
The House by the Churchyard is perhaps his best novel in this genre. Set in the village of Chapelizod, near Dublin, in the 1760s the story opens with the accidental disinterment of an old skull in the churchyard, and an eerie late-night funeral. This discovery relates to murders, both recent and historical whose repercussions disrupt the complacent pace of village affairs and change the lives of many of its notable characters forever. Charm and chilling darkness abound in equal measure in one of the greatest novels of a Victorian master of mystery.
The House by the Churchyard Reviews
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A great read – fun, dramatic and clever, with a wonderful villain.
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Simply one of the most gripping novels I have ever read
Admittedly, the first 200 or so pages of this book may be a major put-off to quite a number of readers, but then diamonds have to be cut thoroughly before you can see them shine, and what Sheridan Le Fanu tells us about the inhabitants of Chapelizod is extremely hilarious, no doubt, though maybe not linked too closely with the main plot. However, sticking to the point, like a fly to a pudding, is over-estimated, anyway.
Basically “The House by the Churchyard” is a crime story, or rather a bundle of them. As the story unfolds, the reader is confronted with foul murder, blackmail, and bigamy, with false suspicions and right suspicions, but also with doomed love. It all starts with the unearthing of a skull that shows traces of several hard blows and a trepanning, and in a sort of long retrospect the story behind this ghastly discovery is told – a story in the course of which several other carefully hidden misdeeds are brought to light.
Sheridan Le Fanu’s novel abounds in comic characters that, at the same time and as they are in some instances connected with the dreadful mysteries of this seemingly idyllic suburb of Chapelizod, are more than just one-dimensional caricatures. Especially Sturk and Nutter, the two grim opponents, and Sturk’s devoted wife are characters you will not forget so easily. Some others are even tinged with a whiff of tragedy.
There is also a creepy ghost story interwoven in this rich tale, which is what Sheridan Le Fanu is really good at (My first encounter with this author was years ago when I came across his terrifying story “Green Tea” in an anthology and was afterwards seriously afraid of seeing some hideous monkey, or other animal, haunting me.).
I am generally not a friend of short tales, because I think that an author should create no less than a universe teeming with life and wit, he, or she, should really convince me that he takes the world he creates seriously, and this novel indeed enriched a summer for me.
For all those who really enjoy reading and losing themselves in a book this novel is a must! -
A charming tale of ghosts, mystery and murder set in Ireland during the 1700s. While a touch slow in the early going, Le Fanu's careful recreation of village life at the time reaps rewards for the patient reader.
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For anyone else who likes Gothic ghost stories - especially those specifically written by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu - the first thing I would want to tell you about this book is that it is not a ghost story. Granted, there is one very, very effective chapter about a haunted house, and that chapter itself stands alone as a near-perfect short story. But otherwise, this 500+ page book gives its yearning horror aficionados nothing more than the very occasional (and I cannot emphasise the word "occasional" enough) hint of a ghost. Mostly, as the editor adequately explains in his introduction - (funnily enough, he actually criticises the book for being overlong, having too many digressions - as well as characters - and for its almost total lack of supernatural material) - The House By The Churchyard is more of a confusing medley of Victorian romance, Gothic mystery, and slapstick comedy. It kind of reminded me, in part, of J.K. Rowling's more modern (and, I dare say, much better) social drama/tragedy, The Casual Vacancy. Instead of being set in an English country village, it's set in the outer-Dublin provence of Chapelizod, in Belmont. Like Casual Vacancy, it purposely avoids the conventions of having a set protagonist, and instead takes on the more ambitious (and often hazardous) concept of portraying to the reader, an entire village of many different individuals, each with their own personalities and stories.
Now while I wouldn't say that Le Fanu fails at holding this together (to the contrary, he does it pretty fucking well) I would say that, at least for the first hundred pages, it proves incredibly distracting, and very nearly puts you off, because you find yourself lumbered with all these silly names (like, how the hell do you pronounce Devereux? Is it, like, "Dave-a-roo? I hope it is, cause that's what I went with. Fucking, be nice to me; at least it's not as bad as calling Harper Lee's Mr. Ewell, "Mr. Eee-Well". Ohh-ohh-ohh, my brain ...
But after a little while, the characters do begin to grow on you, and you are able to differentiate between them. I'm not sure if anyone else does this - since my head is pretty far up my arse - but sometimes I like to give a character the face of an actor, based on how they behave, because part of me just wants to picture them as that.
How's this for randomness? I pictured Devereux as Daniel Craig ... Cluffe as one of my friends from High School, whom I daren't mention here ... Sturk as the guy who plays Marty's Great-Great Grandfather or something from Back To The Future: Part III ... and Dangerfield as that skinny, long-haired assassin guy from the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies ( ... only with those oft-mentioned silver spectacles obstructing his face). But let's return to the book, before people start telling me to kill myself.
