It was a dark and stormy night…
… when a cat-like humanoid rocked up to the vampiric Countess’ castle to slay her. Yup, that old chestnut! But who is the predator and who is the prey?
Emily Carroll’s When I Arrived at the Castle is a disappointingly weak and unmemorable lesbian/horror fairy tale, the kind of book I imagine Angela Carter would’ve produced if she’d made comics. Carroll mashes together elements of Dracula, Bluebeard and Beauty and the Beast into a barely coherent, rambling story whose obliqueness leaves very little impression behind.
Carroll’s art is utterly beautiful though. The splash-pages are intricate and imaginative dreamscapes gorgeously coloured in striking blacks, whites and reds and I loved the highly stylized, baroque designs of the castle. Her take on the Countess is interesting and the character was genuinely creepy with some actually shocking scenes (the keyhole!).
Visually this is an appealing book but the dreamlike story is much less compelling to read. And, like a dream (or nightmare), not long after reading When I Arrived at the Castle I’d already forgotten most of it and moved on! If you’ve not read it I recommend Emily Carroll’s other, much better book, Through the Woods, instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment