BOOK AND PODCAST REVIEWS - FICTION

The Black Spider (1842) Jeremias Gotthelf I have a general rule that, once I have started to read a book, I must continue with it to the end before I can claim the right to comment on it. In the case of The Black Spider , I was beginning to get depressed by page 20 of this classic early nineteenth century Swiss horror novella. One fifth of the tale gone and I had been treated to a lengthy, rather dull and wholesome account of a christening feast for the child of a prosperous Swiss peasant in the first half of the nineteenth century. But Gotthelf knows what he is doing. He has set the reader up for a multi-layered morality tale that loosely bases itself on pre-modern folk interpretations of the causes of the plague. He weaves, from the security of the first section, a genuinely horrific and disturbing tale of a demonic black spider that punishes all those who have defied God and who have tried to short-circuit authority with an appeal to the Devil. The spider, a truly nasty

The Pendragon Legend (1934) Antal Szerb   Amusing and ironic inter-war Hungarian take on occult themes - post-modern well before its time - The Pendragon Legend is no masterpiece but remains very interesting with some affectionate insights on how educated others saw the British in the 1930s - their class system, their literature, their national character, their empire and their 'stiff upper lip'. Szerb has been re-introduced to London by Pushkin Press. This is recommended as a pleasant amusing read that is a cut above the conspiracy schlock that has appeared in the wake of the Da Vinci Code. It is sad to note that he died in a labour camp in 1945. The witty irony of this book shows that a man who could laugh at himself and create a nice anti-hero also died that day.