The Black House

Rating:
Summary: A fine American entry in the English ghost story tradition.
Review: English anthropologist Alfred Munday has returned to his homeland for health reasons after a decade in Uganda studying the Bwamba tribe. Frustrated by this forced change in his life, Munday finds himself unable to begin preparing his research for publication. His marriage sits on precarious ground, and he and his wife have just taken on a domestic disaster: the home they leased site-unseen--Bowood House, "the Black House" to locals--is ruinous, inhospitable, and apparently haunted. Munday's superior, intellectual airs quickly alienate the couple from their neighbors in the town of Four Ashes. Then the beautiful Caroline appears, and she initiates a torrid, reckless affair with Munday, whose old troubles are quickly exchanged for new ones.

There is a prevailing tone of despair, even damnation, to Paul Theroux's ghost story, THE BLACK HOUSE. Munday is a pathetic creature, a surly egoist unable to make or keep friends or to fill his roles as husband and scholar. He allows the trappings of his identity slowly to be stripped away until he is only a shadow of his formerly serious and professional self. He invites an African acquaintance to Four Ashes for a visit, but Munday, under the influence of this growing malaise, becomes suddenly embarrassed by the very sight of the man and abuses him at every turn. Though clearly he needs no help at it, some of his new neighbors are more than willing to aid Munday's decline: while giving a presentation at a local church about his anthropological work in Africa, a valuable and dangerous Bwamba artifact is stolen from him; the theft drives Munday to distraction, sensing that if he should ever see the object again it will not be under happy circumstances. The great irony which unfolds over the course of the novel is that this anthropologist, who considers it his vocation to make one African tribe comprehensible to the outside world, cannot himself adapt to the simple community of Four Ashes. In placing himself above small town life, Munday rejects the basic principals of social integration, thus making himself ideal prey for the mysterious Caroline.

The quality of Theroux's writing and the dark mix of psychology, intense sensuality, and metaphysical unease place THE BLACK HOUSE in the estimable company of Richard Adams' THE GIRL IN A SWING and Robert Aickman's "strange stories." This is a territory in which unexpected and inexplicable episodes drive the narrative: Munday glimpses two mutilated dogs under a tarp in a local man's garden; a woman applying for a maid's position at Bowood House leaves information leading the Mundays to the wrong address; the scorching eroticism of Caroline's surprise visits threaten to leave the Mundays' home in flames. Such incidents accumulate over the course of the novel, tempered by Theroux's cool but entrancing prose. From this grows a palpable tension that--perhaps in keeping with its nature--never actually resolves. One almost anticipates the novel's vague, indecipherable ending, a point at which Theroux compels his readers to share, for a moment, Munday's banishment to a maddening limbo.

Rating:
Summary: The Black House
Review: Quiet psychological horror, done in polished style...and so it won't appeal to fans of the gross-out (though, to be fair, there are some gruesome images; be aware that they have to do with dead dogs).

What I like about this book is the weird angle: the idea that the Black House, creepy as it is, may really only be haunted by those who come to inhabit it--in this case, tart-tongued and generally unlikeable Munday, anthropologist, sent home from his beloved Africa by a doctor who has detected Munday's heart trouble, and Munday's cloying wife, Emma. They have picked the so-called "Black House" of Dorset, sight unseen, to live in, and it is a disturbing relocation right from their arrival. Emma starts seeing apparitions, and Munday is plagued by odd dreams.

Munday does not fit in in Dorset. He sees the neighbours as gossipy, nosey clods, and their opinion of him--though they act polite with him on the surface--doesn't seem much friendlier. His wife, Emma, becomes a hermit at the Black House, more or less, but under protest; thrilled to be out of Africa, she would vastly prefer to be in London. The couple seem to make social inroads when the vicar talks Munday into giving a lecture to the locals, on his African experience--but one of the items he brings along to show off, a ceremonial dagger, is apparently stolen while the curios are being passed around the audience (only those who did not sleep through Munday's presentation would seem to be suspects, which narrows the field down considerably).

Never quite motivated to start his book project, Munday meets Caroline, mysterious beauty, who attaches herself to him at an otherwise awkward party. This encounter affects much of what happens in the rest of the book, especially since Caroline obviously has some strange tie to the Black House.

Just how haunted is the House? Or, just how haunted is Munday...by Africa, by his lack of love for Emma, by his inability to be accepted by his new community (not that he allows for much acceptance; Munday can be nasty), by his feeling of being a failure? You can sort through all the psychology and metaphor, and decide for yourself if you would move into the Black House.

Well-written, the book perhaps covers too much familiar haunted-house territory, even though, as I say, it's hard to tell just where the haunting is sprouting from. I think I worked it out.

Rating:
Summary: Really boring....
Review: This is the first book that I have read by Paul Theroux. I am generally a Stephen King reader but unfortunally my English teacher does not allow him for a book report. Anyways, I had an oral presentation to do today on The Black House, and since this book didn't catch my intrest, I only read to page 25. Come on! I was falling asleep. I still give all regards to the author but I just couldn't stand the boring lit.