I was so excited when Andi and Heather offered to host a group read for this year’s R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril event. That excitement increased significantly when they announced that The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters would be their chosen book. The Little Stranger has been cropping up on RIP lists and reviews since its release and I have repeatedly felt drawn to the book. It was great to have this extra push to finally experience it for myself.
The Little Stranger is set in postwar Britain and its focus is on the decaying great house, Hundreds Hall, and its three lone inhabitants–Mrs. Aryes and her adult children, Roderick and Caroline. The story is told by a local physician, Dr. Faraday, who is called to the house to attend to the illness of a young servant girl named Betty who shares with him her feelings that there is something scary and unnerving in Hundreds Hall. As Dr. Faraday finds himself pulled more and more into the lives of the Aryes family, the strange and unexplainable occurrences slowly increase in frequency and intensity. Is Hundreds Hall a house that is truly haunted by something evil or is there a more rational explanation to be found amongst those tasked with keeping up the responsibilities of a life that may no longer be possible in the wake of World War II?
The Little Stranger builds in a slow, satisfying manner that relies on building up tension and on things unseen rather than on things that happen out in the open. In examining the lives of the Aryes family through the eyes of Dr. Faraday we get glimpses into the way Hundreds Hall must have been at one time and the sadness of what it has become. We get to know the three Aryes residents and Dr. Faraday intimately and they are fascinating characters. In Waters’ hands the reader is pulled into the story so subtly that I cannot help but think of the boiling frog analogy–you are sucked into the home by such small degrees that you don’t realize that it, and the novel itself, has taken hold of you until it is too late. I read The Little Stranger in gulps, taking in as much as I could as quickly as I could because I just didn’t want to put it down. For most of the novel it was a beautiful, eerie, engaging experience. I was, and in some ways still am, haunted by the story.
I say ‘for the most part’ because I found the end to be a disappointment, not for what occurred so much as my feelings that the ending was more murky than it needed to be and happened more rapidly than the story called for. Sarah Waters spent so much of the novel telling a nuanced story that the ending felt like too jarring a change of pace. That ending turned what would have been a great experience into a good one for me. But as you’ll see after the jump, that seemingly simple statement is far from that simple and my own words may put my assertions to the test. I am not merely trying to play on words when I say the novel has haunted me as it truly has. It has been on my mind steadily since I closed the final page and I don’t think it is a story that will leave me any time soon.
The Little Stranger has been praised by many and if you like a good gothic novel it is one that you may want to add to your list. I suspect I will be one of the lone voices of caution amongst the group readers and that is okay. I didn’t hate the book. I didn’t even dislike it. I liked it. Up until the very end I can honestly say I was loving it. But alas that feeling did not stay with me all the way through to the final page.
What follows is a SPOILER-FILLED discussion about the book. If you don’t want to be spoiled I suggest you stop right here. You will save yourself the disappointment should you choose to read the book at some point plus you won’t be subjected to my endless rambling that follows.
You’ve been warned.
