{"id":4475,"date":"2016-06-05T23:59:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T03:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=4475"},"modified":"2016-06-05T23:59:02","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T03:59:02","slug":"book-review-thirty-hours-with-a-corpse-and-other-tales-of-the-grand-guignol-by-maurice-level-introduced-and-edited-by-s-t-joshi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-thirty-hours-with-a-corpse-and-other-tales-of-the-grand-guignol-by-maurice-level-introduced-and-edited-by-s-t-joshi\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Thirty Hours With A Corpse and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol by Maurice Level, introduced and edited by S.T. Joshi"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Thirty Hours With a Corpse and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Maurice Level, introduced and edited by S.T. Joshi
\nDover Publications, 2016
\nISBN: 9780486802329
\nAvailable: Paperback, Kindle edition<\/p>\n

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S.T. Joshi has collected thirty-nine of Maurice Level\u2019s conte<\/em> cruel<\/em>, or \u201ccruel tales,\u201d in one volume. Level, a French writer from the early twentieth century, whose specialty was short stories of the macabre, was a contributor to the Grand Guignol Theatre in Paris, known for staging gory dramas. His tales deal with the human condition and moral frailty, rather than anything supernatural.<\/p>\n

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I was enthralled with all of the stories in this anthology, but a few stood out more than others. As mentioned above, some stories focus on moral frailty. In \u201cThe Debt Collector\u201d, a clerk turned thief takes his spoils to a solicitor\u2019s outside town, leaves the funds under a false name, and travels back to town in order to turn himself in. Of course, he is promptly arrested, found guilty at trial, and jailed for five years. Upon release, he heads to the solicitor\u2019s to pick up the money. The trouble is that, in the meantime, he forgot the false name he used. The story \u201cBlue Eyes” culminates in a young woman having certain business transactions with the last man she would ever want to see. In \u201cThe Last Kiss,\u201d a man takes revenge on the woman who blinded him.<\/p>\n

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Other stories deal with madness or psychoses.\u00a0The need for peace and quiet occasionally drives us all a little mad sometimes: unfortunately for the nagging mistress of the man in “Fascination”, he takes that a step too far, and shoots her for the sake of a night in.\u00a0\u201cIn the Light of the Red Lamp\u201d is a tragic tale of a husband who develops photographs of his deceased wife, only to find something he was not expecting. In \u201cPoussette\u201d, a highly religious woman is betrayed by her cat, Pousette, who is only following instincts when she escapes the house to be in the company of yowling male cats. When Pousette returns, the woman\u2019s affection for her formerly loyal pet has turned to anger and paranoia. A man\u2019s suspicions and paranoia conclude in a familial tragedy in \u201cThe Bastard\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Several tales take place during wartime. \u201cUnder Ether\u201d tells the story of a patient\/prisoner who discovers through conversation that his doctor comes from the same town, and that they knew each other’s mothers. What the injured man says under ether, however, is unexpected. \u201cAt the Movies\u201d finds a mother telling her son about what is taking place on a newsreel, only to find a familiar face, one she believed to have been killed during the war.<\/p>\n

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The scariest part of these short stories is that none of them have any supernatural explanation as to why things happened. They are all driven by humanity and the wrongs that we have the capability of inflicting on each other. I highly recommend this collection, but you might need a good strong drink or cup of tea to calm your nerves.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Thirty Hours With a Corpse and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol\u00a0by Maurice Level, introduced and edited by S.T. Joshi Dover Publications, 2016 ISBN: 9780486802329 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition   S.T. Joshi has collected thirty-nine of Maurice Level\u2019s conte cruel, or \u201ccruel tales,\u201d in one volume. Level, a French writer from the early twentieth<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,2740,2738,83,2736,2737,2739,1526,495],"class_list":["post-4475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-collection-development","tag-french-writers","tag-grand-guignol","tag-horror-fiction","tag-maurice-level","tag-psychological-horror","tag-s-t-joshi","tag-short-stories","tag-short-story-collections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4475"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4517,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4475\/revisions\/4517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}