The Castle of Otranto

As an historic, genre-defining novel, The Castle of Otranto gets one star. It is ridiculous, sometimes (unintentionally) hilarious, and usually tedious.

The novel is probably 90% dialogue, which not broken into separate paragraphs, but grouped in multi-page conversations in a single paragraph, with no quotation marks. This makes it hard to follow or stay engaged with. (It's amazing how much I take for granted the modern conventions of fictionalized dialogue!) Also, much of it is written in faux-archaisms. (This novel is an early example of 18th- and 19th-century Europeans' nostalgia for the middle ages.)

The opening scene of this novel is wonderful for its absurdity: on his way to his own wedding, the sickly son of a false prince is crushed by a giant helmet falling from the sky - one star for that image alone!

And one star for the final sentence: “...and it was not till after frequent discourses with Isabella, of his dear Matilda, that he was persuaded he could know no happiness but in the society of one with whom he could forever indulge the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.”

Let's wallow together.