What is it?
'Melmoth the Wanderer' is a Gothic novel by the Irish clergyman Charles Maturin. If you have never heard of him, don't worry - most people share your lamentable fate. Today, writers like Mary Shelley or Ann Radcliffe are much better known as representatives of the Gothic genre. A primary reason for this is probably the sheer length of Meturins magnum opus - the edition I am using is 600 pages long. The language takes time to get used to as well because Maturin loves long sentences, sprawling imagery and literary allusions.
By the way, Maturin's obscure status is a rather new development - Poe appreciated the twisted, dark worlds Maturin crafted (he possibly derived quite some inspiration from it) and Wilde, Baudelaire and Balzac all hailed Maturin's text as a masterpiece.
What is it about?
A Faustian pact is at the center of the novel. The titular Melmoth strikes a bargain with satanic forces, flinging away his soul in exchange for immortality. There is, however, a considerable drawback to eternal life. Instead of spending the ramainder of eternity binge-drinking on Hawaii, Melmoth has to tempt others into damnation. The novel consists of multiple eyewitness accounts of people who have met poor Melmoth in the course of the centuries. The reader has to piece tgogether the horrible existence the satanic protagonist leads by listening to the stories that a crazed Englishman, a Spanish monk and a girl on an Indian island tell about him. Each one glimpses him under very different circumstances and on each one of them Melmoth has a unique, terrifying effect.
Why should I spend my valuable time reading it?
'Melmoth the Wanderer' is, in many ways, a very modern book, befitting the prismatic age we all live in. The novel constantly confronts the reader with an uneasy sense of insecurity, presenting fragments which can never be fully pieced together.The reader can form an image from the various narrations but it is an incoherent, sketchy one, full of haunting gaps. There is not ONE Melmoth, instead he embodies the whole range of human terror, from the obvious paraphernalia of literary fright encountered in a dungeon to the existential despair that an innocent character feels when a world of innocent happiness is replaced with a much wiser, much more conscious and infinitely darker perspective on life.
Insecurity not only leads to fear, though, but also to an extremely interesting narrative structure that complicates every statement that is made within the novel. At one point a protagonist tells a story within another story written down by a fictional writer whose story is in turn narrated by another protagonist. Confused yet? You should be. These metanarrative trappings draw the reader deeper and deeper into a textual world in which every story of woe ultimately leads back to the ever-changing tempter, Melmoth himself in all his pitch black facets.
What doesn't work so well?
It is quite obvious that Maturin is more interested in ideas than characters - dialogues are mostly anti-naturalistic and the plot twists are at times hilariously far-fetched . Sometimes Maturin's zeal for metaphors also goes overboard and they all become a bit overgrandiose, thundering along until the effect is a little muted.
Any last words?
"Melmoth the Wanderer" is a dark, bitter at times surprisingly humorous story that will terrify and entertain you while at the same time confronting you with questions like the nature of narration, the use of religion and the meaning of evil. It is long, it is complicated but it is also very rewarding and altogether a bloody good read.
'Melmoth the Wanderer' is a Gothic novel by the Irish clergyman Charles Maturin. If you have never heard of him, don't worry - most people share your lamentable fate. Today, writers like Mary Shelley or Ann Radcliffe are much better known as representatives of the Gothic genre. A primary reason for this is probably the sheer length of Meturins magnum opus - the edition I am using is 600 pages long. The language takes time to get used to as well because Maturin loves long sentences, sprawling imagery and literary allusions.
By the way, Maturin's obscure status is a rather new development - Poe appreciated the twisted, dark worlds Maturin crafted (he possibly derived quite some inspiration from it) and Wilde, Baudelaire and Balzac all hailed Maturin's text as a masterpiece.
What is it about?
A Faustian pact is at the center of the novel. The titular Melmoth strikes a bargain with satanic forces, flinging away his soul in exchange for immortality. There is, however, a considerable drawback to eternal life. Instead of spending the ramainder of eternity binge-drinking on Hawaii, Melmoth has to tempt others into damnation. The novel consists of multiple eyewitness accounts of people who have met poor Melmoth in the course of the centuries. The reader has to piece tgogether the horrible existence the satanic protagonist leads by listening to the stories that a crazed Englishman, a Spanish monk and a girl on an Indian island tell about him. Each one glimpses him under very different circumstances and on each one of them Melmoth has a unique, terrifying effect.
Why should I spend my valuable time reading it?
'Melmoth the Wanderer' is, in many ways, a very modern book, befitting the prismatic age we all live in. The novel constantly confronts the reader with an uneasy sense of insecurity, presenting fragments which can never be fully pieced together.The reader can form an image from the various narrations but it is an incoherent, sketchy one, full of haunting gaps. There is not ONE Melmoth, instead he embodies the whole range of human terror, from the obvious paraphernalia of literary fright encountered in a dungeon to the existential despair that an innocent character feels when a world of innocent happiness is replaced with a much wiser, much more conscious and infinitely darker perspective on life.
Insecurity not only leads to fear, though, but also to an extremely interesting narrative structure that complicates every statement that is made within the novel. At one point a protagonist tells a story within another story written down by a fictional writer whose story is in turn narrated by another protagonist. Confused yet? You should be. These metanarrative trappings draw the reader deeper and deeper into a textual world in which every story of woe ultimately leads back to the ever-changing tempter, Melmoth himself in all his pitch black facets.
What doesn't work so well?
It is quite obvious that Maturin is more interested in ideas than characters - dialogues are mostly anti-naturalistic and the plot twists are at times hilariously far-fetched . Sometimes Maturin's zeal for metaphors also goes overboard and they all become a bit overgrandiose, thundering along until the effect is a little muted.
Any last words?
"Melmoth the Wanderer" is a dark, bitter at times surprisingly humorous story that will terrify and entertain you while at the same time confronting you with questions like the nature of narration, the use of religion and the meaning of evil. It is long, it is complicated but it is also very rewarding and altogether a bloody good read.
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