Rating: 
Summary: HORROR? NO...HORRIBLE
Review: MAYBE IT'LL MAKE A GOOD MOVIE. IT SURE DOESN'T MAKE FOR A GOOD READ. H.P. LOVECRAFT, THIS GUY AIN'T.
Rating: 
Summary: THE TITLE SAYS IT ALL
Review: Mr. Searcy is an expert at using the mundane and commonalities of everyday life - the routine appearance of the garbage truck, the predictably erratic flights of grackles, the drone of the neighbor's TV set - to paint a multi-sensory anxiety ridden landscape of horror. He is a master at letting the reader sneak a glimpse into the parallel worlds of the main characters reactions to his outward reality and his inner thoughts. Every sentence is a labor of love for in each is a list of connotative and ironic understandings which can cause the reader to read and reread each sentence in an attempt to experience each level of meaning. For example: "For a day or so following the grackle invasion he's startled by an occasional death rattle in the house-once in the middle of the night, a furious buzzing and thrashing about right under his bed that unnerves him strangely, sets his heart racing all night as if something were concentrated in the incident, even in the silliness of it." Ordinary Horror is wonderful in its ability to disturb the reader. Searcy has proved that he is not an ordinary author.
Rating: 
Summary: Propitious Prose
Review: Ordinary Horror concerns the apprehensions, delusions and events experienced by a reclusive widower in suburbia. While not in the style of Marcel Proust, David Searcy's detailed, sensorial descriptions of Mr. Delabano's private world would have surely met Monsieur P's approval. Disturbingly, one's own sense of awareness is made to feel inadequate compared to those of the protagonist and the author. An easy five.
Rating: 
Summary: Elegant but boring
Review: Ordinary Horror is a very cleverly written, cerebral suspense novel, in that it provides everyday occurrences and arranges them in a startling montage. The novel has a distinctly Dostoevskyan flavor: no details are excluded, leaving the reader to wonder which details are pertinent to the story, and which aren't. However, while a the inclusion of details makes for verisimilitude absolutely required by a storyline that is *exclusively* propelled by its very real, bleak quality, it unfotunately makes the story rather devoid of plot. And while Searcy's prose is gorgeous, the "story" takes a turn for the worse; the clever reader, realizing the tale is on a fleet-footed journey to Nowhere, loses interest. The book becomes irrevocably boring midway through. Certain characters compensate for dullness, but their welcome is also short-lived. We are briefly enchanted by a young girl named Janie, and intrigued by 70-year old Frank Delabano's sexually charged, albeit mundane, encounters with some women in the neighborhood, but alas, it is too little too late, and we are unconcerned with any of the characters' well-being or motives.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book!
Review: Searcy's book is by far one of the best books I have ever read. The text captures you from the beginning. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Trying to Out-Campbell Ramsey
Review: Seems to me the other reviewers missed the obvious - this author is slavishly imitating Ramsey Campbell's style. I always find Campbell's books irritating to read, but I always read them anyway, because through the irritating vagueness and excess verbiage comes an excellent horror story.
Obviously this novel doesn't deliver the horror story, although it sets you up for several excellent horror stories. What is the secret in the green leather Amazonian book? What about the 'very bad dog' that both Mr. Delabano and his disturbed little neighbor sense (and at one point, smell)? And the mysterious blue pointy roses?
Although the novel is set in some Great Plains state of America, its language is so Campbell-esque that it always feels British all through. 'Cold spatter of rain' - a direct quote from Ramsey.
The first sentence is so wonderful. I might read another book by this person, although I don't really consider someone deliberately yanking my chain to be the definition of 'high art' as so many reviewers apparently do.