It was not what I expected - or wanted - and was, in fact, so goddamned far from that, that my attention span was, at times, greatly challenged. It also didn't help that it was pretty damned long, as well. Throughout the book, there were some really good scenes (even if they weren't trying to be scary), but sometimes I just couldn't understand what Le Fanu was smoking. I just did my best to interpret the pages, and went along hoping that I wasn't too far off. I suppose, now that I've finished it, I can look back and appreciate the fact that I picked it up not knowing how misleading the picture and title, and, gosh darn it, the author's reputation, was in luring people to buy this novel. Had I known what this book was really like, then I never would have read it. And so, having done so, I am glad for having read something very different and out of my usual field of interest. And, more importantly, it has in no way whatsoever, put me off from visiting Le Fanu again.
Because, without a doubt, this man is a very good writer. That was basically what saved this book from collapsing into itself. Le Fanu has - despite his old-fashioned prose and sometimes longwinded sentences - a very great talent for writing. And while you couldn't quite compare him to Dickens and the like, he's still a darn side better than most modern authors are. At least that's how I feel. I just find the writing style of the 1800's so charming and beautiful to read; it's literature's equivalent to fine wine.
And so, while at times I just wanted to be done with this book, I still can't say that I didn't enjoy it. It was just a bit of a chore to work through. At the end of the day, it's still a worthwhile story, and especially the second half (when things do, admittedly, take a slightly darker turn), a lot of loose ends do finally come together, and the ending is pretty satisfying as a mystery/thriller/Gothic/drama.
I was kind of stuck as to whether I should rate this two or three stars. In the end, I think it rightfully belongs in both, depending on the angle from which you look at it. But as I started writing this review, I just couldn't bring myself to be mean to it. So its gets a somewhat reluctant three stars. On many levels, a difficult book to fully enjoy ... but still one that I can't help but feel glad for having read, anyway.
I would recommend it ... but then I would probably regret it.
Over a year later ...
Okay now look here, old friend. It's been a while since I read this but for some reason the story has never really left my mind. As a result of that, I have decided to give it four stars. Like many great works that just need time to grow on you through past reflection - (Huckleberry Finn comes to mind for me) - this book was much better than I was initially able to give it credit for. -
I did not finish this book.
if your really interested in reading this, skip the free version and try to find an up to date version. There are errors galore in the free version. and the Irish accent, sorry Mr. Le Fanu, but it's really hard to read written down. or at least in this book. i gave it 3 tries and it put me to sleep every time. -
I had assumed, from Sheridan Le Fanu’s reputation as a forefather of supernatural fiction, and from the gothicky title of this novel, that this would be some tasty piece of 19thC literary ghostiness à la M. R. James. The opening chapter do little to dispel this impression, with their grisly exhumation of a mutilated skull in a suburban Dublin churchyard, and the reburial of a body in mysterious circumstances.
Appearances can be deceptive, however. This is no more a tale of the uncanny than I am a shroud-clad Transylvanian count. It’s a … not at all sure how to describe it, actually: an extended soap opera, tending to comedy, but with a bit of tragedy, sentiment, and proto-crime novel thrown in.
For a while, say a fifth of the way through, I had a sense that The House in the Churchyard might qualify for admission to the highly select pantheon of the oddest novels I have read since beginning to record my readings on this site. The prime exhibits here are James Hogg’s
The Three Perils of Man, and Selma Lagerlöf’s
The Saga of Gösta Berling—two very different novels, but with one trait in common: a mad, alphabet-soup-like combination of diverse genre elements, so that you literally have no idea what kind of book is going to show up on the next page.
That was a misleading impression, as it turned out, in Sheridan Le Fanu’s case. The House in the Churchyard does actually have a unified plot, and its seemingly uncanny elements are eventually (mainly) explained. It’s an amiable book, though a rather inconsequential one, and it left me well-disposed towards Sheridan Le Fanu as a yarnmonger. The quality of the writing is pretty high; he has some sharply observed characters; and he even made me laugh on occasion. I would certainly try him again. -
Not a horror or even a supernatural tale, this novel by Le Fanu details several murders and deaths in the town of Chapelizod.
For a novel which doesn't seem to develop a plot until midway through (it's still rather a vague affair) it's surprising compelling reading.
I enjoy Le Fanu's social comedy and sarcastic quips on characters and society.
