19.6.17

"Ghost Story" by Peter Straub


Shirley Jackson was such a discovery that - in the heat of the moment - I thought that perhaps I should invest more time in genre of horror, because frankly my dear, I actually don't know anybody besides Stephen King and Anne Rice anyway. As noted previously, I like to read about authors and their work, but than I find myself busy with something else and it takes forever to actually select the next title - with more than 1 500 books on my Kindle, it is not a joke, it's a commitment. So, knowing King, Rice and now Shirley Jackson, I said to myself let's check this guy Peter Straub who is actually vaguely familiar as he collaborated with Stephen King on "Black House"  that I remember reading long ago. 

A hard nut to crack, "Ghost Story" might initially appear difficult, inaccessible and complicated because Straub takes his sweet time to set the stage. Where S.King grabs you from the very first page and never lets go, Straub apparently delights in describing every single person, animal, tree and a car that ever crossed little town of Milburn, without much concern would this actually appeal to his readers. It is all well planned, conducted and imagined - there is a dazzling display of technical craftsmanship in sense that he shows off with different perspectives and points of view, sometimes in dizzying succession, until you come to expect that perhaps even the fly on the wall might have chapter with a story told from its own perspective. Peter Straub obviously loves his voice, he goes on and on while at several points I started wondering are all this trivial dialogues and mundane dinner conversations really important and will anything ever start happening in this darn book. 


It does - the story actually picks up around third part ("The Coon Hunt") of the novel and at this point you either already gave up in frustration or you were hooked. I have persevered with real difficulties because every now and than the story became so meandering and convoluted (not to mention thousand and one character, whose names I simply couldn't remember anymore) that the novel knocked me off to sleep. Seriously, instead of keeping me awake trough the night, horror novel titled "Ghost story" actually made me yawning. It doesn't matter if your tired eyes skip half of the page, because, you know, good people of Milburn are still talking about feeling very strange and everything is so foreboding but chapter after chapter nothing is happening. Until third part  where now I found myself and it's too late to stop anyway, now everybody seems to start realising that evil has descendent on Milburn and Straub kind of feels obliged to finally unravel all these puzzles. I see where similarities with S.King came from - they are kind of on similar wave length but King is straight shooter who knows how to get your attention, while Straub revel in weaving, plotting and descriptions. Normally I have no problems whatsoever with writers who take their time, as long as they have interesting or original style but Straub really tests my patience and at this point I am not so sure that I like or even appreciate his style at all. Yes, the story finally started cooking but its kind of too late now, I still feel bitterness and frustration that it took me two thirds of the book for something finally starting to happen. 

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