[scusate se è in inglese, ma è stato prelevato da un altro sito. comunque non dovrebbe essere troppo ostico, è tutta terminologia più o meno uraniana]


Who could ever succeed in such an enterprise, but the great Bram Stoker! The Lair of the White Worm, or, The Garden of Evil, was his last novel, published in 1911 just one year before his death. The main structures and characters rework – with interesting variations – his best known novel, once again setting the story among the products of modern technological civilization, the spell of country or wild landscapes, and ancient horror lore. But the novelties are amazing. If Dracula drew on the fantasy realm, The White Worm mixes cryptozoology and theology by creating an evolution-based reinterpretation of the myth of the Eden Serpent aka Lilith.

As to the story, it is definitely shorter than Dracula, and many chapters almost look like a quick, unfinished draft: was Stoker in a hurry, as if foreseeing death? May things be so or not, the effect is that narrative gaps strike the reader quite often; a feature that recalls ETA Hoffmann, along with the odd strategy of 'explaining' strange events by means of even stranger ones. Stoker's obvious interest in making the characters act as symbols does not make things easier. While a major pro, with many philosophical consequences, is that, unlike the Vampire, in this case the monster is not killed by the hero and heroine, but...

So, a brilliant and puzzling novel, that would deserve to be much better read and studied. With due adjustments and updatings, it would make a powerful sci-fi movie. And against any law of Murphy, a recent Italian edition is available (La Tana del Serpente Bianco, Rome: Donzelli, 2010), well translated and with a beautiful cover image by Pamela Colman Smith, which retrieves the one of the first English edition.

Just fancy how any stranger—say a doctor—would regard her, if she were to tell him that she had been to a tea-party with an antediluvian monster, and that they had been waited on by up-to-date men-servants.  

Citazione da: DarkHorseman il 02 Marzo 2012, 22:23:46

c'hanno fatto il film o sbaglio?

ooouuupppsss è vero, l'hanno fatto nel 1988... me lo sono colpevolmente perso... però non risulta un capolavoro, quindi un bel remake di quelli ca##uti ci starebbe bene, no?