Customer Reviews

The Evil Guest

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this freebie because the title intrigued me. I really enjoyed the style Le Fanu used to describe the moods and settings of such a dark mystery. The plot turns out to not be as scandalous for today's audiences, but it's a fun ride to the end. This is a must read for people who enjoy gothic literature. I am off to read his vampire novels next. (review written from my kindle).

This book is a good mystery thriller.It is written with the same style as the other books I have read by Le Fanu. It has many interesting characters with excellent imagery created by the authors descriptions of both places and people. It is an easy read but well written. Synopsis: A rather isolated and unhappy household is plagued by the horrible murder of an unwanted guest. The story centers around the dark and brooding master of the house.The plot contains villainous characters, murder,and scandalous affairs.

No one creates an atmosphere of evil and foreboding as effectively as Le Fanu (1814-1873). A recluse after his wife's death, Le Fanu wrote into the night by the light of two candles. Perhaps the shadows that danced on his page fed the sense of supernatural dread so potent in his prose.

Published in l895, the story looks back to the 1830's. The setting is a gloomy, neglected English mansion twenty some miles from the nearest town. The Honorable Richard Marston lives in genteel poverty with his family. The dissipations of his youth have left him much reduced. The decay of the house reflects the moral decay of its master, a man of violent passions and morose temperament.

His daughter's governess is a beautiful Frenchwoman with fascinating ways - one of those dangerous beauties whose eyes develop a villainous gleam when no one's looking.

Into this uncomfortable household Le Fanu introduces an unwelcome, self-invited guest: Marston's cousin, the fashionable and hugely wealthy baronet, Sir Wynston Berkley.

This lively beau of fifty is destined to be hideously murdered in his room. How his death affects the lives and minds of the characters is the substance of a plot rich in psychological drama.

Often the reader senses the truth behind the mystery, but this does nothing to lesson the impact of one disturbing scene after the next. Even the servants behave strangely in this strange story.

But don't be afraid to plunge into Le Fanu's sinister world. This horrific tale of guilt and madness keeps the innocent safe from harm - and has a (relatively) happy outcome. I recommend it heartily - along with everything else Le Fanu wrote.

This was a great mystery. I enjoyed it very much. If you like this you will like the public domain book "The Vanishing Man" by Richard Austin even more.

While looking for a new mystery book to read on Kindle, I came across this novel. While it wasn't the mystery that I hoped it to be, it still turned out to be a very good read that I would highly recommend.

Setting - The story takes place mostly in an English manor that goes by the name of Gray Forest. A family of four (the Marstons) lives there (although the son is away at college) along with their servants and the daughter's tutor. The Marston family is one that is quite unhappy and struggling financially, and they are very reclusive, causing them to not have good relations with many people. However, one day they get a letter from a member of their family named Wynston E. Berkley, who basically invites himself over, and once at Gray Forest, he emits an aura that hints at his having an evil motive for being there.

Plot - The first portion of the story deals with the setting, telling the reader many details on Gray Forest, the Marston Family, and Wynston E. Berkley. It is a little dull, but it is over fast enough. Soon into the story, Wynston is murdered, and the criminal is convicted right away. The story then takes a turn NOT towards an enveloping mystery but rather a suspenseful drama on how the murder affected the Marston's life. While it wasn't the story I was expecting, it was still extremely entertaining and kept me engrossed in the hatred, betrayal, love, and troubled times that are the defining parts of the novel.

Writing Style - The style definitely has an old English flair to it, and the author would consistently use words such as "sate" rather than "sat". There is a lot of attention to detail in the story, and if the reader is expecting a high adrenaline read, then this is not for them. It goes at a leisurely pace exploring one thing at a time rather than going a fast pace. Although the writer wrote the story very well, there were a couple of things that slightly took away from the story a bit. First, at the beginning of the story, the son is named Harry, yet for the rest of the book, he is called Charles. This change confused me quite a bit, and I had to read back to realize it must have just been a mistake or a nickname given to Charles. Also, I must say, that at the end of the book, there were several parts to the story that had not been explained, and while they were not huge parts, they still left me wanting more explanation.

So, overall, I would absolutely recommend this book as a mysterious read from the 1800s that's not going to keep you on the edge of you seat. However, it will hold your interest, which is a good quality in a book. It does has a few issues in it, but that being said, it is still a very interesting story to be read.

The Evil Guest tells the story of Sir Marston, a member of the landed gentry in decline, and the visit of his cousin, Baron Berkley. The impact of the visit and its aftermath consumes the entire novel, and, while I have read some Le Fanu before, and he is serviceable for a moody read, here he doesn't quite actualize his characters in a satisfactory manner. Marston seems to be vested with an intelligence he abuses for no good reason. His wife tiptoes on the verge of hysteria, and the French governess, de Barras, is diabolical with very slight impetus for being so; the Christian minister, Danvers, is not much of a foil for a guilty conscience.

I sense, perhaps wrongly, that Fanu was attempting a more realistic psychological study of evil and its effects on the minor nobility, and he is good at sketching profound melancholy, but melancholy alone as a symptom of moral decay cannot carry a tale by itself, the foreshadowing was weak, and the age of the text alone does not a classic make.

Nice gothic story. What more to say? I enjoyed the characters and found myself longing to see a costume drama of this book, as I was reading I was planning scenes in my head and actors for the various parts.

Modern readers may find the mystery silly or obvious or any number of things but I think it is wonderful to its genera.

Very enjoyable novella. The writing style is bleak and oppressive, striking the right tone for the story. It may be frustrating for modern readers though, as some of the details aren't spelled out clearly. Exactly what was the prior relationship between the governess and the visitor for instance. I suspect we are left to draw our own conclusions. Much is not clear until the very end (which is fine), and the writing of dialogue seems stilted at times, but over all well worth the time to read. I think I'll check out a couple more of the author's books.

The book was hard to follow. Many of the conversations and letters were not explained until the end of the story. However, it was interesting and had a good conclusion.

I never quite caught what was happening in the story. The story did hold my interest and I wanted to read the conclusion of the tale.

This is what I think the story was about: The master of the house kills the guest, the governess witnesses it and forces him to leave his wife? The master goes mad? Guess I needed it to be more spelled out.