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The Snake's Pass (Irish Classics)

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`The Snake's Pass,' the first novel written by Bram Stoker, was published in 1890, about seven years before his Dracula.' You may expect from this title something very bizarre and weird, some strange tale Poe would have written, but the truth is `The Snake's Pass' is fairly orthodox love romance set in the mountains of Ireland.

The story is simple. It is about one Arthur Severn, young and rich Englishman traveling around Ireland. After one stormy night, he encounters a beautiful girl named Norah living with her father Joyce, who was ill-treated by Black Murdock, greedy `gombeen' man (Irish name for moneylender) who had mercilessly taken away their land. There is sub-plot about the hidden treasures of French army, and the local legend about the confrontation of Saint Patrick and The King of the Snakes.

Though the folklore surrounding the evil `King of the Snakes' plays the significant role in the earlier chapters of the book, the story is basically about the adventures of the hero and narrator Arthur, whose love for Norah plays the central role of the novel. Unfortunately Arthur is not engaging enough as character because he is just a rich gentleman from England, whose success is guarantees by his social status. There is no real conflict in his story. Things go too smooth for him.

Bram Stoker effectively captures the gloomy atmosphere of the rain-swept land of west Ireland, but these vivid descriptions of the swamp and slime are often forgotten before the more ordinary story about the hero and his love. Obviously Stoker intended to use the macabre legend of the snakes as sort of metaphor like Shakespeare's Birnam Wood, and the idea of the moving mountain bog might have been more interesting if he had introduced the snake legend with more subtlety.

As it is, Stoker, who had not found the right voice suitable for his supernatural tales yet, sometimes spends too many words on the long geological descriptions, but these prosaic details are painfully tedious, slowing down the actions and weakening the supernatural undercurrent of the novel. Stoker also minutely describes the slimy bogs and incessant raining in the mountains, both of which suggest the dark force affecting the people there, but Stoker's touch could hardly be said imaginative. He surely draws the rocks and trees in the landscapes, but his vision does not have the evocative power of the Whitby cemetery scene, later seen in `Dracula.'

As love story `The Snake's Pass' is nothing remarkable, and as macabre tale it is not simply macabre enough. The book is a romance but flatly told, and most of all, few things are really unpredictable. Not a bad novel at all, but not a great one either.

The Snake's Pass is one of those pseudo-minor classics that would have been forgotten if it were not the first novel written by the author of Dracula, one of the greatest of the nineteenth century novels. The book was published in 1890, only seven years before Dracula, yet it is a long way from Stoker's masterpiece in plot and form. A fan of Dracula may not enjoy it, but a literary or Bram Stoker scholar definitely would. It is actually better written than Lair of the White Worm, a later Stoker novel, but up to the quality of The Jewel of the Seven Stars.

What sets the novel off the most from Stoker's other Gothic works is a real lack of the supernatural in the novel. There is a legend of a snake king driven from Ireland by St. Patrick in the book, but nothing supernatural ever actually occurs in the novel's pages. The mysterious shifting bog is not supernatural at all, and frankly, the dullest part of the novel since Stoker goes into great detail of the measuring and study of the bog, which is being analyzed to determine where a lost treasure may be found. The conflict exists between the villain, Murdock, who is willing to do anything to find this treasure, and Arthur Severn and his friends. Arthur falls in love with Nora, whose father is cheated by Murdock to gain control of his land which may have the hidden treasure on it.

The first half of the book is bogged down with descriptions of the bog until Arthur falls in love with Nora, and then a tender, but not terribly exciting love story occurs. The book picks up speed halfway, yet still moves relatively slowly until the dramatic ending scene during a storm where Murdock and the protagonists struggle to find the treasure. This final scene makes the book worth reading, both for itself, and as an example of the talent Stoker had already developed for pacing and drama which he would use consistently in Dracula.

The book is not for the general reader, but I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the British or Irish novel--it is the only novel Stoker set in his native Ireland. One wishes Stoker, as a more mature writer, had written another novel of Ireland, perhaps with vampires included.

- Tyler R. Tichelaar, author of Iron Pioneers and The Queen City, available on Amazon.

I am with the publisher, Valancourt Books, and wanted to post a description of the book, since Amazon hasn't done so. This is from the book's back cover:

Arthur Severn, a young Englishman on holiday in the west of Ireland, is forced by a storm to stop for the night in a mysterious village, where he hears the legend of "The Snake's Pass." Long ago, it is said, St. Patrick battled the King of the Snakes, who hid his crown of gold and jewels in the hills near the village.

But it is not only legend that haunts the town. The figure of the demonic money-lender Black Murdock looms over the village, as he searches for the lost treasure while manipulating the townsfolk to his own evil ends.

Even more threatening than Murdock is the shifting bog, personified as a baneful "carpet of death," which will swallow up anything -- and anyone -- in its path. Art and his friend Dick will brave the dangers of the bog to seek out the treasure, but the sinister machinations of Murdock will lead to a deadly conclusion!

Featuring a slow accumulation of terror worthy of Le Fanu, The Snake's Pass was Bram Stoker's first novel. A clear precursor to Stoker's later works of horror, including Dracula, The Lair of the White Worm, and The Jewel of Seven Stars, The Snake's Pass was the only of Stoker's novels set in his native Ireland. This edition follows the text of the first edition published at New York in 1890."

I have to admit, if I were not such a fan of Bram Stoker I might have been less impressed with this. I think I was willing to give some of it the benefit of the doubt simply because it is by the author of Dracula.

This was Stoker's first novel, and it shows. Stoker can't seem to make up his mind what he wants the book to be. Is it about the supernatural (a legend about Saint Patrick and the King of the Snakes makes an impression on the narrator early on)? Is it a mystery (what does Murtagh Murdock want with his neighbors' property anyway)? Is it a romance (our narrator spies a lady on a hillside and in typical Gothic romance fashion, is in love before he's even spoken to her, and she in return)? Stoker isn't sure, and so neither are we.

The plot is slight, the supernatural element disappears fairly quickly (although it does rear its head again at the end in a sense), the mystery is not very compelling and the characters nowhere near as deep as those in Dracula or any of Stoker's other supernatural works. And the overworked Irish accents are almost too thick to wade through -- thankfully for the most part it's the supporting characters who sport the thickest brogues and most of them fade to the background after the first few chapters.

As a great piece of literature, or even a great piece of escapism, the book is lacking. But as a look at the development of Stoker's style (there is a world of difference between Norah Joyce here and Mina Murray in Dracula, but not so much difference between Arthur Severn and Jonathan Harker), it was worth the read. Recommended for Stoker fans, or gothic literature fans, but others may want to approach it with lower expectations.