Have had to do a bit of reading in the gothic tradition of late in concluding the Lit course for one of my classes. The text choices were made by Aloy and have been mildly uncomfortable for me, yet entirely fascinating and instructive. In fact it was Aloy who sort of forced me, very happily in the event, to teach Kawabata's Snow Country for the first time a few years back. Initially I was cursing him for the recommendation since I hadn't the slightest clue what the book was about on the first reading. Fortunately the class I was teaching pretty much taught me the text and it's been a hot favourite since - though I still find myself at a loss whenever I embark on it.
Anyway, I've had to get up to speed on the tales from Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber which was refreshing to say the least. She's so obviously brilliant it fair takes the breath away. And now I'm getting to grips with the idea of trying to teach Bram Stoker's Dracula. But that's a bit of a problem, I'm afraid, since despite all of the good bits there's a fair amount of clunky filler in the text, in my not-so-humble opinion. But it's all great fun.
Astonishing that someone pays me for this.
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