Xelucha

by M.P. Shiel

Matthew Phipps Shiell, also known as M. P. Shiel, was a prolific British writer of West Indian descent. His legal surname remained "Shiell" though he adopted the shorter version as a de facto pen name. He is remembered mostly for supernatural and scientific romances. His work was published as serials, novels, and as short stories. The Purple Cloud (1901; 1929) remains his most famous and often reprinted novel.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Audiobook, Fiction, Gothic

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1896

About the author

Matthew Phipps Shiel was a prolific British writer of West Indian descent. His legal surname remained "Shiell" though he adopted the shorter version as a de facto pen name.

He is remembered mostly for supernatural and scientific romances. His work was published as serials, novels, and as short stories. The Purple Cloud (1901; 1929) remains his most famous and often reprinted novel.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like what I can follow of the plot, but the dialogue is ridiculously pretentious and the prose so flowery that I need a machete to get through it.

[Michael Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a dense little story. I am going to have to re-read it a few times before I think I’ll be confident I have a solid understanding of it, but I found the dense prose and themes of a Thanatos-obsessive nature to be quite well-done.

[Alexis · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, I'm sad to admit for maybe the first time ever that I really did not get this book at all! Maybe it's just me but this was not an enjoyable one.

I listened to this as an audio book, on The Classic Tales podcast narrated by B.J. Harrison. There was nothing wrong with the narration at all, but I do question whether I found this harder to follow because I listened to it rather than read it. I had to listen to this 4 times before I felt like I fully understood what it was about, and I don't consider myself to be stupid.

I think the story is a little pointless, as the writing is so meandering in its descriptions it gets a little bit lost. It was labelled as a ghost story but I think it is better identified as classical literature, as it's about the Roman era and the story is more about that rather than being predominantly a ghost story. The plot and characters were both pretty thin and I think this is more about the language, so I just didn't enjoy it at all.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sadly as I was listening to this rather than physically reading it, I found it very difficult to cut through the flowery dialogue. If I find it in print I might try again, but as it stands this one is a DNF for me.

[Rebecca Heywood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was worried I wouldn’t understand what was going on based on previous reviews. But, once I started listening to it, I realized I already kind of know the storyline from other myths and stories I’ve heard. I think it was a nice short horror story.

[Gina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just couldn’t finish. Too dense & didn’t grab me.

[Maddy]

i feel like counting this as “read” is a lie, because i didnt understand a fecking word of it.

[Zen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this story! It's wierd, wild, eerie and poetic.

I put my headphones on, took a quiet, casual walk, and just let it flow through me, mind and heart,.

I understand some reviewers found it dense and tangential at times and thus did not find it entertaining

Fortunately for me, this kind of thing is right in my wheelhouse. Not only have I read a lot of wild and exotic stuff, but my education has touched on, and delved into many mystical and ancient myths and beliefs of many cultures and philosophies. Both real, unreal, or forgotten.

Therefore I was able to just listen, and enjoy the flow of words and ideas as they flowed past me. Admittedly, there were a few I did not understand, but it did not matter. Thinking myself to be in a drunken, melancholic fever dream, I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

After all, not everything in life needs to have a reason or has to be explained.

Recommended, if you are feeling transcendent.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this short story via the Classic Tales podcast. The narration as always was excellent. This story even though it is labeled as a horror story was not very scary. It was very slow paced and strongly emphasized the concept of death. Much of the story took place graveyard/tomb. Glad this story was short as otherwise I would have DNF’d this story.

[Eleonora Carta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Xélucha è una delle donne misteriose e conturbanti che incontriamo in quasi tutti i racconti di Shiel. Presenze inquietanti che rivelano tra le pagine la loro reale natura. Un po' verboso e ricco di citazioni, ma con momenti di sano orrore soprannaturale.

[Sourav · Rating 2 out of 5]

Contains complex phrases and absurd use of metaphorical speech. So much so that I was most often lost trying to figure out what the author was trying to convey. Listened to it twice to get the gist of it; didn't enjoy.

[Jim Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shoot Edgar Allan Poe's Ligeia in the face with the make-up gun from The Simpsons and you have Shiel's Xelucha. Decadent, delirious and gawdy.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this as part of the Classic Tales of Horror - 500+ Stories. It was very enjoyable 2023

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐

Xélucha is a story of the power of the feminine trying to capture the grotesque pastiche style of Poe's shown in his story of Ligeia. Although not on par with Poe's masterpiece it is a good voyage into the macabre. Set in an Baghdadlian Orientalized London, Mérimée, Destroyer of
Women has recovered from an old box full of letters the last letter from an old friend Cosmo who has died. Cosmo and Mérimée were both sybarites (playboys). The letter speaks of the Eternal Feminine, Xélucha, an exotic courtesan who is now dead and whom Mérimée had discarded. Mérimée who sleeps most of the day and wanders the streets at night picks up a remarkably mysterious lady and goes with her to her temple like abode, with a luxuriously furnished room with an elegant table spread with a variety of sumptuous foods where he discourses on metaphysical subjects with her. The pair dine and talk through the night. As Mérimée becomes drunk on his hostess's wine, her conversation turns to death and the tomb. By a slip of the tongue, she reveals that she knows him with Mérimée suddenly recognizing her as the dead Xélucha. He swears that he will clasp her "living or damned", but she disappears in a puff of putrid corruption, and he is knocked insensible by some "Behemoth potency". When he awakes, he finds himself alone in a empty. squalid room that apparently has been uninhabited for years.

[Forked Radish · Rating 2 out of 5]

First published in 1896... A cacophony of words laced with base pedophilic innuendo from the "purient mind" (sic) of Shiel viz. the use the Merimee appellation, a fellow decadent, described as an "atheist" and "blasphemer" by friends of Stendhal... But it has its merits. Whatever.
Note: the "Cobbler of Herculaneum" was Johann Winckelmann (1717-1768).

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to a version of this story off the Classic Tales podcast the other day and let me say that I heard nearly none of it, but it cured the bad day I had been having so far!

5 stars for the comfort this strange book gave me.

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another weird story from M.P. Shiel. The mysteries and dangers of meeting a lover from your past. Listened to this on Classic Tales podcast.