Moths

by Rosalind Ashe

The spirit of a long-dead actress possessed her--setting her body afire with its lust and consuming her soul with its evil.

As soon as Nemo Boyce saw Dower House she fell in love with it and convinced her husband to buy it. As soon as Professor Harris saw Nemo, he fell in love with her.

It could have been a commonplace triangle--except for Sarah Moore. Sarah--beautiful, lustful, murderous, and dead. Sarah, who draws men to her like moths to a flame. Sarah, who starts to take over Nemo. And Harris, consumed by his own love, is powerless to stop her.

Genres: Horror, Gothic, Fiction, Classics, Ghosts

302 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another penguin from my favourite bookshop. This one is an oddity, a ghost story. I must admit I hadn’t heard of Rosalind Ashe; she’s written a few other novels and a couple of books on Literary Houses. This was her first novel, I think, and was praised by Iris Murdoch.
The plot does stretch believability. Harris is an Oxford don in his late 30s and a bachelor. He finds an old house on the market; grand and beyond his price range. He spends a good deal of time in its grounds (and in the house) while it is on the market. He meets the potential purchasers, James and Nemo (Latin for no one) Boyce and befriends them, falling in love with Nemo. Things drift along well with good descriptions of the gardens and the grandeur of the house and Harris getting along well with the Boyce's. Nemo becomes obsessed with the house and how it should look and slightly odd things begin to happen; mostly related to a former resident, Sarah Moore, a regency actress. Harris begins to believe Sarah Moore is still around. To cut a long story short; Nemo begins to bump off men having had sexual intercourse with them first (they are the moths). Harris is a potential victim, but survives and realises that Sarah Moore has taken over Nemo (?!?). Instead of doing the obvious and telling the police, he decides his love for Nemo overrides this and he wants to save her/help her etc. Events spiral with a few twists and turns. It’s all a bit strange.
I don’t mind a good ghost story; Susan Hill and M R James being among my favourites. Virago have also published an excellent compilation. This is ok, but the notion of a homicidal female bumping off deluded males led by the one thing males are usually led by is a little formulaic (although quite fun) and the ending leaves much open. However the late great Dennis Potter was working on a film version of Moths when he died (called Midnight Movie) and I do like much of his work. It’s interesting, but too much focussed on Harris and too little on Nemo for it to work entirely. 3.5 stars.

[Thomas Hale · Rating 4 out of 5]

My late grandmother was a writer, and this was her first novel. It's pretty shameful I haven't got round to reading it until now, especially since this is a pretty great book! A ghost story of sorts, it touches on jealousy, love and doubt, and ends up being really entertaining. It starts slowly, with some luxurious prose and pretty evocative character profiles, but once you've been lulled into a false sense of security, the shocks are visceral. It's the story of a woman named Nemo, who buys an old Georgian house in Oxfordshire with her husband, and Harry (our narrator), who quickly befriends the couple and falls for Nemo. After a supernatural experience, Nemo's mood swings evolve into migraines and fits of passion, and when death rears its head, things get pretty intense. It's a short book - I finished it in a day - but it's full of riches, and I'll never look at a hat-pin the same way again.

[Quill&Queer · Rating 3 out of 5]

How do you tell a man, gently, that his wife is a homocidal nymphomaniac?

This is an intriguing, pulpy, gothic horror novel about a professor that is too young for a mid life crisis and too old for a quarter life one, but after meeting the couple that buy his favourite house decides to have one anyway. I did find myself wondering why he didn't just buy it himself.

What truly intrigued me about this story though was the discussions of rape, told by and done to, men. The main character did acknowledge, with the word rape used, that that had happened to him, but in his obsession with Nemo he often dismissed it, wanting it to have more meaning.

There's an overall vibe that the men are torn between their obsession with Nemo, what had happened to them, and a sense of embarassment and feeling that they won't be believed. It's even mentioned that telling their story would be embarassing. The horror story itself is just fine, but this aspect of the book was the one that I will think about long after.

[Sarah Mac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh, whatever. Great idea -- blah execution.

The narrator's (i.e., author's) parade of elitist fragments & metaphors made me want to rip a thesaurus in half -- there's a point where one leapfrogs descriptive to splat headfirst in a puddle of overwritten, which is exactly what happened here. The flat and/or unlikable characters weren't enough to make up for the language style, & after scanning the last few pages I didn't want to bother slogging through a mediocre read for so little reward.