I wouldn't start here if you haven't read Le Fanu before - his ghost stories are more compelling and accessible, but if you have liked his writing then by all means give this a go. -
'Why, I suppose there isn't so tattling, prying, lying, scandalous a little colony of Christians on earth; eyes, ears, and mouths all open, Sir; heads busy, tongues wagging; lots of old maids, by Jove; ladies' women, and gentlemen's gentlemen, and drawers and footmen; club talk, Sir, and mess-table talk, and talk on band days, talk over cards, talk at home, Sir - talk in the streets - talk - talk; by Jupiter Tonans! 'tis enough to bother one's ears, and make a man envy Robinson Crusoe!'
Firstly the placename Chapelizod is prenounced locally Chapel-lizard. Being from Dublin i had more reasons to like this than most. While viking-era dublin is something you learn about at school, this lets call it... english-dublin, a dublin of tricorn hats, sedan chairs and absentee landlords, i havn't heard much about.
So i got something extra from recognising all the place names and knowing the geography of everything. At one point a murder is mentioned in passing, as havng occurred in clondalkin and i got a little chuckle thinking 'wow that place hasn't changed in 200 years' :lol.
It opens in a macabre and funny way and reminded me a lot in its setting and tone, of the Tim Burton 'Sleepy Hollow' movie. I remember thinking this is a nice setup can't wait to see what the actual story is. Then the setup went on and on, and on, until it dawned on me with a shudder, that this wasn't setup this was the main text. Let me return to the 'Sleepy Hollow' movie for demonstration purposes.
Imagine if in that film the headless horseman, Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci's characters are all still in there, but pushed to the very periphery of the script. Their story is still happening but your stuck following the lives of the extras only occasionally getting a glimpse of the main characters in the hazy distance.
In the moment the incidents are readable and go from ok to good but theres no point to any of it. Tolerable while reading but an absolute struggle to convince yourself to pick the book up again once set down.
The writing if ok, see quote, is quite organic feeling, like your listening to it even while reading. There are some accents and an occasional lisp but it was neither a plus or minus for me.
Finally at the 60% stage the plot(s) start. I use the plural because 3 of them come along at once and the next 30% rushes along in what feels like a single breath, before we grind to a halt for the last 10% of clean up, which somewhat tested my patience once again.
Many might forgive the first 60% as theres some really good stuff in the latter portion but even these parts arn't without they're flaws.
The author has a remarkable knack of seeming to pick the wrong viewpoint for most situations. It almost always feels like your following the wrong character or focusing on insignificant things while missing the important ones.
Objectively based on my usual scoring this is 2 stars, what i give to failures which have some small worth, the last 40% is quite compelling, mostly. The previous 60% has a lot of charming albeit pointless incidents.
However i've taken the liberty of deducting a star based on personal hatred, it has been quite sometime since i had that dubious honour :) . More work than 'Mysteries of Udolpho' or 'Melmoth the Wanderer'. Feels similar to the work of Thomas Love Peacock... except terrible ;) . -
I originally bought this book to get in the mood for Halloween thinking it was going to be a creepy story. I had read
Uncle Silas and loved it. I assumed "The House by the Churchyard" would be just as good and hoped it would be especially because the book is so thick!
I felt overwhelmed by the number of characters when I first began reading. The confusion cleared up some as I read on but not completely because there were so many personalities to keep straight. I remember reading for some time and wondering when something scary would happen. There were points when I thought it was starting to finally go down a dark path but then it wouldn't last.
I found the storyline to be a mixture of a comedy and murder/mystery (but mostly comedy) rather than a ghost story as the title of the book will fool you into thinking. It's interesting to be able to laugh at 19th century humor in the 21st century. Although I didn't end up reading the kind of novel I wanted for the season I still enjoyed my time with this book. As in "Uncle Silas" Sheridan Le Fanu's heavily detailed style of writing makes it effortless to visualize the scene. -
Picked this one up for buddy reads.
I tried and I tried alot. But alas I had to quit eventually. I was able to finish some 10 chapters and then it became dull. Cannot help it.
Found this one boring. My friends gave it up as well.
I have been busy alot lately.
Maybe I will keep this one for some other time when I do not have other things on my mind -
"The House by the Churchyard" is a novel by Sheridan Le Fanu published in 1863 that combines elements of the mystery novel and the historical novel. According to Wikipedia "aside from its own merits, the novel is important as a key source for James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake"." Now I don't know if that is true, if it is then James Joyce wrote a better novel with "Finnegans Wake" then he did with "Ulysses". "Ulysses" is, of all the books I've made it to the end of - there are two I gave up on - my least favorite, so if I read "Ulysses" first there is no possible way I would have read another James Joyce novel and if I read it before "Uylsses" I have totally forgotten it. Now enough about that horrid novel and on to "The House by the Churchyard".
