The Haunted Hotel – Wilkie Collins

I really wanted to be scared. I really really wanted to be scared. I wasn’t scared… What is wrong with me? The story has everything you could ever ask from horror fiction: ghosts, gore, alchemy, secret compartments, insanity, fraud, (potential) incest… And yet nothing! The disappointment…

The story follows primarily a young lady (or middle-aged by Collins’ harsh standards, she was about thirty for crying out loud!), Agnes, who was jilted by her much older fiancé, Lord Montbarry. He goes on to marry another lady, Countess Narona, and they go travelling, taking a courier and a maid with them. They end up in a decaying palace in Venice where they live as hermits after being joined by Narona’s suspicious brother (I imagine him with a mustache but feel free to have him clean-shaven...). Then suddenly the maid quits, the courier disappears and Lord Montbarry dies. A year later the decaying house is transformed into a luxurious hotel and is visited by Lord Montbarry’s family and Agnes… Let the ghost story begin!

Agnes is by far one of the most irritating literary characters I have encountered. She is so good and sweet and everyone loves her and so on. She is little miss perfect… Sooo annoying… And the Countess is just evil and crazy… Hmmm… In terms of plot this story really does have everything you could imagine. Short of a trip to a mental institution, there is little a novel in the 1860’s could include to be scarier. And yet the actual horror part was about 10% of the story, the rest was just there to make the horror part make sense. Mind you, I suppose the actual scary parts might have been considered too scary for the time they were published. I suppose the biggest issue is that in a way I belong to the X-files generation where if you don’t have to sleep with the lights on then it’s not horror. Maybe I’m completely desensitised when it comes to horror. On the other hand I do remember reading Dracula a few years back and feeling scared out of my wits so maybe The Haunted Hotel just wasn’t for me.

In its defence it was a very easy and pleasant read. The truth is if one is trying their luck with Wilkie Collins for the first time, it’s a much faster read than, say, The Woman in White that goes on and on and on. And on. Now as to whether I liked it or not, I think the answer is I didn’t mind it but it wouldn’t go as far as liking it. I certainly didn’t dislike it but that’s as far as it goes…

Enjoyed it: Not bothered…

Read again: If there is absolutely nothing else to read and I’m cut off from civilisation.

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