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Showing reviews 1-5 of 222
 The Fall of the House of Ayres June 6, 2009
Gregory S. Buzwell (London)
327 out of 340 found this review helpful
To be honest I have always had a bit of a soft spot for ghost stories but even allowing for a certain bias regarding the subject matter this is without doubt a blindingly good novel. On the surface it is all so deceptively simple. A country doctor, approaching a dreary and unloved middle age, finds himself paying regular visits to the local stately pile where he encounters the once grand but now rather moth-eaten Ayres family. Soon afterwards strange and seemingly supernatural events begin to take place: the formerly placid family dog attacks a small child; strange marks appear on the walls; bells ring for no apparent reason; doors occasionally seem to lock themselves and sinister scribbles inexplicably turn up on doors and windowsills. Dr Faraday seeks, and believes he finds, a rational explanation for the strange events but the Ayres are altogether less sure.
What makes this apparently rather simple set-up so compelling is the skill with which Waters applies layer after gentle, rustling layer of doubt, paranoia and unease. Dr Faraday is, for example, a far from perfect narrator. Unimaginative, class-conscious and painfully aware that he doesn't have the 'right accent' to fit in with the grand Ayres he finds himself alternating between cloying resentment towards the family one minute and fawning servility the next. In turn the Ayres have fallen on financially ruinous times and the - from their perspective - frankly unpleasant plebian classes are literally encroaching on Ayres territory in the form of council houses being built on land skirting Hundreds Hall. Working class on the way up collides with landed gentry on the way down. The whole situation is a portrait in minature of post-war England preparing to tear itself apart. Throw in a possible romance and an unhappy event from the Ayres's recent past and you have an explosive mixture - sort of 'Rebecca' meets 'The Turn of the Screw' via Borley Rectory.
I finished reading The Little Stranger a few days ago and it hasn't settled quietly into its grave. It rustles and creaks; it casts shadows where shadows really shouldn't be and it refuses to tie itself up into a neat little bundle of comfortable conclusions. The more I think about it the more wheels within wheels within wheels I begin to see. It's beautifully elegant and it flows in the way only novels written by born story-tellers ever seem to manage; and more than anything else it creeps up on you in subtle, disturbing ways. Sarah Waters is one of our finest novelists and while this may not have the immediate shock impact of, say, Fingersmith, I think in its quiet and deceptively gentle way it is every bit as good. A beautiful novel with dark, haunted depths.
An excellent read. June 5, 2009
richteafinger (Scotland)
19 out of 22 found this review helpful
This book is beautifully written, and although I found it a little slow at first, the story is intriguing and exciting, and in the end I was up until 2am reading it three nights in a row. Many other reviews on this site have outlined the story (in exhaustive and sometimes unnecessary detail), but what you need to know if you;re thinking of buying this book is that Sarah Waters prose and story-telling are as good as ever, and when the book is not exciting or intriguing, it is at least interesting and always a pleasure to read. The characters were none of them particularly likeable, but personally i donlt have a problem with that. I love Fingersmith, and the earlier two books, but couldn't get into The Night Watch. This, however, is a welcome return to form. Buy it!
A genuinely spooky tale with wonderful period detail January 17, 2010
purplepadma (London)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Sarah Waters has in "The Little Stranger" combined her enjoyment of the Gothic with her detailed observation of 1940s Britain. It is shortly after the end of the War, and the narrator, Dr Faraday, lives alone with little to occupy him outside work other than his gloomy distrust of the looming National Health Service. He is shaken out of his rut by an unexpected house-call to the local manor house, Hundreds Hall. The Hall has mixed associations for Dr Faraday: his education has been that of a scholarship boy, and his roots are humble enough to include his mother having been in service at Hundreds prior to her marriage A childhood peep into its interior has left an indelible fascination with the house, and he is now shocked to see the state of dilapidation into which is has fallen in the intervening years. Faraday is struck by the isolation of the young master of Hundreds, Roderick Ayres, left disabled after being shot down during the War; his plain but spirited sister Caroline; and their aging mother, who maintains a delicate grace and fragility. Through attempts to help Roderick through electrical therapy, Faraday draws closer and closer to the family, and is present at party which goes badly wrong when a little girl is dreadfully bitten by Caroline's placid Labrador. It is after this incident that Faraday begins to understand that the Ayres family is beginning to believe itself to be plagued by something much more malevolent and dangerous than bad luck.
"The Little Stranger" is set at a time of massive social change, with the local gentry feeling themselves at the mercy of a Labour government hell-bent on prioritising the working class. Faraday feels the class tensions keenly; a qualified doctor, he can never return to his working class origins, but knows that he will never be fully accepted by the likes of the Ayres family. He take solace in seeing himself as a man of science, above superstition, and the novel plays on this to create ambiguity about the cause of events. Can the rapid deterioration of the family and the notions about spirits be dismissed as a kind of mass hysteria or collective family delusion? Or is something unseen and sinister at work in Hundreds Hall?
Waters has evoked the atmosphere of the huge, crumbling house perfectly, and has done an excellent job of creating period narration and dialogue. It's been a long time since I read a book which scared me, but after reading some of "The Little Stranger" late at night I felt genuinely spooked. A chilling page-turner which will stay with me for a while.
Her Full Maturity January 11, 2010
Ian M. Jones (Newton-le-Willows, England)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is the best psychological ghost story that I have read. It has the nuanced ambiguity of Henry James's Turn of the Screw, but without his mannered prose. Sarah Waters' simple, direct writing style is a delight that belies the complexity of plot and underlying thinking. I think that there is a maturity of writing here which her previous novels have foreshadowed, particularly the powerful Affinity. There are rare times when reading when you just drop into the novel; almost more like looking at a picture than reading a book. Sarah Waters achieves this more than any other contemporary writer. This book is a remarkable achievement. Don't miss it.
Masterly gothic ghost story June 7, 2009
Sarah W (North West London)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
This is a perfectly-crafted gothic ghost story: atmospheric and beautifully symmetrical, with a satisfying ending. It contains all the necessary ingredients: a crumbling country estate; intense first person narration; supernatural happenings; a touch of romance; and a sense of characters caught up in a tangled web, prey to Fate.
The plot isn't complex, the book's length is due to the detailed nature of the narrator's accounts and observations which build up layers of tension. There are subtley spun red herrings along the way but the story eventually gives up its chilling secrets, the reader's suspicions having been aroused two-thirds of the way through, but not confirmed until the very end.
(It also gives an interesting glimpse into the role and position of a family doctor, in the period immediately before the birth of the NHS.)
Showing reviews 1-5 of 222
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