[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4668: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3815) [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4670: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3815) [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4671: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3815) [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4672: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3815) Horror World • View topic - November Mourns (A Review And Comments)
In The Cellar here in Horroworld, myself and another member named Johng agreed to read two books that the other recommended and then to comment on them. I recommended November Mourns and Johng posted his review. Other comments followed.
Since I cannot move posts, I will cut and paste the review and some of the comments and I will identify the poster above them.
I will also note that Tom visited The Cellar and suggested that if we cared to, we could bring the conversation over here. So with that prompting, below is the exchange between some of us on November Mourns.
I just finished Tom Piccirilli's November Mourns the other day and my head is still filled with images of snakes, briars, deformed children, and witchy women.
The book is so loaded with atmosphere I fairly thought I caught a whiff of dusty backroads and moonshine at some points.
Shad Jenkins, imprisoned for defending his sister's honor, is visited by her ghost days before he's to be released.
Meag Jenkins was found on a road under the black hills, a place where yellow fever victims were once taken to die and where wraiths may still lurk to gnaw on the living. No cause of death could be determined. She looked like she simply went to sleep on a road that even the few non-superstitious residents of The Hollow know to avoid. The most curious aspect of the scene was the smile on her face.
The Hollow is poisoned throughout by bad moonshine. The result is deformed babies and adults whose brains simply short out. The Hollow is also cursed with superstitions making Shad's mission to discover what happened to his sister doubly difficult. On the one hand, he has to talk to witnesses who drink alchohol cooked in old radiators and on the other, people who fear the area his sister was found in and see signs and portents surrounding Shad, making the two general types to be found in The Hollow pretty unreliable to him.
To complicate matters further is the notion that Shad, possibly psychic and plauged by dreams where his dead mother and sometimes the devil together deliver prophecies that either don't come true or do and he just isn't bright enough to see it, may have a destiny tied to the hills where his sister was found; a destiny that, if understood, could help him discover the secrets of his sister's death.
As it is, Shad can scarcely do the leg work of the amateur detective he's forced to become let alone understand what plans the entity he feels thinking about him from the black hills may have for him.
The book's flaw, for me, was Shad's search for the truth. He has to play detective and thankfully for the sake of realism, doesn't do a very good job of it. Shad is frequently made to confront the fact that he doesn't know how to go about conducting an investigation, which is definitely a plus because it made me think of how I would probably botch things in his situation, thus making me sympathise all the more with Shad.
The problem is that Shad pretty much stumbles into one situation and falls into the next. He doesn't seem to have much of an impact on the story's events and seems more like a spectator than someone on a mission. He bears witness to strange happenings and listens to strange people's stories, but does little to influence things. He doesn't even really contribute to the story's climax. He's just there.
I took one of the themes of the book to be how a place can make your fate for you and trap you in it and this makes Shad's ineffectiveness in the face of things far greater than himself somewhat in keeping with that line of thinking.
But on the whole I thought it robbed the tension from the story and made it a little less involving. What kept me turning the pages was watching the freak show that is The Hollow roll by and immersing myself in Mr. Piccirilli's wonderful prose. One of my loves, reading wise, is having horribles delivered to me in beautiful prose and Tom Piccirilli has never let me down in this.
The greatest accomplishment in November Mourns is the atmosphere. The Hollow is really another world which strangely makes the supernatural goings-on that much more believable.
In a place the residents seem incapable of escaping in life, it's hard not to imagine that it might be overrun with their ghosts as well.
I was just used book shopping on amazon last night and grabbed A Lower Deep instead of November Mourns. Tom Piccirilli is one author I had kept forgetting to get into and after reading your review on November Mourns, I just might have to grab that one too.
_
I have to smile John, what you describe as a flaw was one of the very things I enjoyed about the novel. Shad was shackled to a seat in a carnaval ride and we got to expirence his terror along with him. It doesn't matter if Shad was as astute as Sam Spade or as unlucky as Phillip Marlowe, the character was written true to itself and was totally believable to me.
And for me, Atmosphere was the main character in November Mourns, not Shad. But as you mentioned, Pic's writing is so wonderful, so stunning, so descriptive, he could have approached Shad's character several different ways and we would still be mesmerized by the story simply because of Tom's excellent way with prose.
Thanks for giving it a shot John, I have a feeling that the other novel I suggested, Clive Barkers, will be much more to your liking.
I've noticed that in stories where the setting tends to be the focus of the story the main character becomes "everyman" and is reduced to a looking glass for the reader. Neil Gaiman's American Gods was like that and it wrecked what should have been a wonderful story for me.
Thankfully Tom Piccirilli avoided that trap and I found Shad Jenkins to be likeable and interesting. Still, I wish he had had a more involved role in things.
But in case my review didn't make it clear, I did find much to enjoy about the book.
And I am looking forward to the Barker book. I've been flipping through it randomely already which is a terrible habit because I might spoil a surprise, but I just can't help myself.
Last edited by ttzuma on Mon May 19, 2008 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
There were other posts that were humorous in nature which discussed reading habits and flogging by an attractive young actress that I did not post here from Horrordude, Victor, Laurel, and myself. You'll have to go to The Cellar to read those.
Thanks again Tom, I hope I'm not making a pest of myself.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum