22. Beautiful Darkness

By Fabien Vehlmann & Kerascoët. Translated from the French by Helge Dascher.

Drawn & Quarterly had a Black Friday sale of their books (the second book was half off).  I found two graphic novels: Are You Willing to Die for the Cause? Revolution in 1960s Quebec and Beautiful Darkness, with the intention of respectively giving them to Olman and my daughter for Christmas. 

 

Beautiful Darkness seemed like it'd be suitable for older kids.  The illustrations were so beautiful and dreamy.  I should have read through it first, but even so, I think my 11 yo daughter would’ve been able to handle the content.  For Christmas, she had requested new clothes for the first time and not a single toy (except for Nintendo games, obvs), so this book was one of the few non-clothing items I got her. 

 

She began reading it shortly after Christmas and at some point, reproached me with something to the effect of, “Mommy, I can’t believe you got this book for me!  It’s so disturbing!”    

It turned out that the main fairy girl ends up gouging the eyes out of a mouse!  She told me that she wasn't going to read any more and handed the book back to me!

Well, I admit I felt a bit bad for not pre-reading Beautiful Darkness before giving it to the kid.  When I flipped through it, I say pages like the one to the right 👉.  I did feel she was old enough to handle some unexpected violence portrayed in comics (as long as it’s not gratuitous nor sexual), but I understand that animal cruelty is hard to stomach.   

Earlier this month, I had taken my daughter to see Ellisapie live in concert and the venue (Usine C) was located in a dodgy area of downtown Montreal.  It was sketchy enough that, as we were leaving, my husband cautioned us to stay alert.  Even though we both believe in exposing our kid to the rougher parts of the city, we won't hesitate to exercise  precautions in case of the unexpected.

 

When the concert ended around 10pm, we walked back to the metro station on Ste-Catherine East.  There was an ambulance parked by the entrance and as we approached the stairs, an old homeless-looking man was being carried away in a gurney by EMTs, his head wrapped in several layers of white gauze with a visible bloody spot seeping through the bandages.  As we passed them going down the other side of the stairs, we encountered the bright pool of blood where he fell on the muddy steps.  We didn’t stop to gawk, though we may have slowed a little to take in the unexpected scene.  When we reached the bottom, I saw that my daughter looked a little stunned, and I asked if she was ok.  She nodded and I reassured her that the man was getting the help he needed and that he should be ok.  That was the most exciting incident during our one night in the downtown east side!

 

So yeah, even though it wasn’t great that my daughter encountered some violence in a graphic fairy tale, I knew she wasn’t going to be too traumatized by it!

 

                                                                   When I finally read Beautiful Darkness myself, I was absolutely entranced by this wonderfully subversive fairy tale and the dark, horrifying evil lurking beneath the gorgeously illustrated surface.  The aesthetics and content was right in my wheelhouse!  Beautiful Darkness has been described as "Thumbelina meets Lord of the Flies" and an anti-fairy tale.  Somehow I missed this when I initially flipped through the pages, but in the prologue, there were little people having tea inside the decomposing body of a young girl deep in the forest.  Setting a very creepy tone, it did.

 

I recently rewatched The Mist (2007) and thought how very similar it was to Beautiful Darkness (2009). Both Zelie and Mrs Carmody embodied the narcissistic psychopath who preys on the weaknesses of their followers and delights in inflicting pain upon the innocent.  Zelie’s unchecked bullying finally sent the sweet and trusting Aurora into a terrifying rage and her dear mouse friend suffered because he had betrayed her.  This was the horrible act of violence that upset my daughter so much.  

 

Like The Mist, Beautiful Darkness made me question, who are the real monsters?  Are they the strange beasts outside our door, or have they always been lurking inside every one of us, needing only a trigger or two to unleash the beast within?  What is more horrifying?  The faceless man who may have murdered the young girl?  Or Zelie, the beautiful yet sadistic fairy who plucks butterfly wings for her dress and buries misfits alive for fun?  Or the followers, who represent the moral abyss devoid of empathy and reasoning?  Perhaps the real tragedy is Aurora, who once radiated light and hope, has now finally succumbed to the darkness.

 

 

      

21. A Visit

By Shirley Jackson

First published as "The Lovely House" in 1950 and later reprinted  under the title "A Visit."  While a short story, Biblioasis reprinted it as a cute little book that's part of a series known as, A Ghost Story for Christmas, all of them designed and illustrated by Seth.  It's an attempt to revive a Victorian tradition of reading ghost stories on Christmas Eve.

So this technically counts as a book, right? I might as well end the year with a holiday book, though the actual story doesn't have anything to do with Christmas, nor winter, for that matter.

Margaret is invited to stay at her friend's estate for the summer holidays.  Carla and her parents, Mr and Mrs Rhodes, seem normal and welcoming enough, though Margaret is clearly not from money, but this difference is barely mentioned.  The house is filled with beautiful tapestries with at least one in every room, all embroidered by Carla's mother and the past generations of Rhodes women who have lived in that house.

Carla keeps talking wistfully and/or excitedly about her brother's impending visit, and he finally arrives one day with a friend.  Carla's brother is known only as "the captain", while Margaret finds it peculiar that no one calls the captain's friend by his name, so she asks him and he tells her that his name is Paul.  Margaret also later discovers an old eccentric aunt who keeps to herself (and her cat) high up in the tower.  There are hints that one or more of the characters are merely an apparition as the story goes on.  

The story is very sparsely written, and yet, even though every word is accounted for, it's what's left out that evokes a feeling of oddness and mystery, as befits a Jackson narrative.  But I wouldn't say that "A Visit" was very creepy nor unsettling, not at all like Jackson's other stories.  However, what I found most odd was that in the book, Carla's family name is Rhodes, while the Wikipedia keeps calling Carla's family as the Montagues.