Seven Gothic Tales

By Isak Dinesen

Originally published in 1934, Seven Gothic Tales, the first book by "one of the finest and most singular artists of our time" (The Atlantic), is a modern classic. Here are seven exquisite tales combining the keen psychological insight characteristic of the modern short story with the haunting mystery of the nineteenth-century Gothic tale, in the tradition of writers such as Goethe, Hoffmann, and Poe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307791801

Isak Dinesen

Karen von Blixen-Finecke, also known by her nom de plume, Isak Dinesen, was born in Denmark in 1885. Dinesen is widely known for her 1937 memoir, Out of Africa, which was later adapted into an Academy Award-winning film starring Meryl Streep. Dinesen spent much of her early life at her mother’s estate in Horsens, but was no stranger to travelling, as she studied art in Rome, Paris, and Copenhagen. In 1914, Dinesen and her fiancée, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, moved to Kenya to manage a coffee plantation. After divorcing in 1925, Dinesen lived briefly with the aristocratic big-game hunter Denys Finch-Hatton, who led safaris for wealthy visitors. After his death and the shutdown of the coffee plantation due to a global economic decline, Dinesen returned to Denmark and immersed herself in her writing, publishing Out of Africa shortly after. Dinesen died in 1962.

Reviews for Seven Gothic Tales

[.monkey.-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

These mostly didn't feel very Gothic to me, and I was mostly a bit underwhelmed. It wasn't bad but I just was expecting something more, and, different. Rather ambivalent about it in the end, and didn't find most of the stories memorable.

[froxgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Only got through the first three - a bit too dense for me - but I enjoyed them.

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Long ago I read Out of Africa and loved it. This is nothing like that. Which is not to say that it doesn't have enjoyable moments. Dinesen can make beautiful images with her words. She has and uses insight into human nature to draw compelling characters, then she discards them without a look back. She can write moments of philosophy that go straight to the heart. What she doesn't do in most of these stories is worry about the story having a discernable plot. Most of the stories left me saying, "WTF?"Finally, after five tales (yes, her writing is so good that I kept reading) I realized, stop looking for a beginning, middle and end or reason. That's not what she is doing here. We are to enjoy each moment along the way, wake up when we finish a tale and settle into the next one, appreciating the scenery, the characters and the emotions along the way.

[petroglyph_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The stories grouped together in [Syv fantastiske fortælliger]are cleverly barbed, often male-centric narratives that deliver a usually female voice at the centre, filtered through various genres, anecdotes, and lengthy monologues. The stories seem uninterested in sticking with a single perspective, or narrative thread -- characters tell, overhear or imagine each other their adventures at the drop of a hat. They manage to feel slightly picaresque while maintaining a clear view of their own coherent goal. That goal may not always be clear to the reader until very late in the story, but even with all the weird digressions, I never lost the feeling that I was in the hands of a capable author who knew what they were doing, and I was only too happy to cut Blixen all the slack she needed. An unusual reading experience, but one I was glad to be along for.

[bnielsen_30 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Indeholder "Vejene omkring Pisa", "Den gamle vandrende Ridder", "Aben", "Syndfloden over Norderney", "Et Familieselskab i Helsingør", "Drømmerne", "Digteren"."Vejene omkring Pisa" handler om ???"Den gamle vandrende Ridder" handler om ???"Aben" handler om ???"Syndfloden over Norderney" handler om ???"Et Familieselskab i Helsingør" handler om ???"Drømmerne" handler om ???"Digteren" handler om ???

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dinesin's stories can be read again and again. And it's always a good story...

