Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

For our December read we are checking out The Doubtful Guest by Edward Gorey. The title is only about 30 pages long and was originally published in 1957. The description makes it sound fun!

The doubtful guest shows up unannounced and unwelcome, yet its presence is accepted after only a brief interlude of screaming. The staid, pale, Victorian inhabitants of the mansion alternately stare and glare at the doubtful guest as it tears out whole chapters from books, peels the soles of its white canvas shoes, and broods while lying on the floor ("inconveniently close to the drawing-room door"). Strangely, or rather, typically, as this is a Gorey book, the stymied occupants never ask the guest to leave--and in 17 years it has still "shown no intention of going away."

Who's in for this one?

Not very many pages at all but the graphics are really good. They look like pencil or pen etchings?

Here is a link for Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tphhd...

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAklX...

If you just listen you really have no knowledge of what type of guest it is.
But staying with no intention of leaving! Well a guest no more!

I love Gorey's illustrations.

I'm waiting for my copy to arrive from another library system, because I did not feel like driving the extra distance to pick one up.

Thanks for posting the videos of the book being read with illustrations visible! Good thinking, Lesle!

I remembered when I suggested it... that it had a video reading.

I think having a copy would be really fun to own!
I really like the sketches.

If this has been mentioned before, my apologies. Anyone looking for a copy of The Doubtful Guest can find it in the author’s Amphigorey , a 1972 collection which brings together 15 of his early works (those published between 1953 and 1965). Cheap used copies of Amphigorey are fairly easy to find.

Thanks for sharing that information, Canavan! Ya never know who might find it useful.

I just checked out Amphigorey from the library so I'll be reading this.

Glad you’ll be joining us, Kathy.

Kathy wrote: "I just checked out Amphigorey from the library so I'll be reading this."

That is a nice collection of his work! Enjoy!

I read The Doubtful Guest. What a quirky story! I liked the rhyming
"At times it would tear out whole chapters from books.
Or put roomfuls of pictures askew on their hooks."

The guest seemed creepy at first, then became endearing.

I've just watched a youtube version, since I couldn't get the book.

Does it remind anyone of experiences with a naughty child?

I do have a copy of The Secrets: Volume One: The Other Statue in the house, so I wil read that.
It's my younger daughter's copy but she left a lot of books behind-and she moved out 12 years ago!

I want to pore over the pictures in this story, which is why I’m waiting for the book. I clicked on the videos, though, and they seem great.

Rosemarie wrote: "I've just watched a youtube version, since I couldn't get the book.

Does it remind anyone of experiences with a naughty child?"

I was that naughty child!

New to me, but good fun. Is it an anteater?

It's so cute?? The story and the guest, though I imagine it gets quiet annoying! Just as Kathy said!

I had forgotten I much I like Edward Gorey's works. The artwork in this is just shatteringly beautiful.

I’m afraid I’m going to be a bit a of a naysayer as far as The Doubtful Guest is concerned. I’ve admired Gorey’s meticulously crafted pen-and-ink illustrations since I first encountered them in a 1959 anthology of spook stories he edited and illustrated entitled The Haunted Looking Glass . Here is the illustration from that volume for the 1902 story by W. W. Jacobs, “The Monkey’s Paw”.

Unfortunately, I find Gorey’s own small books a bit hit-or-miss. Broadly speaking, many of the author’s works fall into two broad categories; in one, cruel fates befall one or more individuals, often children. I like some, but not all, of this subset of tales, but frankly find it a little creepy how often this theme crops up. The other category is a bit more amorphous and difficult to describe. In these stories, Gorey seems to be engaged in relating some surreal joke and he’s the only one who knows the punchline. An example here would be The Willowdale Handcar (1962), where Gorey seems to be playing around with tropes from mystery stories, or The Nursery Frieze (1964), which looks like a weird mashup of a thesaurus and Eadweard Muybridge’s famous photographs of a moving horse. The Doubtful Guest falls into this latter category; and, if I’m being honest, while I may appreciate the drawings in these tales, I tend not be all that keen on the text.

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Canavan you did a nice job of explaining your opinion and why without the complete message being negative.
Thank you for that.

Actually I had never heard of him before and just ran across this graphic only. I didnt look up anything about Gorey or his other work.

I appreciate your thoughts as I had thought about purchasing some of his work. Now I will spend more time looking into them.

I read the story in Amphigorey which has fifteen books in the collection. This might work better for you Lesle as it is a large format paperback (I didn't check for hardcover--I know you like those). Individual pages of each small book are printed 4 to a page. I've enjoyed looking through the book and reading a few stories.

Thanks Kathy I will look into that one!

I just read through this and found it a delightful and short read! The art is wonderful, as others have said. The people that live in that house have the patience of saints to not kick him out.

I have a hardcover ordered Samantha! I cannot wait to read the whole story and see the sketches.

Samantha wrote: "I just read through this and found it a delightful and short read! The art is wonderful, as others have said. The people that live in that house have the patience of saints to not kick him out."

I think the guest has hypnotised them.

That would be a logical answer — they’re under his spell and cannot make him leave.

Ha ha! I am not sure logic applies in the Gorey world.

This was my first Gorey story.

Bernard said (in part):

I am not sure logic applies in the Gorey world.

I’ve read a fair number of Gorey’s books and I tend to agree.