Persephone No. 6
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Claire from Paperback Reader and Verity from The B Files are hosting Persephone Reading Week. I have not read a Persephone book before and so decided to take this opportunity to try one. I admit to searching out the shortest one I could find (The Victorian Chaise-Longue is just 99 pages long), but I think it was a very good choice, as I really enjoyed it and will go on to read many more in the future.
The Victorian Chaise-Longue tells the story of Melanie, a young woman suffering from TB in the 1950s. She recovers enough to be allowed out of her sick bed for the first time and decides to sleep on a Victorian chaise-longue. When she wakes up, she discovers that she has been transported back in time and is now living inside the body of a Victorian woman, who is also ill.
This book is suppossed to be dark and spooky. Nymeth described it as being a
chilling, atmospheric and suffocating novella.
but I’m afraid this book didn’t scare me at all. I think the main reason for this, is that this isn’t very likely to happen. Blindness had a real impact on me, as I can foresee it’s shocking events occurring one day, but I’m afraid I’m not a big believer in time-travel.
I enjoyed reading this book, but I actually found it funny as opposed to scary. The rantings of Melanie trying to persuade the people in her Victorian world that she was from the future just made me smile.
‘You think I am Milly Baines gone mad,’ she said, ‘but I am not. I am another woman. I don’t know where Milly Baines is, perhaps she is in my time and we have got changed somehow, or perhaps I am just dreaming and I cannot wake up. But I do not belong here, I tell you, all my life is in the future, my child, the man I love.
This is a lovely little book, and whether it scares you or makes you laugh, I’m sure you will enjoy it!
Am I alone in finding this book funny?
Have you ever found a scary book amusing?
