Morbid | Guy Portman's Blog

6 Books with Morbid Subject Matters

Dec 01 2017

This week’s blog post is dedicated to six books with morbid subject matters. Five of them are Fiction and one is non-Fiction. Click on the links to read my reviews.

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol (1842)

Dead Souls is an uncompleted, satirical novel that parodies Imperial Russia and provincial Russian life. Targets for ridicule include the gentry and rural officials.

My Review: Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov is travelling around provincial Russia, visiting landowners. His purpose is to purchase papers relating to their serfs who have died since the last census. By doing so Chichikov relieves…(more)

My Opinion: Ponderous and turgid

The Plague by Albert Camus (1947)

The Plague is an existentialist classic that evaluates morality, the role of God and how we react to death. Its narrative tone and poetic prose style will appeal to some.

My Review: In the Algerian coastal town of Oran, an explosion in the rat population has not gone unnoticed. The infestation soon comes to an abrupt halt with the mysterious demise of the rats. When the townsfolk…(more)

My Opinion: Okay

Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1966)

Set in the post-Stalin era, Cancer Ward is an allegorical, semi-autobiographical novel, in which the cancer ward serves as a microcosm of Soviet society.

My Review: Oleg Kostoglotov, whose last name translates as ‘bone-chewer’, has been exiled in perpetuity to a village by the name of Ush-Terek, located on the steppe in Kazakhstan, a long way from home…(more)

My Opinion: Depressing but good

Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (2006)

A sense of doom and despair permeates this somewhat disparate assemblage whose cynicism, dark humour and tormented, fin-de-siécle tone appealed to this reader.

My Review: The book, which is divided into four parts, begins with the sinister tale Rashōmon. Set during the Heian era (11th century) it sees a confrontation between an unemployed servant and an old woman…(more)

My Opinion: A worthwhile read

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach (2003)

The author applies a light approach to explore a taboo subject matter. This book will intrigue those with a healthy interest in the macabre.

My Review: This non-fiction work investigates the more unfamiliar scenarios involving our dead bodies. Topics include human crash test cadavers, bullet-testing cadavers, and the virtually all-encompassing…(more)

My Opinion: Interesting for the most part

Pure by Andrew Miller (2011)

Those readers anticipating a tale of the sinister and macabre may well find themselves disappointed by the Costa 2011 prize winner.

My Review: Paris’s oldest cemetery, Les Innocents, is overflowing. The city’s deceased have been piled in there for years, resulting in the surrounding area being permanently permeated by a fetid…(more)

My Opinion: Overrated

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The Brompton Cemetery

Feb 28 2014

My second book, Necropolis ~~(Release Date: April 24th)~~, is a humorous plot driven work of dark fiction about a psychopath, who works for the Burials and Cemeteries department in his local council. Due to the cemetery theme I am dedicating this blog post to the cemetery closest to my own heart, the Brompton Cemetery. I was born in a hospital adjoining the cemetery, spent countless hours of my childhood there – walking, skateboarding, feeding its many squirrels and inspecting its grave sites. To this day I continue to live in the vicinity and regularly visit this remarkable sanctuary. Perhaps one day I will find a permanent residence here. Below is the Old Brompton Road entrance to the Brompton Cemetery.

Consecrated in June 1840, the cemetery covers 16.5 hectares (39 acres). This necropolis is one of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ set of cemeteries that were built during this era, others include Kensal Green and Highgate Cemetery. The Brompton Cemetery (originally called The West of London and Westminster Cemetery) came into existence due to concerns that churchyards in central London were getting too full and that they posed a health hazard (London’s population doubled to 2.3m in the first half of the 19th Century). Since 1840 over 205,000 people have been interred in the Brompton Cemetery.

Taking an opportunity to visit during a lull in the relentless rain this week, I came across this fox (see above). The lustre coat of this specimen bears testimony to the fact that it is not only the dead that thrive here.

I am not the only writer to have sought inspiration in the Brompton Cemetery. Beatrix Potter lived close to the burial ground and would often take walks here. She named many of the characters in Peter Rabbit after those buried in the cemetery, including Nutkins, McGregor, Jeremiah Fisher and Peter Rabbett.

Amongst the many famous people interred here is Dr John Snow (see picture above). Snow was a pioneering anaesthetist and the discoverer of the cause of cholera. In 1887 two Oglala Sioux Native Americans, Surrounded By the Enemy and Red Penny, died whilst on tour with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. They were both buried in the cemetery. To date I have been unable to locate the site of their graves.

The Brompton Cemetery abounds with magnificent architecture including a number of family crypts or mausoleums (see below).

The main character in my ~~forthcoming~~ book Necropolis wishes to be interred in a mausoleum and I think I would too. Seclusion is a wonderful thing in life and one can only assume it is also in death. The Brompton Cemetery’s gravestones, tombs, plinths and mausoleums embrace a blend of grandeur, sombreness and good taste (see below). This is not always the case in modern burial facilities, much to the chagrin of the main character Dyson in Necropolis.

Many soldiers are buried in the cemetery. Below is the memorial to the Brigade of Guards.

The catacombs were originally added to the Brompton Cemetery as a cheaper alternative to burial. However of the thousands of spaces available, only about 500 were ever filled. Below is one of the catacombs as observed from ground level.