Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... The Hapless Childby Edward Gorey
None Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A wonderful and typically bleak and tragic (and darkly comic) affair from Gorey about a child who becomes orphaned, goes blind, and then get killed (accidentally ran over) by her own dad. ( ) I can’t really claim to have ‘read’ this book, as there’s not much to read. Each page contains a simple statement and one of Gorey’s quirky drawings, which is really what makes the book. Warning: if you don’t already know the story and don’t want to know the details, then don’t read the book flap because it gives the facts away. Fortunately, I had some inkling. When finished, which I did in under five minutes, even taking time to study the pictures, the bleakness left part of me harrowed, and part of me wanted to laugh. That could be partly a dark, twisted sense of humour, or a coping mechanism. I’m sure it’s both. One of the dreariest tales, this is perfect to dig out when anyone moans about their lot in life because you can remind them of poor little Charlotte Sophia. The type of book Jack Skellington would mistakenly give out to children for Christmas. This makes me think of the original fairy tales, which are darker than many people who haven’t read them believe. There’s something oddly interesting about this little book. The most depressing and harrowing "children's book" I've ever read. Father killed in war, mother (presumably) commits suicide because she's so depressed, the uncle dies from a brick falling on his head, the child is bullied, robbed, sold in the white slavery/sex work to a drunk, goes blind, stumbles into the street and gets run over by her actually alive father who doesn't even remember what his child looked like. The art is creepy and beautiful. The story is succinct and powerful. But the audience for this book can't possibly be children? I found it in the children's section of the library, but this is just too much. I wonder if it is creepier than original Grimm tales. no reviews | add a review
Is contained in
This sorry tale of petite Charlotte Sophia's catastrophic, short life is classic Gorey. The poor child is orphaned and treated mercilessly by schoolmates and ruffians alike, and only barely survives--for a time, anyway--by the skin of her baby teeth. Even her doll suffers a grusome end. The little girl's journeiy is perfect fodder for Edward Gorey's brilliant penwork, so detailed and perfectly wrought that it's hard to believe he could master these images at such a small size (the illustrations reproduced in the book ar the same size as his original drawings). The Hapless Child is widely regarded as one of Gorey's best books; happily it is now back in print after an absence of many years, so that we can all enjoy weeping for CHarlotte Sophia again...and again, and again. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)817.54Literature English (North America) American wit and humor 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
|