By all means, I should have hated this novel. It subverts one of my absolute childhood favourites into a story that is so dark, that you are left gaspBy all means, I should have hated this novel. It subverts one of my absolute childhood favourites into a story that is so dark, that you are left gasping for breath many a time. Don't take what I say lightly - this book is not for the faint-hearted. If you are put off by scenes of rape, torture and misery, please stay away - Christina Henry just piles it on.
Then why did I give it four stars? Well, as a horror novel, it is just one dark rollercoaster ride. Once you mount, there is no way to get down - you shriek, scream, hold on for dear life, maybe piss in your pants - but you stay on, till the ride is finished.
And what a ride!
The original Alice followed a white rabbit, fell down a rabbit hole, had all those weird yet pleasant adventures, and woke up from an afternoon nap in the end. For the Alice in this story, the rabbit hole is the Old City, the den of iniquity which borders the New City, where the nice folks live - but it is a nightmare she enters: raped and mutilated, she wakes up to madness in an asylum. Escaping from there during a fire in the company of "Hatcher", an axe-murderer, her assignment in life is to find the magical talisman required to kill "The Jabberwock", a monster which was incarcerated along with them in the madhouse.
The original characters from Alice are here, but twisted beyond recognition. The Jabberwock, from a nonsense poem in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, becomes the book's frightening arch-nemesis. The Carpenter, the Walrus, the Rabbit, the Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat are all gangland bosses who control the Old City. Most of them deal in girls - and it is in the description of these dens of "pleasure" that the author outdoes herself.
Psychiatrists say that pain and pleasure are separated by a very narrow boundary in the brain. Maybe therein lies the fascination of BDSM and torture porn - I have mentioned elsewhere the horrifying fascination the posters of hell exercised on me, with all those naked souls shown being cut, impaled and burnt. In this book, Christina has plumbed those depths to the utmost. The Caterpillar mutilates and keeps girls in cages for his "collection"; the Walrus eats the girls as he rapes them - the book is full of such things, described in graphically precise imagery. As the author expertly skirts the pain-pleasure boundary, we are forced to follow along, wishing for the end but still willing it to go on.
A must-read for avid horror fans - but for others, read it at your own risk. ...more
Nandakishore
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