Customer Reviews

The Grin of the Dark

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This is the most unusual horror novel I have read in a long time. There's practically no violence, none of blood and guts that is so ubiquitous in the horror genre, but there IS an absolutely unrelenting sense of impending dread and the climax of the book is far more satisfying than any gratuitous splatterfest. Half-seen, suggested weirdness pervades the book's atmosphere, and you're never quite sure if the narrator is completely off his rocker. This book is deft, subtle, and absolutely masterful, a needle driven in the ear rather than a roaring chainsaw.

This is a very good book by Mr. Campbell. There are a number of very surrealistic and spooky scenes in it, such as disembodied faces that slid along the floor, a bunch of bizarre clowns that put on a strange almost threatening performance just to name a couple. It involves a man writing a book about a long forgotten silent film star and his supressed films. The search takes the main character to several places where he encounters people who seem unnaturally agressive towards him. A very intriguing section deals with a person on a messageboard whose screen name is Smilemime. Smilemime is a major thorn in the main characters side throughout and creates a mystery as to who he is. This is a fun and concise read that has short chapters, so it reads pretty quickly. My favorite Campbell book remaines Incarnate, but this one isn't far behind.

As much as I admire Campbell's novels and stories, my enthusiasm isn't unconditional. For instance, despite being hailed as his best novel in recent years I found The Darkest Part of the Woods (2002) to be heavy - though admittedly excellent - on atmosphere, but considerably light on substance. There was nothing there for me to cling onto, to linger. It was like trying to grasp smoke.

I've not read many novels this year, finding few periods of extended free time in order to get into them. But last week I did and decided to give Campbell's latest a try, though not without trepidation: I ordered from Amazon UK where I saw that, out of nearly 70 reviews, many readers found it to be slow, dull, boring, snooze... zzzzzz.

Ah. Um. Oh well, I ordered it anyway as I planned on buying all of the Virgin Books horror titles.

And all I can say is DID I READ THE SAME BOOK?! Slow and dull, you say? Boring? I'm not a fast reader (one of the reasons I read so few novels) but I zipped through this in less than a week, a relatively short period of time for me. It is, quite easily, the funniest book Campbell has ever written! The dialogue zings, full of bards and slights, and some of the situations our main character finds himself in are nothing short of high comedy. Superb.

Language, humor and the media, especially the internet and film, form the bedrock of this horror novel from Ramsey Campbell. The story is narrated by Simon Lester, a down-on-his-luck film writer who has to make ends meet by working at a local filling station. His luck is about to change, but possibly not for the better when he is invited to write a book about a long-forgotten comedic star of the silent era called Tubby Thackeray. Forgotten because his work seems to have somehow been stricken from the records. His films are almost impossible to come by and even written information about them is scarce. As Simon becomes more consumed by his task, Tubby's deranged performing persona seems to resonate into Simon's life.

When I ordered this book, I was expecting a story something akin to the Fatty Arbuckle affair. While this may have been an influence on `The Grin of the Dark', and is referred to in the story, the events that unfold here are of a more supernatural and enigmatic hue. It's the overwhelming sense of ambiguity that is this novel's strength and its weakness. I've no doubt that the author had deliberately set out to make this a disconcerting read, but the dreamlike sense of unreality that the narrator frequently finds himself surrounded by made it a little like wading through treacle at times. Even the opening sections are rather overwritten for my tastes. I had to reread the first chapter in order to work out who was who and who was speaking because the characters' introductions were confusingly handled. All that said, the story is highly imaginative and its visual nature would make for a good television serial.

As I was reading this novel, I was reminded on more than one occasion, of John Carpenter's excellent entry into the `Masters of Horror' television series, Masters of Horror - John Carpenter - Cigarette Burns. In this story, a cinema owner is commissioned to track down a subversive film that has the power to turn those who see it into crazed murderers. Tubby's performances don't quite have that power, but they do subject their viewers to hysteria on a grand scale.

This is a dark novel. There are flashes of humor sprinkled throughout - I particularly enjoyed the laugh-out-loud school Nativity play that goes awry - but the humor that is at the crux of the story is bound up in the mangled language that the narrator's mental disintegration causes him to utter, along with the surreal slapstick events that pursue him.

No doubt Ramsey Campbell's many fans will enjoy this novel, and, for all my carping, there is much to admire and enjoy here. There are some pleasingly eccentric characters, but their very eccentricity perpetuates an air of menace. The author succeeds in producing a dark and, in places, unsettling horror novel. I was, however, not sorry to finish reading it.

This subtle, surreal, tale would have been better as a Poe-length novella. The story of ever-growing madness runs on a little too long and the last-line punchline isn't much of a surprise. From the dust jacket, it sounded really promising, but I found it meandering and ineffective. For example - the sidetrip sidetrack to Amsterdam. What was the point of that interlude? I know I'm in the minority on this book, but whatever effect Campbell was after didn't work for me.

I find it difficult to review this book. It is almost impossible to discuss it intelligently without divulging things which the astute reader will want to discover on his or her own. I'll just say that Campbell's evocation of primordial chaos would have delighted Lovecraft.

This is cosmic horror at its finest--and Campbell manages to conjure it out of silent film slapstick and the Internet! The man is brilliant, and here he is at his very best.