Customer Reviews

The Animated Skeleton

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was extremely funny! I am not sure if it was meant to be at the time it was written... It is a mixture of the traditional Gothic terrors and horrors with a strong dose of black humour. I enjoyed it a lot and found the foreword very enlightening. It is a very unique creation. I simply love it!

This is a true story of fun, danger, and horror. Such a story can only be considered a milestone, a great transformation in literature that pushes for truly exciting and thrilling reading. There is beauty in the subtlety of the words and the latent horror that creeps through the pages and then vibrates horridly with great skill and craftsmanship.

i am still a couple pages from finishing this book. a good gothic, horrer story. i am finding the plot somewhat hard to follow and the names difficult to remember. ghosts and knights, a haunted castle, amusing little songs throughout the story. a fun contribution to this genre.

Why, in ancient times, do defenseless maidens always sleep in chambers far removed from help? And why are aristocrats so willing to abandon large portions of their castles to rats, ghosts and mildew?

I sometimes ask myself questions like these, when reading gothic fiction. But I really don't mind improbable plots, if I can get caught up in them. I just didn't connect with The Animated Skeleton.

Set in the Dark Ages in France, the story recounts events in and around a castle owned by nice but dim Duke Albert and his depraved wife Brunchilda. While the Duke believes in being kind to his vassals, Brunchilda and her evil brother are secretly persecuting the populace in the Duke's name.

After certain mysterious disappearances in the past, ghostly doings have been observed in the disused part of the castle, stirring rumors of murders and atrocities.

This gothic novel has some original features, such as a lively skeleton ghost, a spectral voice that speaks in rhyme and a comically boastful knight. But the prose is so clunky and the narrative so confusing that I struggled to stay with it. How a book only 116 pages long can be so chaotic is the main mystery here.

But the introduction makes a good point. The Animated Skeleton is not by Walpole or Lewis, who were cultured members of Parliament, but by one of the lowly writers who churned out gothic novels anonymously to make a living. Some attribute this book to Mrs. Carver, but I think the pseudonymous Mrs. Carver was also too accomplished a writer to have penned The Animated Skeleton.

Still, scholars and fans of gothic literature may enjoy this book as part of their fascination with the genre. The Animated Skeleton was a bestseller in 1798, which says something.