The Little Stranger Reviewed by Zhaoxin Sun

The Little Stranger is a gothic novel by Sarah Waters. The story is set in the collapsing mansion of the Ayres family. The book starts off harmless enough but develops into a ghost story (the s p o o k).

Honestly, I was not that impressed by the plot. There was very little tension and suspense compared to books like Harry Potter, and while the plot twists weren’t quite predictable, they weren’t earth-shattering either. I felt throughout reading that I could put the book down and go eat a snack. The transition from normalcy to madness was well executed because the dread gradually creeps and ramps up, but some parts felt slow and a little tedious. Granted, this may be because of my state of mind while reading. Because I read this while my brain was still addicted to the dopamine rushes from Youtube and other fast-paced apps, my criticism of the pace may be because of my brain in overdrive. I am currently re-reading to verify.

While the book was underwhelming in plot, the language was very fascinating to me. Although I’m sure many other old books adopt the same tone, reading a style of writing I never saw before was still surprising. The narrator was extremely sensitive to verbal and nonverbal cues in a descriptive and thoughtful way. His speech shifted around from self-deprecating to reflective; it was almost like the narrator was thinking his thoughts and mocking them at the same time. The author’s way of writing his speech gave me a good idea on his character and how his mind worked, and described the setting in a vivid yet natural way.

Without giving anything away, here are a few lines from the book:

“… The weathered sandstone edging. They made it look blurred and slightly uncertain—like an ice, I thought, just beginning to melt in the sun” (Waters 1).

“The experience can leave one drained, but also oddly wakeful and edgy, and now my mind, with nothing to anchor it, began to run over the details of the past few hours like a film on a loop” (Waters 483).

         When the narrator described the sandstone, I immediately got a hazy and mysterious “vibe” instead of the typical grand academic atmosphere most books describe with sandstone. In the second quote, instead of saying something like “I was so tired, but still clear minded for some reason. I drifted off to sleep still thinking about what just happened,” Waters writes that the doctor felt “oddly wakeful” and that his mind was unanchored. The author avoided cheesiness and cliché, and added an introspective film over the narrator’s observations.

         If you’re just looking for a quick spook, I think you’d have a better shot with something by Poe. That said, I would highly recommend The Little Stranger for a model of musing and contemplative writing. It might be interesting to observe how the author indirectly describes things for a more natural and thought-provoking tone. 

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

 

My friend has recommended the books by Terry Pratchett to me many times in the past few years, and for some reason I never got to reading them. A few weeks ago, I was just looking for a new book when she suggested I read Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett. I decided to read it, and I am glad I did.

Wyrd Sisters is set in Discworld, a magical world on the backs of four giant elephants standing on a turtle. The main characters of the book are three witches named Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick that form a coven together. The plot starts when the king dies and his baby son is left with the three witches. They give the baby away and plan to continue their normal lives. However, neither the witches nor the kingdom itself like the new king, and the witches decide to break their rule of not meddling.

I really liked the characters in the book. There are many different characters, and the book gives the perspective of each of them. I thought the characters were stereotypical in some ways but there was at least one attribute that each character had that did not fit the stereotype. I really liked this because I thought that the ways in which the characters were stereotypical made the story seem like a classic fairy tale while the ways in which they were not kept the story unique and interesting. One example of how the characters were both stereotypical and not stereotypical was the witch Nanny Ogg. When you think of a witch, you might imagine an old woman in a pointed hat bent over a cauldron with a cat at her feet. Like the witch you might imagine, Nanny Ogg wears a pointed hat and owns a cauldron and a cat and a broomstick. However Nanny Ogg also lives in a regular looking house and she has many children that often visit her, which might not be characteristics of witches that typically come to mind. Another example of such a character is the duke’s fool. The fool looks, dresses, and behaves like a stereotypical castle fool, from the bells on his clothes to the way he speaks, yet he is not as happy as he might seem and longs to do something other than be a fool for the rest of his life.

In addition to the interesting way each character behaved, there were also many different types of characters. While the focus of the book was on the three witches Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax, and Magrat Garlick, many other characters are introduced and narrate the book for a short section. As a result, I knew what each person was thinking which gave me a better understanding of the plot. It also helped me get a sense of the land the book is set in. It was a magical land that I knew nothing about before reading the book, so getting a sense of what type of people lived there and how they acted made the land come to life in my imagination. There was a wide variety of characters in the book, from the dwarf Hwel that writes plays to the dead former king to a storm that longs to impress the world. Each character is related to the main plot in different ways and amounts. Some of the characters just add little details to the plot but I still thought they offered a new entertaining point of view. Even though the storm was only mentioned on a few pages, it was one of my favorite characters. 

Another detail I really liked about the book was the use of asterisks. The book had many asterisks with extra details explaining background about the world to clarify points that were mentioned. I really liked this because I thought it was an interesting way to add information without disrupting the plot of the story too much.

Overall I really liked the characters in the book and the style of the book and I would recommend Wyrd Sisters.