I looked up the writer just to know more about him and the thing that jumped out at me was that his name was "Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu" and I guess he dropped the first two names when he wrote books. For some reason I wanted to know why he had so many names and I found that Thomas was his father's name and Joseph was his grandfather's name. Sheridan was his mother's name, according to Wikipedia his mother, Alicia Sheridan LeFanu was an Irish writer. I never heard of her, and she was also the daughter of actor Thomas Sheridan and his wife, writer Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan. I never heard of either of them. She was also the sister of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, an Irish playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and the aunt of writer Alicia LeFanu (with whom she is sometimes confused). And I never heard of any of these people and I tired of looking everybody up, but I did spend some time after that adding parents and grandparents names to my own in different orders to see how it would sound. So now that you all know at least as much and probably more about the author's names as I do I'll move on.
"The House by the Churchyard" puzzled me in many ways. That is a good thing, in this case anyway, because I like figuring things out. I'll start with the back cover of the book. My copy says:
"Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is best known today as one of the Victorian period's leading exponents of supernatural fiction. Set in the village of Chapelizod, near Dublin, in the 1760s, the story opens with the accidental disinterment of an old skull in the churchyard, and an eerie late-night funeral. This discovery relates to murders, both recent and historical whose repercussions disrupt the complacent pace of village affairs and change the lives of many of its notable characters forever. "
The front of the book says "Tales of mystery and the supernatural" which I'll give them a few points for because there is a mystery or two or three, there doesn't seem to be much supernatural about it unless you count a chapter or two where there is a ghost hand running or crawling or whatever a hand would do, around. However I just can't consider a book of 500+ pages supernatural when a ghost hand is only in one or two chapters having nothing to do with the story. Nothing I remember anyway. The ghost hand story was rather interesting now that I'm thinking of it but would have been better if perhaps after a few days a foot would have joined it, then an arm, then a leg, etc.
I puzzle quite a while over the "murders, both recent and historical". The prologue of the story is rather creepy and at least we learn that there was a murder somewhere, sometime. What I found creepy was at the beginning some person (I forget who) has died and is being buried in the churchyard.
"When this particular grave was pretty nearly finished—it lay from east to west—a lot of earth fell out at the northern side, where an old coffin had lain, and good store of brown dust and grimy bones, and the yellow skull itself came tumbling about the sexton's feet. These fossils, after his wont, he lifted decently with the point of his shovel, and pitched into a little nook beside the great mound of mould at top."
I find it creepy that they must bury people right on top of each other and just throw the old bones away to put in the new ones. That got me wondering how many people are buried on top of each other but I didn't let my brain try to figure that out. I just thought it was odd they uncovered a body while digging the grave and no one seemed to think this was odd. Anyway, they pick up the skull and pass it around - another thing I will never do - and decide that this person must have been murdered because of the holes in the head. It could have been caused by the shovel hitting it in my mind, but what do I know. As they are standing there talking about the dead guy getting shot in the head an old man shows up and tells them this:
'You don't think it a bullet wound, Sir?' said my uncle, mildly, and touching his hat—for coming of a military stock himself, he always treated an old soldier with uncommon respect.
'Why, please your raverence,' replied the man, reciprocating his courtesy; 'I know it's not.'
'And what is it, then, my good man?' interrogated the sexton, as one in authority, and standing on his own dunghill.
'The trepan,' said the fogey, in the tone in which he'd have cried 'attention' to a raw recruit, without turning his head, and with a scornful momentary skew-glance from his gray eye.
'And do you know whose skull that was, Sir?' asked the curate.
'Ay do I, Sir, well,' with the same queer smile, he answered. 'Come, now, you're a grave-digger, my fine fellow,' he continued, accosting the sexton cynically; 'how long do you suppose that skull's been under ground?'
'Long enough; but not so long, my fine fellow, as yours has been above ground.'
'Well, you're right there, for I seen him buried,' and he took the skull from the sexton's hands; 'and I'll tell you more, there was some dry eyes, too, at his funeral—ha, ha, ha!'
Now we go on to Chapter One and have gone back to the year 1767 and are going to be told the story of how the dead man died, and lots of other stories, but don't be looking to find out how the skull gets a hole in it's head for a long, long time. Don't be looking for any murders either for a long, long time. That's what puzzled me, the back of the book made so much of the murders they put it on the cover and yet for hundreds of pages I can't find anyone murdered. We are only a few chapters in the book when there is a duel over perhaps the dumbest reason to have a duel ever, but it's a silly duel and no murder. I'm not sure if the guy who survives a duel is considered a murderer or not. I would think he is if he is the one who challenged the other guy to the duel, but I don't know and I'm not taking the time to find out. Besides it isn't one of our two murders anyway. I have to keep reading to find them. There is a guy who goes out for a walk - supposedly for a walk - and never returns and even though a body is eventually found in the river no one thinks he is murdered, everyone thinks he committed suicide. There is a man who is found murdered along some path, but then when they all get to the body it turns out he isn't dead only almost dead, so he probably hasn't murdered anyone and he isn't murdered since he's alive.
