Perhaps Mansfield kept getting in the way. Spookily, the ink on the page dissolved when I spilled my tea on it.
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Tim Jones: Books in the Trees: Mansfield with Monsters: An Interview With Matt And Debbie Cowens
Share via email email. Share on LinkedIn linkedin. Share on Google Plus google-plus. Share on Whatsapp whatsapp. Share on Pinterest pinterest. Mansfield with Monsters fits snugly into the horror genre, with its seamless, and often unsettling, blending of mundane and fantastical. My personal favourite was The Woman at the Store , which I found as deeply creepy as only a good horror can be. However, I grew impatient with many of the stories as it seemed as if interesting supernatural elements were left hanging without a satisfying resolution.
One example of this is in The Young Girl , where adults are bonded with leeches that seem to feed on their emotions. Why they bond leeches is not explained, nor does it have any bearing on the story, which is simply about an unhappy teenager having to go out to tea with her younger brother and his guardian.
The Daughters of the Lizard Colonel features two middle-aged daughters who are trying to adjust to the recent death of their overly-controlling father.
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Is any of this resolved? Despite my frustrations, I have to say that overall I thought the book was very well done. Katherine Mansfield's writing is characterised by a subtle unease - a niggling sense of menace lurking just below the surface of middle-class New Zealand and English life.
Rather than gut this innate tension with the addition of a supernatural twist, Matt and Debbie Cowens tease it out to create stories of Cthulian horror - occasionally epic, but often within the domestic and personal spheres that Mansfield excelled at depicting. Too often in horror, the horrific is solely to do with the supernat Katherine Mansfield's writing is characterised by a subtle unease - a niggling sense of menace lurking just below the surface of middle-class New Zealand and English life.
Too often in horror, the horrific is solely to do with the supernatural, and psychological unease is let in only on the condition that it is accompanied by symbolic fishpeople. Here, I am pleased to report, the horror of the mundane coexists seamlessly with the horror of the fantastic. I feel the same way about Mansfield's original stories - too much in one go is a recipe for bloated melancholy. Too much MwM likewise reduces the impact of each individual story into an indistinct mass of apprehension. Jan 12, Anna "Andi" rated it it was amazing.
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I've read some, but not much, Mansfield. Little enough that I fear I will get thoroughly confused by reading more. In any case, the original stories by and large lack the strong plots that are the basis for other works in this mash-up genre, and they rely more on the style and tone.
That's no bad thing - the already dark undertones of many of Mansfield's stories merge seamlessly with vampires, giant insects and more. Heaps of fun, and well worth reading. Jun 18, Nebula Books rated it really liked it. Some stories are not for the faint-hearted, with some scenes of graphic and implied violence, and others have awkward and unsettling sexual connotations which adds to the air of discomfort when reading them. A fantastic post-humorous collaborative effort, and Some stories are not for the faint-hearted, with some scenes of graphic and implied violence, and others have awkward and unsettling sexual connotations which adds to the air of discomfort when reading them.
A fantastic post-humorous collaborative effort, and a brilliant example of New Zealand literary talent. For the rest of this review, or for other reviews and Author interviews, visit our blog here http: Jan 12, A. Buchanan rated it it was amazing. Aug 27, Anna rated it really liked it. The purist in me was all 'sacrilege! Some of the monsters clash hilariously with the material while others feel like they had always been hiding there.
It was great fun re-reading Mansfield's work and the additions helped to highlight the general sense of foreboding that was always there. Aug 18, Cameron rated it really liked it. Other stories were more stream-of-consciousness and we had to be more bold in our reshaping. Our wonderful editor Stephen Minchin decided the final order of the stories.
The Woman at the Store is a story which already bordered on horror, and cast New Zealand in an interesting Wild West, frontier light. Twisting it to include a Pet Cemetery vibe maintained the dark sense of menace of the previously published version whilst referencing a classic of modern horror.
Mansfield with Monsters by Katherine Mansfield with Matt and Debbie Cowens review
It signals to the reader that the collection is less tongue-in-cheek than something like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. We asked Stephen why it was first up in the anthology and his sagely answer was that the stories are chronological in terms of first publication. Did you know from an early stage what stories you would include, or did you experiment with more stories than made it to the published collection? We looked for stories which sparked our imaginations, stories which gave us opportunities to write a range of speculative adaptations.
We were guided by intuition, by inspiration, and by legal constraints. At the Bay was tempting as we both love it, but it was structurally difficult and the idea of how to make to work without excising enormous tracts of text never quite clicked into place. It was a delight and lead us to read Mansfield more widely — something we hope it will do for others too. When I first heard of this project, I thought to myself that it would be very interesting to see how the literary community reacted to it: My impression is that reaction, overall has been very positive.
Is that your experience too? It was a risky proposition but people have been very open to the idea, from the Katherine Mansfield society to academics to devoted fans. For younger readers Mansfield is definitely a historical figure, someone from a distant time whose life and work can have a degree of remoteness. It was part of our aim to reach out to a more modern audience with these stories. You are both school teachers. Do you plan to, or could you see yourselves, using Mansfield with Monsters as a teaching tool?
We know of a couple of schools where the stories have already been used and the feedback from students and teachers has been really positive.