The House by the Churchyard by Sheridan Le Fanu
The House by the Churchyard by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When you read the work of a good writer, you feel its distinctiveness, and if the book is a surprise to you, it feels as if there is nothing else like it. I had read Sheridan stories years ago but had never cracked this book until recently. What a treat to read something so sure-handed! The world of Chapelizod unveils itself as if it were the center of everything, a village and countryside quite taken with itself. Sheridan colors every foible of each person we encounter: there are the mysterious figures in the background, of course, but it is the foreground where the book takes flight. There are so many people, such an ensemble, Puddock and Aunt Becky, Magnolia and her mother, the two doctors and their wives, the virtuous Lily, the tremulous Gertrude, the sleepwalker gentry, the wicked old witch. Lovely rich portraits. Having read only Le Fanu’s shorter works before, I found his sprawling Irish village to be a world unto itself, as rich as any such locale in any novel I remember. His focus is so drawn to the periphery, to the comic possibilities of nearly every character we meet, even the slightest, that the novel nearly forgets itself. The story of the villain and the hero, with all its tinge of the supernatural, is secondary to the landscape. Le Fanu was more fascinated by Chapelizod than by the mystery that dutifully appears and resolves; it’s not that this aspect of the book is bad, it’s just that the world overshadows the story so completely, through Le Fanu’s really wonderful eye and ear. The book does require patience, and you need a taste for the leisurely manner of the writing.