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From thefridayfive:

1. What book frightened you as a young person?
I don't know. I can think of TV things that did, and books I didn't like, or that left an unpleasant taste behind, one way or another, but I don't remember being terrified of anything in a book. I was always on the wimpish side in my reading, just in case something would scare me.

ETA: If it counts, when I was 11, our class tutor read us a Sweeney Todd story, and that definitely scared me!


2. If you had to become a ‘living book (i.e. able to recite the contents of a book cover to cover upon request – reference Fahrenheit 451), what book would it be?
I would prefer not to become a living book, as that sounds very uncomfortable for me and everyone else around me, so I'll go for Love That Dog because it's about the shortest book I know. (It's also good, though, and contains bonus poetry.)


3. What movie or TV show scared you as a kid?
The BBC Miss Marple (Nemesis in particular), and I do mean Joan Hickson. She sprayed somebody in the face with insecticide. Also some random thing where a cake was poisoned that I saw when I was four, that I think was some old b&w film comedy and was the worst/scariest thing ever. Also when I was about four, I was scared of the theme music to Doctor Who and when it came on would stick my head under a cushion and yell for someone to turn it off. So, ironically, I put an end to DW-watching in my house for about six or seven years, until I got into it myself. (It only ever scared me in the good way after that.) Also probably, as it turns out, Assignment Six of S&S, and that episode of Bergerac where Alfred Burke was so good he had to murder people. And Fraggles! Fraggle Rock was pure nightmare fuel. I still shudder if I see or hear of a Fraggle. The weasels in the (stop-motion) Wind in the Willows! TV was full of terrifying things when I was small.


4. What movie (scary or otherwise) will you never ever watch?
I am very wimpish about horror! It would be quicker to give a list of things I would watch, although that would still be far too long for a meme. But nothing that's primarily a gore-fest, anyway, unless I had to for some reason. I've been learning lately to be a little less wimpish in my watching, although only a little so far, and it's paid off.


5. Do you have any phobias?
Nothing at the level of a phobia, but I am scared of the future, fish, and over-eating (and poisoned cake, see above). And shop-window dummies.

What I've Finished Reading

I finished up The Castle of Otranto and it continued to be delightfully OTT and ridiculous right to the very last line. I laughed a lot. Especially at the last line. The charm of it is, I think (other than gloomy castles and giant suits of armour and what have you), that it's very hard to tell if the whole thing is some kind of joke, or just bits of it. This seems to have been the question for 250 years, and, indeed, the next book I read, The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve is quite openly The Castle of Otranto, the more rational (and therefore possibly not-truly-Gothic) remix.

As Clara Reeve says in the introduction, certain elements of Otranto, "destroy the work of imagination, and, instead of attention, excite laughter." (Walpole apparently responded that hers was, "So probable, that any trial for murder at the Old Bailey would make a more interesting story." Hmm, wait, a novel featuring a real life murder...? Shame he didn't try it, heh.)

It does indeed tail off into a long, plodding fixit of everything, though. It's rather like a tumblr-recommended fixit version of Otranto where everything is relentlessly put right and all the bad people are punished or grovel and apologise to the good people. I liked the beginning with the locked up haunted wing with the murdered body in it very much, though, mixed with a more recognisable setting. Also its hero Edmund has an amusing tendency to weep over people. (The best bit was at the end where he flung his arms round both his mentors legs at once and they had to stop him and then he still had to hug them and weep over them.)

But, given that it's still only about 130 odd pages and has a haunted East wing, it was readable and fascinating to compare to Otranto. I'm glad the collection had them both.

I also read another Daisy Dalrymple (Dead in the Water), which you could probably tell because fic happened. My friend is coming to see me again this week - I have hopes she might be able to lend me some more, because the only others I've found are quite a few books on from that. (Obviously, I'm looking forward to seeing her with or without books, but with books is always better.)


What I'm Reading Now
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, which, as promised by aralias, is very light and enjoyable and just my sort of thing. I seem to be okay with it, too. \o/ (The only downside is the inevitable comparison to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which can do it no favours. It's a shame she didn't set it, say, 20 years later or earlier to mitigate that. Although, of course, I'm only 100 pages in; there are no doubt very good Plot Reasons.)

(I'm still note-taking from A Mad Bad and Dangerous People? and technically sort of reading Desolation Island, but have not progressed far with either since last time.)


What I'm Reading Next
Well, if my friend does bring me some more Daisy, there'll be that. And once I've finished Sorcerer to the Crown, I might try the next Gothic novel in the collection, which is Mistrust by Matthew Gregory Lewis (author of The Monk).

Randomly memed from dimity_blue:

Choose five series fandoms (no peeking before you choose them), list them, and then answer the questions behind the cut.

1. Once Upon a Time
2. Blake's 7
3. Doctor Who
4. Dracula (1968)*
5. Sapphire & Steel

( Cut for questions and answers )

* Yes, I did fail to read the instructions when I made the list. *handwaves*