The Gilded Sarcophagus, by Charlotte Hunt
No month stated, 1967 Ace Books
So obscure it wasn’t even mentioned on Curt Purcell’s otherwise-comprehensive Groovy Age Of Horror, Dr. Holton ran for six novels that took place squarely in the groovy era, and though the books were packaged as Gothics, overall they had more in common with Doctor Orient.
Charlotte Hunt was a British author, her real name Doris Marjorie Hodges; she passed away in 1997. This first volume of the series, The Gilded Sarcophagus, certainly reads like the work of an English author. So British it hurts, the novel is overstuffed with the usage of “quite” and the action is anemic. As for the sex, there’s none. One can only hope that future volumes improve on this; another thing going against The Gilded Sarcophagus is that it is written in first-person. It seems that future volumes trade off between first-person and third-person.
Another thing that makes the Dr. Holton series unique for a Gothic is that the protagonist is a man. I’m no expert, but it seems to me that Gothic focused on damsels in distress. Thus Hunt walks a strange line here, as her narrator must come off as the manly hero while also coming off as being in distress. Ultimately it makes Dr. Paul Holton seem like a wimp.
This isn’t helped by Holt’s speciality: he’s not a master of the mystic arts or magic or anything like that – no, he’s a psychiatrist! He’s got a clinic in London, and he’s engaged to young Julie Font…so there goes any hopes of him scoring a little, as he would if this series had been written by a red-blooded male author. No, there’s no hanky panky in this book at all. It’s essentially G rated, probably more so than even the average Gothic of the era.
Hunt/Hodges clearly wanted a Sherlock Holmes – Professor Moriarity rivalry, as Dr. Holton seems to be concerned with the ongoing feud between Dr. Holton and the wily Manfred Blackton, a conman with occult leanings. I envionsioned Blackton as an almost satanic villain, but having read the book he comes off like just a generic bad guy, with nothing memorable nor even too extreme about him. Indeed at one point he even specifies that he’s “not a sadist.”
Another schtick with the series is that each novel seems to center around some mystical artifact; in this first one, it’s the legendary “Roth Parchment,” an ancient Egyptian document which was supposedly written by a scholar from Atlantis…a scholar, folks, who is named Roth(!?). Now look, I know Atlantis is a legend and all, but don’t you think Hodges could’ve come up with a better name for her ancient Atlantean occult mage than Roth? Why didn’t she just go all the way with it and say the guy’s first name was John while she was at it?
Well anyway, it’s not that our narrator is even interested in this stuff to begin with. He comes into it all via his fiance, Julie; it’s Julie’s brother, Simon, who is a translator of hieroglyphs and who apparently was helping Uncle Rupert translate the parchment…which Rupert has somehow gotten hold of. But meanwhile the tale is more centered around Simon’s disappearance; Julie is certain foul play was involved, and that the wily Manfred Blackton was behind it.
There is a lot of talking and debating and belaboring in the 222 pages of The Gilded Sarcophagus. Neither Paul Horton nor Julie Font are memorable characters; Horton, via his narration, comes off like a fusspot, and Julie is always worried and concerned. In fact she might be closer to the traditional protagonist of a Gothic; a pretty young woman who is always scared.
Blackton is not introduced to the tale for a bit. Hodges’s narrative is cluttered and clunky; she introduces a ton of characters to us in the opening chapters and also relies very heavily on expository dialog. She also repeats herself in the narrative; both Simon and his uncle have lost a woman they loved, and each man has sort of gone of the deep end in his grief. Initially it is easy to confuse the two characters.
For old Rupert, he has found solace in the Circle of Ra, an occult group headed up by Blackton, a wide-shouldered rake who is always accompanied by a raven-haired beauty named Zerena. These two, it is my understanding, will be a thorn in Holton’s side for the entirety of the series. Zerena acts as a medium for the Circle of Ra, channeling the spirit of an Atlantean, with Blackton as the Aleister Crowley behind it all, but unfortunately we readers know it’s all a crock; there is no actual supernatural content in The Gilded Sarcophagus.
There is no real tension to the narrative; everyone tells Julie that her brother – who by the way is in his late 20s or something like that, so it isn’t like he’s a kid – has probably just taken off for somewhere. But Julie reveals to Holton that she and Simon have a psychic bond, and once spoke to each other via ESP. This is the furthest we get into the metaphysical realm in the novel.
I mentioned Curt Purcell’s long-gone blog at the start of the review, but truth be told there aren’t many “groovy age” details in The Gilded Sarcophagus, though a cursory glance at future novels – particularly the ones in third-person – get a bit more groovy. This first book could just as easily take place in the 1930s, given the lack of mention of any ‘60s topical details. There is a blandness to the entire book, though.
It doesn’t help that there isn’t even any T&A to keep us pervs entertained; the author is almost skittish about writing anything “saucy,” once again proving my theory that most British authors can’t write pulp because they’re afraid they’ll get their sleeves dirty. But then again, techincally this is a Gothic, so maybe they were just anemic to begin with.
Another issue is that so much of the novel is exposition. Holton and Julie speak together in overly formal tones – again, the British thing – and there’s a lot of stuff where characters will exposit to each other on things. Nothing really happens until midway through the novel when Blackton makes his appearance in the text, at a memorable séance sequence in which the Circle of Ra meets in Chelsea.
Given that the entire novel is relayed through Holton’s perspective, the séance is seen more as a ruse by Blacktorn, Holton seeing through the cheap effects the man uses to fool his gullible audience. Holton’s inspection is minimal at best for Blackton’s hotstuff, raven-haired assistant, Zerena, unfortunately; about the most we are told is that she is pretty, but the narrator – not to mention the author – is not interested in dwelling on her charms. Lame!
Regardless, Zerena manages to break free of the narratorial constraints and emerges as the most memorable character in the novel, despite only appearing in a scant few scenes. She and Holton have a brief conversation after the séance, where Hunt clearly sets up future meetings between the two; indeed, The Gilded Sarcophagus ends with Zerena essentially stating that “fate” has kept the two from being an item, or somesuch.
Unfortunately, Holton’s ever-shocked, deadbeat fiance Julie gets in the way, and given that the novel ends with her and Holton getting married(!), my assumption is she’ll be there to further get in the way in future volumes. But Hunt doesn’t even dwell on anything naughty between Julie and Holton; theirs seems to be a chaste relationship.
Things finally pick up steam with the discovery of a corpse or two, and the unexpected outing of Blackton as a villain with murderous intentions. But still even so, he’s not a sadist, people! And our narrator is a chump, caught twice in the final quarter; he spends a few chapters trussed up in a dungeon, at one point resorting to actual prayer to get himself free(!).
The finale sees Holton trussed up yet again, and folks he is literally saved by the deux ex machina appearance of some newly-introduced character…now that I think of it, perhaps Holton’s prayer was answered, after all. But there’s no big action finale, and Holton has no martial skills to speak of; there’s a part where Blackton knocks him out, and Holton informs us that he wasn’t as fast as he normally was because he was tired from being trussed up all night…this kind of made me laugh out loud, as the narrator must explain to us why he was unable to fight the main villain.
As you’ll no doubt be unsurprised to learn, Blackton and Zerena escape at novel’s end, paving the way for the next volume, The Cup Of Thanatos, which hopefully will be better.
No comments:
Post a Comment