(Originally published at letsyes.blogspot.com)
Over the past month I re-read all of the books by John Bellairs, an excellent-yet-sadly-underappreciated author of children's gothic horror.
I first encountered these books when I was a kid, when my grandparents would take me to the library every week and man, oh man, did I devour these. They're not at all like Goosebumps or the usual crap that passes for children's horror. They're creepy and scary. Also, the illustrations are by Edward Gorey, and that ups the eeriness tenfold.
It was pretty awesome to discover Sarah had the same Bellairs appreciation, and she still had her old collection up in Maine, so we brought them down after our last visit. Huzzah!
And I'm not saying the books are perfect or live up to my memories as a youngster - there's a lot of talk about gobbling hot fudge sundaes and all the characters really love chocolate cake, and a lot of the time I'm like, "OK, really, they would've died in this book," but Uncle Jonathan (a real live wizard) and Professor Childermass (which is probably where I got my interest in the title "professor") are still terrific characters and often the mysteries are just so... Bellairs.
Weird, wicked, dark black magic against the powers of Catholicism. I love it.
Also, I think horror, the best horror, is done with a PG rating. We don't need extreme gore or violence to be horrific. R-ratings and axes and chainsaws are amateur. A dream about a dead aunt? That's skill.
But I blog about Bellairs now because I've gotta think about something. See, many years ago I was given a gift of The House With a Clock In Its Walls, my first and favorite book. It was a cast-off from the library, so it had that plastic cover and the little pocket for the library card with all the dates stamped on it, and I loved it very much. But somewhere along the line, I lost it.
How does someone like me lose a book, though, especially in my parents' house, which is basically a storage space for everything that ever existed? Where the hell did it go? I'm pretty sure it's somewhere, but I've never been able to find it, much like Uncle Jonathan could never find that goddamn clock that was hidden somewhere within the walls of his mansion.
Anyway, I found a rare first edition of the book. It's quite a find, I should think, because old Bellairs books are usually scarce because of the Gorey illustrations. And even though I have no need for a first edition book, and I'm trying to keep unnecessary things out of my life, there's that Dwarven covetousness in me that would very much enjoy a treasure like this. Just because I would appreciate it.
So I've been thinking of making this purchase, which isn't that cheap, but it isn't a bank breaker, but I'm also trying to purchase other things, and I can't buy everything in the world, and then I wonder is this desire to find treasures from my past something to do with getting older (see that awesome Marvel puzzle I got for my birthday), or are all people in my generation like this?
So it's something to think about.
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