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The Weekly Wrap: October 26-November 1

Why I’m Not a Horror Fan

I’ve made through the month of Spooktober! No twelve foot skeletons have snatched me up. Nor have I been bitten by any giant spiders. I’ve not been spirited away by any goblins hanging on trees. And I’ve not read any of the horror novels that were the subject of so many newsletter articles this month.

I’m just not into horror. That’s not a judgement on anyone else’s literary tastes. One could argue that horror makes a great escape from the scary realities of modern life. But not for me. I find that what I need is either perspective that helps me face these things or books of consolation for the precious things we are losing that I have little hope of changing.

One of the phrases that occurs over and over in my Bible is “be not afraid.” Horror functions by saying “be afraid; be very afraid.” So do conspiracy books. Every imaginary fear functions by making us believe something could be so. I’ve simply made a personal decision that I will not live by fear. That doesn’t mean I won’t reckon with danger.

Ultimately what is feared in horror is death–often in a grisly manner. I wonder whether it is good to fascinate oneself with macabre forms of death. And the beings that inhabit the beyond are usually not Caspar the Friendly Ghost. C.S. Lewis offers good guidance that we neither disbelieve in devils nor excessively focus on them. I try to follow that.

Finally, there are just so many other books I am interested in reading that what life I have left is too short a time. And in the Eternity that follows, horrors real and imagined will come to an end. Somehow, horror just doesn’t fit, for me.

Five Articles Worth Reading

But if I were to take a dip into horror, I would probably start with Stephen King. The only one of his books I have read is 11/22/63. Gilbert Cruz has written “The Essential Stephen King,” a guide to his work beginning with your interests

One of the first American masters of horror was Edgar Allen Poe. As it turns out, the most enigmatic mystery has to do with the cause of Poe’s own death. In “The Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death: 19 Theories on What Caused the Poet’s Demise,” Open Culture explores the different explanations and the evidence.

In addition to his poetry, T. S. Eliot wrote a lot of prose. Essays, printed lectures, and book reviews (lots of them). People wondered whether he really read all the books he seemed acquainted with. At very least, the reviewer of his Collected Prose, Vols. 1-4, insists that the quality of analysis confirms that he read carefully what he reviewed. “What We Can Do Is to Use Our Minds: T. S. Eliot, Collected Prose” is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of T.S. Eliot and what he gained from all that writing.

I’ve seen several reviews of Paul Kingsnorth’s Against The Machine, which contends that our modern techno-capitalism is undermining the foundations of our civilization and destroying the earth. I have the book and will be reviewing it soon. “Let ‘The West’ Die” is adapted from his book and will give you the gist of his thought.

In my early adult years, it was not uncommon to get some friends together, put on some music (usually on vinyl),” crank it up and either dance to it, or just take it in. Recently, my son brought back a vintage Tony Bennett album. Perhaps the greater gift was savoring it together. Jonathan Garrett, in “How to Make Music Popular Again,” considers what we’ve lost as music listening has become a private experience on headphones.

Quote of the Week

Novelist Evelyn Waugh was born October 28, 1903. He made this fascinating observation:

“When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.”

Have any limitations you want to keep?

Miscellaneous Musings

I lost a day to sickness on Wednesday. It was kind of weird–just profound tiredness accompanied by unsteadiness on my feet and a fever. I nearly fell asleep in my soup during lunch! Slept all afternoon into the evening, took some acetaminophen and started feeling better, and by Thursday, felt better other than feeling somewhat drained. When I was awake, I couldn’t read–nothing registered. I could handle an episode of The Chosen, a video series. That was all. It meant delaying my reviews by a day. I was in no state to write one on Wednesday for a Thursday posting. It reminded me of what a gift health is, and the amazing, even at 71, recuperative powers of our bodies.

Ironically, on the day when I missed my regular posting time, I had one of the best days of the year with traffic on the blog. Louise Penny’s and Charlie Mackesy’s new books had just dropped and it looked like people were looking up my reviews of their previous books. There’s a lesson for me here. By the way, I have both of the new books and hope to review them in November.

I wonder if there is a silver lining to cuts to the humanities and the arts, and to libraries and public media. If they can replace lost revenue with private support without becoming “beholden” to a particular interest, it seems that they would gain a new degree of freedom in our highly politicized atmosphere. We all can make a difference in our buying decisions and charitable contributions to help make that possible.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: The Month in Reviews: October 2025

Tuesday: Ian Mc Ewan, What We Can Know

Wednesday: Georges Simenon, Pietr the Latvian

Thursday: Crystal L. Downing, The Wages of Cinema

Friday: Jonathan Marks, Let’s Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case For Liberal Education

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for October 26-November 1.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Hangdog Souls, Marc Joan. London: Deixis Press, 2022.

Summary: A fugitive English soldier in southern India makes a Faustian bargain winning endless life at the cost of countless others over three centuries.

John Saunders is a fugitive English soldier in the Dravidian highlands of southern India as the British colonials are invading. He has a beautiful wife and an adorable son, who has captured the eye of the corrupt ruler with a mysterious machine in the dome of his castle complex. John is feigning that he is Portuguese and has brought seeds of eucalyptus trees that he hopes to establish in the highlands, making his fortune. As the British lay siege, he plans an escape for himself and huis family, but is found out by the ruler, who offers him a Faustian bargain, to become the “bridge” for souls, offering them a better world for their lives.

His trees are saved, and recur throughout the succeeding vignettes. But his wife and son are not. But John cannot die, even from a wound that nearly beheads him. He must live with his shame while ushering others to their fate. The story unfolds as a series of vignettes over 300 years. A priest burdened with the death of his wife Emma who encounters John. A butterfly enthusiast seeking the Black Papilio, and finding so much more. A functionary of the Sarpal Tea Company sent to the Kalisholi estates to investigate accounts ends up offering himself to a snake at a time when the local gods demand five garlands, five lives. A tourist glimpsing the mysterious woman in a blue sari, An embalmer who must create images of three gods using human corpses. A boy indentured to an uncle who immolates himself after listening to John’s story.

On it goes until three hundred years later, a Keralan particle physicist, Chandy John, involved in an experiment that has driven the previous scientist mad. Will he succumb to the burden of his own losses and griefs, having lost his wife in a tragic accident or will he break the cycle?

The book revolves around the question: What weight can balance the death of an innocent? How much grief must John bear for the grief he causes, and for how long? When will the scales be balanced? John is able to do what he does because of the griefs others bear. The appeal of escape through death, perhaps atoning for one’s guilt and shame. But the question makes us wonder if in fact whether there is any human counterweight to the death of an innocent?

I’ve seen this book classified in the horror genre. It seemed to me to have elements of horror, historical fiction, and magical realism about it. I’m not sure I know what it is. For the first hundred pages or so, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Yet as story after story unfolded, variations on a theme I found myself wondering how or whether this would all end, and drawn into the storytelling to find out.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.