Eventually though the murders do happen, well, one did a long time ago it just takes a while to get to it. There's a few love stories in there as well and lots of meddling into each other's lives and trying to get couples together or keep couples apart. There are men who don't like other men, and women who don't like other women, and people who don't like anybody.
And now on to my next puzzling thing about the book: which house is by the churchyard? It took me a long time to figure it out. You would think it was the pastor of the church's house (at least I would) but it isn't. In the first chapter he must go to the church for a funeral in the middle of the night and as he walks there he passes most of the town. He walks past the Phœnix "a jolly old inn", he passes through the town where "no other sound of life or human neighbourhood was stirring" on past the Salmon House an inn at the other side of town, and then arrives at the church. So the rector doesn't live next to the churchyard. It isn't the Phoenix, that's on the other side of town. There's the Tiled house - that's where the ghost hand used to live -
"It stood by a lonely bend of the narrow road. Lilias had often looked upon the short, straight, grass-grown avenue with an awful curiosity at the old house which she had learned in childhood to fear as the abode of shadowy tenants and unearthly dangers."
Not, however by the churchyard. Then there is Belmont with:
"an avenue of gentlemanlike old poplars, and over the little bridge, and under the high-arched bowers of elms, walled up at either side with evergreens, and so into the court-yard of Belmont. Three sides of a parellelogram, the white old house being the largest, and offices white and in keeping, but overgrown with ivy, and opening to yards of their own on the other sides, facing one another at the flanks, and in front a straight Dutch-like moat, with a stone balustrade running all along from the garden to the bridge, with great stone flower pots set at intervals, the shrubs and flowers of which associated themselves in his thoughts with beautiful Gertrude Chattesworth, and so were wonderfully bright and fragrant. And there were two swans upon the water, and several peacocks marching dandily in the court-yard; and a grand old Irish dog, with a great collar, and a Celtic inscription, dreaming on the steps in the evening sun."
No churchyard anywhere near it. There are lots of people in this book, there is Doctor Toole, and Miss Becky Chattesworth, there is Puddock and Captain Cluffe, there is a barber and a few innkeepers. Generals and Captains, and Lords and Ladies. There's an alderman - whatever that is - and a couple of people using different names than there own. A really good guy and a really bad guy, and none of them live by the churchyard. I finally figured out who did, although why his house got to be any more important than anyone else's I don't know. If you want to know which house belongs to which person, read the book.
Oh, I looked up the word "trepanning" because it is mentioned a few times during the book and I didn't know what it meant. Supposedly according to the old man the skull at the beginning of the story had been trepanned. Now that I've looked it up I hope no one ever trepans me, at least not until I'm dead.
"Trepanning is a surgical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, exposing the dura mater to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases. It may also refer to any "burr" hole created through other body surfaces, including nail beds. It is often used to relieve pressure beneath a surface. A trephine is an instrument used for cutting out a round piece of skull bone."
"In ancient times, holes were drilled into a person who was behaving in what was considered an abnormal way to let out what they believed were evil spirits. Evidence of trepanation has been found in prehistoric human remains from Neolithic times onward. Cave paintings indicate that people believed the practice would cure epileptic seizures, migraines, and mental disorders."
I have both migraines and epilepsy but no one has drilled a hole in my head yet. I don't think so anyway. One more thing then I'm done, this is my favorite quote:
'It is St. John who says, "And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they had rowed about five-and-twenty, or thirty furlongs, they see the Lord walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid. But he saith unto them, It is I, be not afraid." So is it with the frail bark of mortality and the trembling spirit it carries. When "it is now dark," and the sea arises, and the "great wind" blows, the vessel is tost, and the poor heart fails within it; and when they see the dim form which they take to be the angel of death walking the roaming waters, they cry out in terror, but the voice of the sweet Redeemer, the Lord of Life is heard, "It is I; be not afraid," and so the faithful ones "willingly receive him into the ship," and immediately it is at the land whither they go: yes, at the land whither they go. But, oh! the lonely ones, left behind on the other shore.'
I thought about that for a long time. Read the book if only to find out which house is by the churchyard. -
Letzter Tag des Jahres: Zeit, Ordnung in den aktuellen Leseprojekten zu schaffen!
Über die Weihnachtstage habe ich diesen Sheridan Le Fanu-Roman leider links liegen lassen und die Lektüre jetzt wieder aufzunehmen fiel etwas schwer. So kommt es, dass ich die letzten 100 Seiten eher überflogen habe, mir aber jetzt dennoch ein Urteil anmaße.