[cecrow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A mixture of gothic themes with 1930s style. The supernatural is present but doesn't often strongly feature. Dinesen is artful and playing at subterfuge, demanding an effort to interpret. A common element is the brave facing of impending death. Masks, disguises and mistaken identities abound. Stories within the stories result in many more tales than seven.The Deluge at Norderney - this first story directly addresses the gothic in its opening page. The characters themselves are fans of gothic sensibility, finding the romantic in the ocean's power and thus making them susceptible to its darker side, in both a physical and notional sense.The Old Chevalier - It is strange that a story ostensibly about the value of making moral choices at the expense of one's pleasures should feature a character who appears to make no choices at all. But then, that is also a kind of choice.The Monkey - I was deeply engaged by this, but a little thrown off by its ending when the supernatural element suddenly intrudes. Dinesen is playing with gothic conventions here, and it takes some familiarity to appreciate it.The Roads Round Pisa - I didn't grasp all the plot of this one without help; the secret is in the nested stories. I was also stumped by Augustus' decision at the end, but I suppose he'd learned something about secrets being part of one's identity.The Supper at Elsinore - Two sisters deny themselves all intimate relationships, keeping everyone at arms' length. Their consolation in later years, when regret threatens, is that they have one another. Then one discovers that the other has something more.The Dreamers - Several elements from earlier stories (disguises, nested stories, etc.) get a remix here, with a central mystery that is generously unravelled. The Poet - A man's sense of order is influenced by his love of poetry. Some fantastic metaphors here. This and the previous story bring out the theme of losing one's sense of pleasure, and compensating with artificial stimulation through others' envy.

[william345 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

1. The first story, "The Deluge at Norderney," proceeds largely by way of monologues. It is set in the 1830s at a resort island off the northern coast of Germany, Norderney. A once in a hundred years storm occurs which requires the evacuation of the spa and surrounding farmsteads. Eventually we find ourselves with four characters in the loft of a farmhouse where they must await rescue with the water ever rising. Will they survive until morning when a boat is expected to rescue them? It is in this context that everyone's convoluted history is revealed. Some of the writing here is cryptic, I should say opaque, such as the early musings of Miss Nat-og-Dag, "a maiden lady of great wealth." The old Cardinal, Hamilcar von Sehestedt, a favorite of the pope in his youth, is loaded with wisdom of an all too undoctrinal nature. The two young people in the loft, Calypso and Jonathan, each have their own rich stories to tell, too.

2. "The Old Chevalier" is told by an elderly yet still fashionable gentleman at some evening gathering of a group of younger men. It is the winter of 1874; the chevalier, a young man then, emerges onto a Parisian boulevard in the rain after his lover has tried to poison him. One can guess at his startled and benumbed state of mind. On the street he is approached by a "young drunken woman" who he proceeds to take home, viewing her as some Gift of Providence meant to get him through a rough patch. Slowly he undresses her. As he does so the narrative is interrupted by an ever so elegant disquisition on the changing nature of women during his adult years--not just changes in their dress, which is vividly discussed , that's only the point of departure, but their roles as "keeper of the mystery" that is Woman, too. Beautifully told and my favorite of the two stories so far.

3. "The Monkey" is set in the early 1800s in a "Lutheran country of Northern Europe." A young officer, Boris, in trouble with certain ecclesiastics at court for his libertine ways, travels in haste to a cloister run by an aunt to seek her help in getting married. The Prioress recommends a nearby woman, one Athena, daughter of Count Hopballehus. Yes, the intended's name does foreshadow somewhat her athletic rejection of the nephew, but it does not--cannot--prepare us for the wild scenes that follow in which both the aunt and nephew press their suit. The aunt's pet monkey, which has been away from the cloister for some weeks on an annual lark, returns at the height of negotiations to turn matters on their ear. Hints of Ovid.

4. "The Roads Round Pisa" This story is hobbled by a baroque circuitousness of plot. What the hell is going on? It doesn't hang together. Most unsatisfying and my least favorite of the stories here.

5. In "The Supper at Elsinore" the elderly Madam Bæk, servant to the famous de Coninck family around the time of the Napoleonic wars, recalls the heady times of that family. In particular the lives of the two daughters, Elsie and Fanny, and the son, Morten. The story of the sisters' social success, and the tragic fate of the brother, are recollected in a third-person narrative which is largely a recapitulation of Mme. Bæk's exultant, highly colored, romantic memories. Fanny and Elsie de Coninck were the belles of the balls who could never believe they were genuinely loved by the local men. But Mdm. Bæk knew better "when she saw the swains of Elsinore grow pale and worn, [and] go into exile or become bachelors from love of them." The sisters are skeptics, melancholiacs, whose collective mood swings from desolation to ecstasis and back. Morten's leads a swashbuckling life as a privateer, then when privateering is outlawed he goes rogue, taking up the pirate's life. He disappears from Elsinore on the day of his wedding, jilting his betrothed, and is later reported hanged at Havana. Now in 1840, Mme. Bæk travels by carriage to Copenhagen to report to her ladies that she has seen the long-dead brother, Morten, in the house on several occassions, once staring fixedly at their portraits. The sisters then return to Elsinore for a final encounter with their sibling.

