Themes in The Monstrumologist

I am currently reading The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancy. I am enjoying this book quite a lot. It is very interesting. I have noticed one particular theme coming up throughout the entire book, resulting in page-long monologues from the person writing the diary. His name is Will Henry and he is the monstrumologist's assistant. This particular theme is the strange and unrecognizable relationship the monstrumologist and his assistant have. The tension and feelings drawn between them change, almost as if the two do not understand each other. 

At some points, I, the reader, think Will Henry thinks of the doctor as a father, for Will Henry doesn't have one. Will Henry will dutifully do what the doctor tells him to, no matter how tired he is from days of sleep deprivation. The next page the doctor will ask him to do another errand and Will Henry will get defensive in his mind and say things like 'this is the big moment, where I show him I don't belong to him' and ' what is he doing, thinking he can act like my father.' At times, it seems as if Will Henry is blaming the doctor for the death of his father, a tragic death in a fire. It feels almost as if Will Henry doesn't trust the doctor. When the doctor sends him out to the market, Will Henry thinks of escape. He says in his head 'it wasn't the first time this thought had come to mind.' The tendency to escape has overcome him multiple times. He would rather be somewhere else. But he has no other family. Where would he go?

Yet, at the same time, the doctor seems to need Will Henry a lot. Not just for his services, which, as the doctor puts it, are 'indispensable', but for company as well. I almost think the indispensable quality is not the work Will Henry does for the doctor, but actually the company he brings. Late at night, the doctor will call Will Henry to his side just so Will Henry is there, sitting beside him. It's almost like the doctor fears about the monsters he faces, and nighttime is the only time he can let it out, in his nightmares. I think to the doctor, the fact that Will Henry will get up in the middle of the night without question, and just sit with him when the doctor is scared; I think the doctor thinks that quality is indispensable. 

The doctor and Will Henry have very confusing feelings towards each other. The doctor thinks Will Henry's quality of being there whenever he needs him is indispensable and Will Henry thinks of running away sometimes, or challenging the doctor's ideas, but other times he seems to think of him as a father. Their relationship is very confusing, at this point, and I hope I get a better grip on it when I'm farther through the book. 

Exceptional Reading Responses

Today I read Zozi's blog post about the book he read called "In The Times of Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez. His response first struck me when he wrote of the part in which the dictator, Trujillo, tries to ruin the family's lives. He kills off most of her family, then forces her sister to work for him, and then Dede's, the main character, best friend tries to assassinate him. This part was what really drew me in. The truth that loyalty, even in a time like this, can overcome most everything. Even when things are looking so down, so deserted, so alone, Dede finds hope can help her through. The one things you never think is possible can happen. Her best friend tries to save them. It's so shocking to me because Trujillo is a murderer, who would gladly murder Dede's whole family and then sabotage them yet again, and I would be terrified of him. But Dede's friend tries to assassinate him, and that is friendship. It's almost like a movie, it's so unrealistic. In a movie, a person always saves someone in the end, and I never believed that could happen in real life. But it did. And now I will always have hope.

Next, I read Naomi B.'s response to "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" by Mark Haddon. It was interesting to read this response, because I've read this book before and loved it. However, Naomi pointed out some things I didn't notice when I read the book. Like how the prime numbers and graphs are not just something he likes to do for fun, but they show a way of mapping out his own life when his dad can't listen. I also agree with the dad having a lot to deal with, having an autistic son and all, as well as being a single parent. It must cause a lot of stress.

Long Lankin

This summer I read the book Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough. This book is really frightening. It is about how Cora and her little sister Mimi are sent to live with their Auntie Ida after their mother runs away and their dad has too much on his hands. Auntie Ida lives in the village of Bryers Guerdon, in Guerdon Hall. Everything is going well, until Cora realizes that the villagers go silent every time Auntie Ida walks into a room. Then they whisper about how she ‘should not be allowed to have kids stay with her.’ Then Cora and her friends Roger and Pete discover mysterious words written inside an abandoned old church, a man in the church graveyard with a scarred face, and a strange awful creature crawling through the darkness towards their bedroom. This story, while it is still very scary, is based off the most realistic fears possible.

           

Long Lankin was originally a folk song about murder, witchcraft, and revenge. The author incorporates every aspect of the folk song into her novel, down to the baby being a boy and the witch being the boy’s wet nurse. Long Lankin, however, appears in the folksong to be a man wrought with revenge over a love stolen, and this is why he kills her. In the book, however, Long Lankin is a gruesome thing not even human that crawls through the grass, preying on innocent children who live at Guerdon Hall. The author clearly changed the person of Long Lankin to be more alarming, while, in my opinion, a man himself, without the gruesomeness of the skull and bony fingers, would have scared me more. It is more frightening to have the murderer look like someone we could all have seen walking on the street any day then a gruesome monster. That would’ve been scarier three years ago.

Another source of fear is generated from that monster-in-your-house type feeling. When we were younger, we used to think that monsters where in our house, and used to sprint, heart pounding, to the bathroom in the dead of night. This book uses a lot of moments of Cora laying in bed and hearing noises of scratching and little whispers in the dark. That has all happened to us. After a nightmare, the tiniest sounds are magnified to the point of thinking that the branch scraping against a window is a monster coming up the stairs. Even though it is scary, it’s scarier for younger children.

The book Long Lankin, while still being scary, is based off the most realistic fears that have been copied and copied in many, many novels. It is using basic fears and normal feelings that you get at night in the dark or when you’re scared.