Ich gestehe, ich habe zunächst mehr Schauerliches, Mysteriöses erwartet, kannte ich bislang doch nur
Carmilla vom Autor. Und Andeutungen, Geheimnisse gibt es durchaus, doch wird man dann schnell in ein kaum zu überschauendes Geflecht von Personen geworfen, zum großen Teil Bewohner des kleinen Ortes Chapelizod bei Dublin. Ich hatte irgendwann das Gefühl, fast jede halbwegs öffentlich agierende Person in der kleinen Garnisonsstadt zu kennen: drei (!) Ärzte, Pfarrer, Totengräber, bedeutenden Familien, Wahrsagerin und und und. Was anfangs etwas anstrengend war, entpuppt sich dann – in meinen Augen – als eigentliches Thema: Intrigen und Gerüchteküche in einer Kleinstadt! Und in diesem Licht betrachten wir dann auch die Verbrechen und Geheimnisse, die sukzessive entlarvt werden.
Der Autor enttäuscht also durchaus zunächst Lesererwartungen (zum Beispiel wird der junge Mervyn, der sich fabelhaft zur Hauptfigur eignet, über lange Strecken hinweg nicht mehr erwähnt), um dann doch eine überzeugende Geschichte zu liefern.
Man darf als Leser aber keine Wilkie Collins-artige Spannung erwarten, sondern eher Dickens-hafte Beschreibungen. -
This is one of those rare books that I have given up on.
150 pages in, I was still stuck with a confusing array of characters - none of whom emerged as the protagonist. I also had no idea of which events were important to the plot and which were light relief. There seemed to be an awful lot of light relief for a Gothic tale. During a burial in the prologue, a skull is unearthed which bears the marks of a violent death. IN the novel proper, the bulk of the action takes place some hundred years earlier beginning with the mysterious night-time burial of a body identified only as RD. After this promising beginning, the action then moves through a rather tiresome array of village social events (including a duel arising from a complete misunderstanding) and doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. The main ongoing mystery revolves around village gossip concerning the background of village newcomer, Mr Mervyn who has moved into the allegedly haunted Tiled House. We are treated to a narrative of the ghostly hand said to haunt Tiled House but the chapter was so separate from the rest of the narrative that it does little to maintain a sense of suspense.
The overriding mystery for me was whether the book would return to the Gothic mystery before I entirely gave up on the tale.
I loved Uncle Silas by the same author (which also had a strong comic element to it but maintained a good sense of Gothic suspense) but lost patience with this one. -
As Sheridan LeFanu is one of my favourite writers and it's a lifetime aim to read all his works, it pains me to say that this was a real slog to get through. I'd read reviews that suggested the first half was hard going with dozens and dozens of characters appearing willy-nilly from all over the place, but that it improves in the second half. Well, by the time I'd gotten to the second half I think I was beaten down with the tedium. About the only memorable part is the opening two or three chapters, which are quite funny character studies.
For any reading LeFanu for the first time I urge you to start with the short stories. The collection 'In A Glass Darkly' is a classic original collection. Dover books collected many of his best short stories in 'Best Ghost Stories' and 'Ghost Stories And Mysteries.' Or, if you prefer novels, Uncle Silas, Wylder's Hand and The Rose And The Key are worth a read.
At his best, Lefanu is one of THE great 19th century horror and mystery writers. -
It was a mess in places but I love Sheridan Le Fanu and I really liked the portrait of a little Irish town and the good people living there - marginal characters being much more interesting than the main ones.
-
Oh, Le Fanu, how you leave your stories unfinished!
The House by the Churchyard is an engaging tale, but as I've experienced with Le Fanu before, a little drawn out and unsatisfying at the end. I've begun to wonder if he remembers the things he starts but never brings to a close! -
In trying to come up with a sense of what it was for me as a modern Reader to experience THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD, the example that immediately came to mind was of watching the first two seasons of “Twin Peaks.” The set-up and resolution of the main mystery was fascinating, and I enjoyed many of the interactions with the citizenry as they went through their daily lives. However, there was also the “adopting Nicky” story, the “Miss Twin Peaks” story, the “Save The Weasel” story ... to the point that I was wondering why I was continuing to watch this nonsense.
THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD was written in the mid-19th century, and the story takes place 100-years earlier. The narrator (with a very inconsistent perspective, at best) tells how a recently found skull relates to the small Irish town of Chapelizod in which nefarious doings led to a chilling death. The Reader is then introduced to the town and a huge line-up of characters. Soon, there is the hint of a haunting around a house with some late night rappings on the window panes.
