"Lovers Living, Lovers Dead" and "Dust" sound interesting - 2
others to add to my shopping list.
Pam, I was amused to see you mention Emile Zola's "Therese
Raquin" as 'horror', though this actually makes sense. It's just
that here in France, Zola is considered a classic,
"naturalistic" author. Unlike other french writers from the late
1800s like Maupassant, Zola very seldomly delved into fantasy
(though I guess you could make a case for "La Faute de l'Abbe
Mouret" and "Le Reve" - sorry, don't know how those titles might
have been translated.)
However in the case of "Therese Raquin" (one of his weakest
books IMO) it is true the novel belongs more the psychological
horror category than to the naturalist. The murder is
particulary gruesome, but you expect that from Zola. (In the
'social' novel "Germinal", a tyrannical grocer is lynched and
castrated by a horde of starved coalminers wives. I kid you not.
Zola was my favorite writer as a teenager but I don't think he
ever met a top he didn't go over.)
Anyway to get back to "Therese Raquin", I guess you could call
it a ghost story where the haunted do their own haunting. Read
it more than 20 years ago but still remember a particulary
suspensful scene when Therese's paralysed mother-in-law suddenly
finds the strength to move her fingers and publicly denounce the
murderers in writing - and it becomes a race between her fingers
and the paralysis taking over again. As for the ending, it's
horror worthy of some of the japanese classics.
"Therese Raquin" was adapted several times for the stage - the
first of those most infamously by Zola itself. It ran I think
for exactly one performance. The premiere was so booed, the
audience shouted "Not the author!"
More succesful was the movie directed by Marcel Carne (I think)
starring Simone Signoret and Raf Vallone. Set in the 50s, it
borrows only the premise from the book to build a subtle and
powerful drama about guilt. No horror to be found here but a
psychological suspense masterpiece worthy of Hitchcock.
One of the few examples of a movie rising way above its original
material. I think a remake is in the works but I doubt it will
ever equal this one.
NB: in her excellent volume of memoirs "Nostalgia isn't what it
used to be" Simone Signoret tells a rather funny anecdote about
what drove her to do "Therese Raquin", but we'd be really
getting off the subject :-)
Pat
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