Rating:
Summary: Henry James on Dope
Review: The first few chapters of "Ordinary Horror" suggest a subtle, encroaching darkness. Entirely through metaphor and simile, Searcy creates, at this early point, a rich atmosphere that is so detailed and delicate, it seems about to snap. The problem is that this atmosphere continues, and continues and continues. It goes on and on and on. I could repeat and repeat and repeat in this review to give you a sense of just how maddening it is to read detail upon detail in this book with, after 150 pages, no palpable, page-turning sense of increasing dread. But I won't. Midway through the book, readers will have had so much detail heaped upon them that the only thing about to snap, to crash, to fall, will be the readers themselves. Searcy's incredible detail in the book links readers, at first, with a mind that is painfully (and, yes, horrifically) sensitive. But the real horror here is for the reader. Plot-happy or not, few readers will be able to extricate themselves from the narrative mire. Searcy's frustrating overuse of similes verges on the absurd: everything in this book is "like" or "as" something else--EVERYTHING. We think the menace in the book will grow so palpable it will cause everything to collapse, but the style here overwhelms the purpose. The story itself collapses under the weight of detail. What we are left with is a book that wallows in repetitive structures--every chapter is a separate voyage into incoherency. Reading the book is like listening to an entire album of slow, verse-chorus-verse songs. Midway through, you feel yourself about to be lulled to sleep, or to maunder around your living room in time to the beat.
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes I wish it would leave me alone.
Review: The singular effect that this book has on me, is the knowledge of the fact that it still disturbs me if I merely look over my shoulder and see it sitting on my bookshelf. There is very little I remember about it specifically (I read it a couple months ago, and as one may have gleaned by now, very little actually happens), only some images and concepts resurface as if from a half remembered dream. That may seem a little overwrought, but perhaps not, considering the quality of this book. The reason it had such an effect on me, as subtle as it is, is that it woke me up to the idea that in the right frame of mind, under the right circumstances, contemplation of a mundane detail in my surroundings can cause an almost unbearable sense of tension and, in a way, horror (This is why, one of my favorite stories by Poe, "Berenice" is also effective). And then I try to imagine this effect amplified through the years as I age, and become alone, with nothing to do in the world but think and try not to go insane. And the very fact of the book itself. Sitting there. On my shelf. With all the others.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful literary horror
Review: The wildly divergent reviews of this author's work make one thing very clear: This is high quality writing which doesn't leave anybody unaffected. Literary horror is a very different beast than "regular" horror writing. This book isn't meant to be a fast-paced thriller in the Stephen King tradition. It isn't meant to be read at a breakneck pace. Readers who come to it expecting that will likely be disappointed (thus the negative reviews), but those who read with open minds will find new levels of horror and lovely, provocative writing. This book is evocative, elegant, contemplative, and does a wonderful job of pointing out the menacing aspects of mundane suburban life--the things most people don't notice, but which suddenly take on scary aspects when viewed more closely. What do we really know about our world? Are we sure about that? One small misstep, taken for innocent reasons, might just set off a chain of slowly building, innocuous-seeming events which lead to eventual destruction. Once that chain of events takes hold, how long will it take for others to notice? This isn't a horror story to wash over us while we sit idle. It's one with which we must engage and participate. Give this book a chance. Stretch your own thinking, and you'll be rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful literary horror
Review: The wildly divergent reviews of this author's work make one thing very clear: This is high quality writing which doesn't leave anybody unaffected. Literary horror is a very different beast than "regular" horror writing. This book isn't meant to be a fast-paced thriller in the Stephen King tradition. It isn't meant to be read at a breakneck pace. Readers who come to it expecting that will likely be disappointed (thus the negative reviews), but those who read with open minds will find new levels of horror and lovely, provocative writing. This book is evocative, elegant, contemplative, and does a wonderful job of pointing out the menacing aspects of mundane suburban life--the things most people don't notice, but which suddenly take on scary aspects when viewed more closely. What do we really know about our world? Are we sure about that? One small misstep, taken for innocent reasons, might just set off a chain of slowly building, innocuous-seeming events which lead to eventual destruction. Once that chain of events takes hold, how long will it take for others to notice? This isn't a horror story to wash over us while we sit idle. It's one with which we must engage and participate. Give this book a chance. Stretch your own thinking, and you'll be rewarded.
|