Unfortunately, unlike Dickens, the introduction of characters was daunting, and I often found myself trying to keep them identified as happenings progressed. Some had very distinctive traits, and I readily remembered them. Others, though, especially members of the nearby Royal Irish Artillery, took some effort for reacquaintance.
Most daunting of all was that I was well over a quarter of the way through the book before I realized that the elements that had intrigued me in the first place ... the chilling death and the haunting ... were just two of many side-plots. It appeared to be the writer’s intent to have the Reader experience being an inhabitant of Chapelizod in 1767. So, there was a panorama of daily life stories presented, from a silly duel, feuding rivalries, secret schemes, love (both passionate and unrequited), dances, dinners, various social gatherings, and illnesses. Some of these were very involving, while others seemed to go on and on.
When THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD is involving, it flirts with the sublime. I would look forward to those reading sessions and the time flew by. Conversely, the protracted details surrounding the duel almost caused me to put the book away unfinished. (Oh, and if you are a fan of Le Fanu’s supernatural works and are in search of a crackling good ghost story, it accounts for a very small part of this large work.)
Comparisons with Dickens abounded for me. In addition to a large cast of characters, there were descriptive details that immediately set the atmosphere, heavy instances of melodrama, tearful moments, and villainy most foul. There were also wonderful surprises, such as a decidedly decadent doctor who shows a heroic leaning. Then, at times, there were resolutions that were satisfying, yet that appeared to occur by happenstance.
If I had approached THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD with knowledge of its intent to introduce me to a society that I didn’t know, I’m sure that I would have had a much greater appreciation for what was happening. As it was, it frustratingly meandered around the story that I had assumed was central ... resolving it, but with many detours along the way. -
Le Fanu's third novel is markedly inferior to its predecessors. There is no sign in this stupefyingly prolix book of the wit and excitement of The Cock and Anchor, and even The Fortunes of Colonel Torlogh O'Brien
furnished a greater number of memorable moments.
With commercial success eluding him, Le Fanu appears to have set out to manufacture a product more pleasing to mid-Victorian audiences, accustomed to huge doses of raw sentimentality, a very leisurely pace, and a broad artistic canvas: even though the events in this book are confined to a single Irish town in the mid-eighteenth century, there are at least a dozen major characters drawn from many walks of life, and a variety of plots and sub-plots.
The trouble is, Le Fanu was not Dickens. It's all shallow and unadventurous: the characters are flat and do not arouse the reader's interest or empathy. Overly-abundant comic incidents and "quaint" characters come off as laboured and dull. Yet another frail and doomed Victorian heroine passes through the narrative without straying from a formulaic path. One senses that Le Fanu himself isn't terribly involved in his own narrative, because the novel only comes to life when his more characteristic interests---ghost stories and thrillers---peep through.
So, there is a sensationally effective haunted house chapter early in the book, easily one of the best Le Fanu ghost stories; it's often anthologized on its own as "The Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand" or "Ghost Stories of the Tiled House". But it has nothing to do with the rest of the book. Perhaps Le Fanu's nerves were screaming for relief, and he decided to cut loose for a chapter prior to returning to literary drudgery! The novel does improve about half-way through when a violent crime is committed and unravelling its underlying mystery becomes a central thread of the plot. This permits the introduction of a few interesting episodes: for instance, there is a brief interlude which dwells eerily on the still and lonely crime scene, the victim lying in a dark forest in the dead of night, as beetles scuttle unheedingly about him. But the mystery itself holds few surprises, and there is little suspense overall.
As Le Fanu hoped, the novel was a moderate success and obtained for him an urgently needed contract with a publisher. But I don't see it has much to offer a modern reader who is not a specialist in Victorian/Irish fiction or Le Fanu himself. -
Like other readers, I fell in love with
In a Glass Darkly and
Uncle Silas, so I thought House By the Churchyard would be right up my alley. Perhaps my own high and misguided expectations lead me astray. Although the publisher deserves some blame, pitching this as "perhaps (Le Fanu's) best novel" in the genre of supernatural fiction/ghost stories. It's not really that type of novel. Once this realization set in, it became a slow, laborious read.
At least I can understand why this book influenced Joyce. It's a story about telling stories. In fact, the structure of the novel is brilliant, but the tangents and the menagerie characters just didn't hold my interest, again, perhaps due to my own expectations of what I thought I was getting in this novel.
What saves this from being a one-star experience was the amazing section about a man being trepanned (a medical procedure in which a person has a hole bored into his head -- while awake and often without anesthesia! -- in order to cure certain illnesses). In Le Fanu's novel, it's done as an attempt at murder. I've always been fascinated by this procedure -- mostly by those who opt to do it to themselves without help! -- and it's the first time I've seen trepanning appear in fiction.