If you like extremely wordy, academia-centric gothic novels with self-important narrators...have at it. But for me? Nope. Standard 2-star DNF.

[Beth Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

The tagline on the cover compares this book to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and that's a pretty bold statement for a publicist to make. For the record, this is nowhere near the literary classic. Not in style, quality or endurance.

It was written in the 70s and I'm sure it wasn't good then but it would have been somewhat titillating on the spinner racks. It hasn't aged well.

The narrator is an English don, or professor, I guess. Still, I can't imagine anyone having the inner monologue this character has. I've read a lot of British literature and fiction over the years and I've never had to "translate" one as much as this. The terms and phrasing are either archaic or so local they never made it over to the US or into any other English novels I've read.

Secondly, I mistakenly thought this was in some way related to the titular (that's a word the narrator would use) moths. I thought this might be early modern folk horror. Nope.

Do you know what the "moths" are?? They're dumbass men who get seduced by this woman possessed by a dead actress and the sex is so incredible they beg her for more. Except, she's a one-and-done kind of gal, so when they beg her for more she's disgusted and kills them with superhuman strength. They are "moths drawn to her light." Ugh.

There's not much explanation for anything in this book. The author just kind of takes thing in one direction, writes herself into a corner and forgets it happened.

No clue who the dead actress was, why she was haunting this house or how she took possession of the female main character. But apparently she was an amazing sex partner.

There was another part that had me rolling my eyes. The police sort of suspect the narrator has killed these people, so they've assigned an officer to follow him. But they've told him they're going to follow him, so he knows.

There's a big party at the possessed woman's house and the narrator and a friend are getting ready to leave when the officer comes up and asks if they're going to the party because it would make his job easier if they just told him where they were going. Not only do they tell him, but they invite him to the party and give him a ride!

Of course, this poor boy becomes a moth. Not in the literal, horror-novel sense but in the literary, metaphorical sense. Don't make the mistake I did, assuming this was going to be a horror novel.

And the ending? It just ended. The narrator literally says "I suppose I should explain all this (or something like that), but I'm not going to. If you want answers, ask the police"!!!! There was an epilogue, kind of. The obligatory I am going to be a moth and throw myself into the flame shit.

You have to call this Horror because there's nowhere else to put it, I guess. It's a shame, because the cover art is great. I think it was mostly a way to write 70's sex. As seen by someone observing it. Sort of. And thinking it was kinky.

This is being re-released soon by Valancourt Books, which is how I heard about it. I tracked down, and paid for, this mass market edition specifically for the cover. You can read it, too. But don't be expecting moths that make you do sexy things. Like I was.

[Sandi *~The Pirate Wench~* · Rating 2 out of 5]

I yield..its a DNF for me.
Better books await.

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

while I enjoyed some parts of this book, i felt like the ending was underwhelming

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bravo! An astonishing first novel, gripping, compelling, a real page-turner, precisely written, with not a word out of place. Why Rosalind Ashe isn't mentioned alongside Daphne Du Maurier and Shirley Jackson, or at the very least alongside similar slow-burn horror novels of the '70s like Robert Marasco's Burnt Offerings and Bernard Taylor's Sweetheart Sweetheart is one of those eternal mysteries of the vagaries of literary fashions and reputations. (The low Goodreads rating is also baffling, unless people were expecting a schlocky horror novel like were churned out by the thousands in the '70s.)

The novel concerns Harry, a bachelor university don, who visits an old house up for auction and falls in love at first sight -- with both the house and its eventual purchaser, the beautiful Nemo, who is unhappily married to the dull philanderer James. Legend has it that a slightly mad 18th century actress, Sarah Moore, once lived in the house, and as Harry contrives to spend time at the house (and with Nemo) on various excuses, odd things begin to happen. A dead dog, strange whispers caught on a tape, etc. Nemo begins to act oddly, and Harry starts to believe the impossible: that she is somehow being possessed by the ghost of Sarah Moore.