[laurajwryan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is a tidy collection of magical stories steeped in folklore and myths...fairy tales with an edge, yet there is a poetic tenderness in the telling, even where there is brutality. I filtered through this book, one story at a time, using them as a passage between novels, the seven pieces tucked in between books like Janet Frame's "Scented Gardens for the Blind" and Paula Fox's "Desperate Characters", Cristina Garcia's "Dreaming In Cuban" and Vanessa Veselka's "Zazen"; Kio Stark's "Follow Me Down" and Margaret Drabble's "The Seven Sisters", Forster's "A Passage to India" and then finished following Ondaatje's "The Cat's Table"...each of these have their own exotic flavor and haunting beauty, and this book became such a fine compliment to them.

[patrickgarson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's almost unbelievable that this book was written in the thirties; Blixen's voice belongs to a hundred years prior - or more. Seven Gothic Tales represents a type of literature - drawn from continental Europe - that is all but non-existent today, a fascinating road less travelled for lovers of the unusual. Be warned, however, this unfamiliar terrain can be demanding at times.Blixen's theme is primarily masks - and what they reveal of the wearer. Her protagonists are often thrown together in situations outside of their usual experience: A drunken chevalier decides to take a prostitute home; a exiled Englishman reminisces about his strange first love; a motley collection of people weather the night in the loft of a flooded barn. Every tale has a twist in it, but not in the facile ironic sense we have come to expect. Blixen's twists are more akin to rotating an object so - viewed from a different angle - it takes on an entirely new, and oft-times confounding aspect.The stories themselves are also masked. Framing devices such as we almost never see today are employed with a wonderful adroitness. Characters will stop, seemingly mid-stream to share a story, other stories will surface; stories within stories and more. Readers of Lucas' The Priest, or Anne Radcliffe, or even the Decameron will instantly recognise and respond to this grand tradition of storytelling. Which is the primary narrative? Sometimes it's easy to ascertain, and at other times not so clear; the shorter story may contain the true heart.The characters - wise old men, mysterious Jews, and beautiful, beautiful young people - come straight from the gothic tradition. The young people are especially voluble, philosophers and raconteurs all; by turns impassioned, cynical, confused, in love and more. This kind of drama is rarely seen any more, and it's gothic in the true sense: heady, emotive, romantic, and truly counter-enlightenment.Blixen's prose is equally anachronistic. The closest 20th Century analogue I can think of is someone like Thomas Mann. Descriptive, dialogue-heavy and constructed like Georgian furniture: this stuff is built to last. But it can be heavy-going at times. Like a true gothic, Blixen is interested in emotion above all, and the intensity and canorous prose of Seven Gothic Tales can feel like the literary equivalent of gauvage at times - you are being stuffed full of words, emotions and ideas with no end in sight (the end comes after a dense +500 pages). Also, Blixen absolutely refuses to condescend to her readers. A solid knowledge of classic myths and legends will serve the reader well, as will basic French, German, Italian and Latin (!). I confess, I think of myself as quite well read, but there were moments in every tale where I was simply at sea with the references, allusions, quotes or languages being tossed about so very casually by the stricken protagonists. But don't let this put you off. A polyglot's knowledge will certainly enrich your experience of Seven Gothic Tales, but it's by no means required. Anyone with a hankering for the unusual, for carriages in the moonlight, for duels, for lovers who aren't what they say, for erudite young men and women, for a tour of European locales that puts Kon Tiki to shame, for a fascinating byway in 20th century & European literature, for something that reminds them of The Priest, or The Mysteries of Udolpho, or The Castle of Otranto - will find something in this book at least worth their consideration. A very interesting read, and one that would reward multiple visits, I feel.

[andrewlorien · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best books i've ever read. Certainly in the top ten. So good i started looking for book-sharing sites just so i could open an account with this book. I'll have to wait ten years to be sure, but this could be as good as The Unbearable Lightness, or Fugitive Pieces.