So yeah: that's about all I liked about this novel.
The House By the Churchyard hasn't turned me off to Le Fanu. I'll read some more of his work in the near future -- probably
Wylder's Hand or
The Rose and the Key -- but I'll avoid his earlier, non-Gothic work. -
I picked this up last year purely based on the fact that the cover and the title intrigued me. I hadn't ever heard of it before seeing it on the shelf and didn't do any research into how people felt about it but a novel called The House by the Churchyard, that's labelled as 'Mystery & Suspense', seemed right up my street. I'm interested in reading more Gothic horror/mystery stuff and thought this would be a good one for me because it's set in Chapelizod which is just down the road from where I live.
It ended up being a pretty tough read and I actually lost interest in it a couple of times over the 5 months it took to me to get through it. Le Fanu spends a lot of time familiarizing us with the local community in Chapelizod, there's a lot of characters here and we get to know them very well. This doesn't seem like much of an issue for a good story, but the thing is that it takes about 250 pages. No exaggeration, we are past the halfway mark of this fairly hefty read before the central mystery is even introduced.
Now I don't have a whole lot of complaints about Le Fanu's style, the book is very well-written and once we actually start delving into the central conflict it becomes really good. There's no denying that the insights we already have into the social life of Chapelizod enhance the experience of reading about how the characters react to the tragic mystery that seeps into the town but did we need 250 pages of it? I certainly don't think so. I think it could have been accomplished in about a fifth of that.
So I guess if you have the patience to immerse yourself in this vision of 18th Century Ireland for many, many chapters just know that there is a very compelling, enjoyable mystery story awaiting you on the other side. One that's significantly better for that first half. But if you get 60 pages in and give up from boredom, I'm sure as hell not going to blame you. -
Unfortunately this book is going on my 'hours of my life I'll not get back' shelf.
I found this book a terrible chore to read and only finished it because I'd started it.
Le Fanu takes a promising beginning and an excellent ending but fills the rest of the book with a bunch of inane infill. By the time I'd got halfway through the book I couldn't give a fig whether most of the character's lived, died or turned into zombies.
The book starts with a mysterious burial and the discovery of a skull with evidence of fractures and trepanning. The story then goes back many decades and tells the story of that fractured skull.
Although I've only rated this a one, had the book been considerably shortened it would have been a solid three to four. The book is approximately one hundred chapters long but a good sixty or so of those chapters are just meandering nonsense. -
Many of le Fanu's stories take place in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, and in the nearby village of Chapelizod: 'Ghost Stories of Chapelizod' and later this novel 'The House by the Churchyard'.
A modern reader might find some of the stories less than spine-chilling and some might dislike the long sentences used by a 19th century author, but I found them readable rather than turgid and always meticulously grammatical. The stories are interesting in the context of the history of Gothic fiction and of social life in an early 19th century Irish village.
Le Fanu was known as the ‘British Poe’ (he was Anglo-Irish). He influenced a range of writers as diverse as M.R. James, Bram Stoker, Elizabeth Bowen and James Joyce. -
Another horror and mystery story written by an irish writer.
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This probably wasn't what it sounded to be even in 1863. No horror/gothic/supernatural-ness, and far too much Irish nineteenth-centuryism for children of the 2000s.
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tengo opiniones encontradas. Es un excelente libro de costumbres, divertido con personajes memorables, PERO, para llegar al punto de la historia pasan como 400 páginas, después de las cuales la trama se vuelve más ágil y POR FIN se convierte en una historia de terror. No siento que el cierre sea el mejor, pero al final me gustó la historia. Quizá el libro y yo no coincidimos en nuestros tiempos. Pero vale la pena darle una oportunidad.
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Лидер в номинации "Скучнейшая книга года".
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Le Fanú acertó plenamente con Carmilla, y con esta novela pretendió crear un gran friso, lleno de personajes contrastados ligados a un lugar, Chapelizod, una aldea de Dublín que acabará siendo trasgada por la ciudad. Pero quizá esta novela solo se conserve por ser la base paródica de Finnegans Wake, en la que se pueden espulgar elementos que Joyce utilzia y transmuta para crear su gran y extraña novela.
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3,50
Inédito en castellano, Editorial Montesinos nos trae ahora una nueva edición con la correspondiente traducción de La casa junto al camposanto, un libro de Sheridan Le Fanu publicado en 1863 que nos narrará la historia y vida de los habitantes de Chapelizod, un pueblo dentro del mismo Dublín, en Irlanda, y ambientado durante 1767.
Novela gótica, La casa junto al camposanto se iniciará con el macabro descubrimiento de un cráneo con signos indiscutibles de violencia. A partir de aquí...
http://www.abrirunlibro.com/2016/05/l...