A lot of really ghastly things happen, the mystery and suspense build, and the book finishes off in a literal blaze of glory. Hats off to Rosalind Ashe, whose novel was apparently a minor hit when it first came out and had rave reviews from the press and fellow writers like Iris Murdoch but is totally forgotten today. If you're a fan of old slow-burn horror novels, or Gothic suspense tales, pick up a copy of this one -- you won't regret it.

[Rin Hoshigumo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange supernatural thriller about a bachelor professor who falls in love with a house, and then with the woman who moves into that house.

Professor Harris is a forty-year-old don who has experienced no deep emotional romantic feelings until he encounters thirty-five-year-old married Nemo. Initially, he runs from those feelings, but after Nemo becomes possessed by the fiery spirit of Sarah Moore (a Regency actress who formerly occupied Dower House), Harris can no longer conceal what he feels.

Unfortunately, Sarah Moore, like he, avoids deep, long-term commitments. She prefers her involvements to be brief, intense and never to be repeated. She is a taker who refuses to submit to others’ desires and is interested only in her own gratification.

Addled by the spell Sarah casts, Harris and other men seek to cure and control her, with disastrous results.

[Boris Cesnik · Rating 2 out of 5]

An exercise in style, miles away from her best novels such as Hurricane Wake, Dark Runner and Take Over.
Its erudite narrative and evocative language do not allow to empathise with the story, to feel, imagine and live the scenes.
A touch baroque, old school and tedious, it only lives on the surface.

[Octavia Cade · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half of this is a solidly average horror novel. I don't quite call it Gothic romance, as to my mind that's "horror plus romance" but the romance here is entirely one-sided, and all on the side of the obsessed narrator. I almost wish it were Gothic romance, because it would be the first of its kind that I've read, I think, where the narrator/protagonist was a man.

Unfortunately, he was a very stupid man, and the total collapse of the second half of the book was entirely down to him. An academic at Oxford, he becomes so enamored with a married woman who is - apparently - periodically and violently possessed by the ghost of a dead actress, that he covers up her killings and intends to take the blame for them. That makes him partly responsible for her actions in my book, and he's so weakly, morally bankrupt, and so miserably useless at any rational action - every time he has a choice, he makes the wrong one - that I was hoping to see him hanged, just to be shot of him. Alas. There's an abrupt and dreadful ending, as the central metaphor is pushed to breaking (burning) point, and gormless Harry gets off scot free.

Unless the ghost gets him. We can only hope.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book for people who enjoy ghosts or ghost possession. It isn't scary, more of a first person account of witnessing something unbelievable but in a romantic way. Rosalind ashe loves big, old houses and nature which is spectacularly shared in her writing.

I gave this book 3 stars only because it isn't my type of book. I was looking for spooky things to read around Halloween and this seemed to fit the bill. Either scary is extremely difficult to write or I have a high threshold for it, but I didn't find this scary at all.

[Magdalena Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a strange little book, but I liked it! I first learnt about Rosalind Ashe’s Moths as Valancourt Books were re-releasing it in the US, but then Penguin published it in the UK so I got that edition! It starts like a bit of a melodrama and a ghost story, but then there’s mystery and murders and lies and all bunch of weird stuff! I liked Nemo - was she a neglected housewife? A nymphomaniac? Was she possessed? Or mad? Really interesting character. Harris, our narrator, was a bit cringe, but I did enjoy his account. The ending was pretty wild too.

[Mark Ludmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enthralling gothic tale of ghostly possession and febrile madness. Narrated by middle-aged academic Henry Harris, it sees a beautiful young woman, Nemo Boyce, and her husband James move into a Georgian dower house where strange occurrences suggest the ghost of a once-famous actress, Sarah Moore, may still be in residence. Henry, who is hopelessly in love with Nemo, is drawn into an increasingly macabre chain of events that stretch credulity but make for an entertaining read.

[Sheena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my usual genre as billed as horror but in fact it was pretty tame. It was written in the seventies and it definitely had a seventies vibe. Some great descriptions and similes and the house was certainly a character and I always love that. Got bogged down a bit towards the end. I felt the ending was a little convenient and a little sad too as Nemo was lost forever whereas Sarah Moore could reemerge at any time. Great cover.

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange, dreamy - sort of obvious and super self restrained at the same time. The nightmare sequences are really well done. I think this will linger.

I’m trying to turn off the tv inside my head but this would make such a good film, ninety perfect minutes.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars