The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
I’m all for a good mystery. Throw in a little bit of the supernatural and I’m even happier to settle down with a book for an entire afternoon. But, heck, when you throw in a complicated protagonist, it’s a hat trick, and I’m yours for the entire length of time it’ll take me to read the book.
In the case of Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger, that’s a good long time. Her language is slow and careful, like she’s taken a lot of care parsing out every word she uses, trying it out on herself, out loud and on the page, before she puts it into print. I felt, by turn, compelled to give her a lot of time, paying close attention to her careful detailing of the house around which this ghost story takes place.
Dr. Farraday’s mother was a nanny in Hundreds Hall before she left to start her own family, and that’s his only tie to the rambling old estate until he gets sent out on a call to look after the family’s one remaining live-in maid.
He finds himself immediately drawn into the family, partially owing to his previous connection and partially owing to his current connection, and the book reveals itself not only as a ghost story, but also as an interesting exploration on the relationships between classes in post-war England.
The jacket to this book calls its events “horrifying.” I was expecting things to jump out at me, things that would make me shriek, but this book doesn’t operate that way. You’re told from the very beginning that the house itself is going to figure prominently (its owners refer to it as being “greedy”) but from there, the slide downwards is an insidious thing, creeping about as slowly–and as steadily–as the crumbling of the house itself.
There are some questions that go unanswered in this book, some loose ends that need tying up, but the story moves along pretty quickly, and well, fueled by several parallel story lines that keep you interested in the protagonist. Waters makes fine use of her characters, using them to tell the story even when the protagonist isn’t around, and the period feel of this book makes it OK for her to do so.
There’s a big question at the end of this book for me, and it brings to mind some of the other-worldly feel of a book like The Alchemist, or, more accurately, like the Hound of the Baskervilles, where you just don’t know what’s reality and what isn’t until you get to a very specific point in the book, and Waters leaves the question unanswered.
For the most part, I’m okay with this. There’s some question about the paranormal and where that melds with science, and given that the main character is a doctor, it’s a touch that only adds to the overall creepiness of this book.
Dr. Farraday himself isn’t the most likable person on this planet–but his personality fits very well with the house and its ruined inhabitants, and he’s a fine contrast to the people who live there. Even the awkward silences that inevitably take place between a man of his station and the moneyed inhabitants of Hundreds Hall move the story forward, and I was interested to see that, as the house gradually increased its hold over its owners and they changed, so did my opinions of Dr. Farraday.
Waters has created a really dynamic book. It’s worth a read, even if its jacket says it’s just a book about a haunted house.
