The Little Stranger and the poor, daft doctor

I'll probably re-visit the in-flight film subject later, but I feel I should try to write about something book-related as it's been a while. I didn't read as much as I expected during my trip, but I did get through The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (among some decidedly lighter fare). And it was... fine. However, like (if I remember correctly) some reviewers when it first came out, my reaction to it is a little muted. I enjoyed it more than Affinity, certainly, but Fingersmith, The Night Watch and The Paying Guests all rank above it in my personal opinion.

So what could be my problem with it, and possibly the problem of the reviewers I mentioned? It's characteristically well-written, and the setting - a run-down, once majestic country house in post-war Britain - is atmospheric. But maybe we Waters readers have become a little spoilt, and expect a different kind of story than the one we're getting. In the novel, the already struggling family - consisting of a mother and her two grown-up children, a son and a daughter - who holds on to the country house Hundreds Hall starts to unravel as what seems to be a malignant spirit haunts them, one after the other. The narrator is Dr Faraday, who has loved Hundreds Hall since he was a child and who is by turns star-struck by and vaguely resentful of the family. Although he isn't originally their GP, a series of events leads him to take over that role and come closer to the family, which gives him a ring seat to witness events when weird things start to happen.

Remembering some mind-boggling twists in other Waters novels, I for one rather expected some brilliant explanation to the hauntings, which would put everything in a new and startling light. But this isn't quite what we get. I suppose we are given an explanation of sorts, but it's tentative and not as surprising as I would have liked. So, it's not really a mystery story with a clever, Agatha Christie-like revelation. Is it a straightforward ghost story, then? Sometimes it reads that way, but the right  kind of tales-before-the-fire atmosphere only materialises fitfully. This is largely due to what is perhaps the book's biggest problem for me: the narrator, Dr Faraday.

Don't get me wrong - I like him, and feel for him. Of the novel's protagonists, he is the only one I truly warmed to; the Ayres, the owners of Hundreds Hall, didn't quite manage to charm me the way they charm the good Doctor. At the same time, Faraday is irritatingly obtuse, and you cringe for him as he blunders his way through the narrative and repeatedly misinterprets people and events. Whatever is behind the strange things that befall the Ayres family, it is perfectly plain that Faraday's explanation - that they're all going loopy - does not cover the facts, yet he insists on it. The son, Rod, feels himself persecuted by a poltergeist, so he must be mad. Mrs Ayres is plagued by what she believes is the ghost of her dead child, so she must be mad. Even if the Doctor himself witnesses a bruise appearing on Mrs Ayres seemingly from nowhere, he still won't admit that there might be more things between heaven and earth than is dreamed of in his philosophy. He may be a man of science, yet an actual ghost would make for a more rational explanation than what he comes up with for everything that's going on. The only things that don't fit the ghost narrative are the malevolence of the "little stranger" - why would Mrs Ayres's beloved dead daughter Susan treat her so cruelly? - and the fact that the hauntings don't start until years after Susan's death. Yet Faraday is so stuck in his "there's no such thing as ghosts" thinking he never sees fit to argue the thing through.

It isn't just the mystery that leaves the Doctor looking a bit of a chump. It's clear to the reader that he misjudges how intimate his friendship with the Ayres really is. The women do give him reason to think that he is more than just their GP, but Rod makes it perfectly plain he doesn't see the Doc as a friend, yet Faraday insists on viewing himself as such. Quite simply, he presumes too much on his acquaintance with the Ayres, and when he's told to back off, he doesn't get it. I was reminded in a way of Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, which also featured an outsider pushing her (in this case) way into a family circle with which she'd become obsessed. Perhaps I've become a little tired of the "outsider who wants to belong" plot, unless it actually leads to the outsider belonging. There's something inherently depressing about it.

I also thought the beginning of the book - before the ghostly stuff gets going - was slow, but there again, there's the question of what you expect. If you view the book not as a mystery, nor as a ghost story, but as a melancholy country house drama, then you're probably in the right frame of mind to enjoy it.