#the beetle

[annabelle--cane]

can't get enough of this sydney atherton guy. now this is how you make a fucking protagonist. worst man in he whole world. it is blindingly obvious that he is the bad guy in every single interaction in which he participates and he point blank refuses to notice. his friend (a teetotaler whom he has just coerced into drinking) says "well if the woman I'm in love with is keen on someone else then I hope they're happy" and he unironically replies "that's cringe, I get murderous. wanna come to my house and play murder with me?"

#the beetle #marina marvels at life

[mindblownie2]

Forgot to say it earlier but something funny about The Beetle was how surprised I was to get to the end when it did; I guess the Weekly format distorts the perception of how long a book has gone on for but it really felt like we were just finally done expositing about our protagonists and the Real Plot will start, and then the action was over in like two or three emails AND ALSO HAPPENED ALMOST ENTIRELY OFF SCREEN?? Like after Marjorie disappears, all the guys do is chase after the bad guy but the "chase" largely consists of things like "sitting with someone who witnessed stuff happening and now recounts it comically slow" or "getting telegrams about things that happened somewhere else" until they finally catch up for the final standoff only to find out that the villain has already died, also off screen, BY ACCIDENT. it's incredible.

#the goblin talks #the beetle

[forthegothicheroine]

Marjorie Lindon still lives. The spark of life which was left in her, when she was extricated from among the débris of the wrecked express, was fanned again into flame. Her restoration was, however, not merely an affair of weeks or months, it was a matter of years. I believe that, even after her physical powers were completely restored—in itself a tedious task—she was for something like three years under medical supervision as a lunatic. But all that skill and money could do was done, and in course of time—the great healer—the results were entirely satisfactory.

Congratulations to Marjorie Lindon, the first person in all horror fiction to get better with psychiatric treatment!

#the beetle #the beetle weekly

[gellavonhamster]

It is time to make a confession... I haven't noticed anything particularly horrible about the sentence structure in The Beetle. Maybe that's just me being a non-native speaker and expecting any old book in English to have a somewhat unwieldy style, but every time someone singles it out as one of the most terrible crimes of this book, I am quite baffled.

#the beetle #richard marsh #talk talk talk

[phyn-rambles]

With the odd but delightful upsurgence of people finding The Beetle by Richard Marsh-- a book I read in a course on British Imperialism and Literature and fell instantly in love with, but feel weird recommending to people for various reasons-- I submit the following

Spoilers and creative liberties taken

An Interview

Me: Heeey, Richard Marsh, interesting story you got there. Really cool gender stuff. One question. Can you do it without all the racism? Marsh: What? No. No, the racism is key. The racism is definitely necessary. Me: ...yeah, okay. I get it, you’re British and it's Empire time. But can't we scale back the Orientalism JUST a little? I mean, you’ve got these sections that could be read as a *critique* of Imperialism, but then… Marsh: It is imperative that the Beetle, in human form described at its full power as an extremely attractive, hypnotic, powerful woman who can take advantage of men– Imagine! once powerful, virile men, taken advantage of by the lesser sex, captured in their sex and murder dungeon; don't worry I'm going to describe this intimately–  Me: Yeah, we’ve all read She– Marsh: –that this “Beetle” be a foreign woman whose murder leads to an INFECTION THAT INVADES ENGLAND TO UPSET GENDER ROLES NILLY-WILLY– Me: To be honest, Richie, the way you write the other characters it seems like the “upsetting gender roles” call is coming from inside the house, if you just– Marsh: CAUSING POOR DEFENSELESS MEN WHO SHOW ANY SIGN OF WEAKNESS TO FALL UNDER ITS WEIRDLY ANDROGYNOUS SWAY! INNOCENT YOUNG ‘ANGEL OF THE HOUSE’ TYPE WOMEN START CROSS-DRESSING! POWERFUL MALE POLITICIANS FALL TO THEIR KNEES AND WEEP! BEHOLD THE TERROR! Me:... Marsh:... Marsh:...BE AFRAID!!! IT'S TERRIFYING! Me: ….Are we sure it's fear motivating this? Sorry, are we sure it's fear *of this* motivating it?  Marsh: SO SCARY!! OOOOOO YOU'RE SUPER SCARED! Hahaha…I mean just IMAGINE…someone forcing you out of the strict gender and societal roles you were born into 👀…someone who has no stake in said roles…👀 Me: Yeah, so we're marking “fetishization” AND “demonification” of the Other off on our bingo board Marsh: So there's this scientist who’s madly romantic and has (strangely-- may I even say queerly--) intense beef with the paragon of maleness character. Meanwhile his best friend (who he's not attracted to and who happens to be a woman) keeps trying to hint that they should marry so other guys stop hitting on her and– Me: …okay, this is just a mess. This is a mess, Richard. Do you see how this is a mess? Please.  Marsh: THERE'S A CARPET THAT EATS PEOPLE! WAIT, WAIT, MYSTERY CULTS! SHAPESHIFTING! BIOLOGICAL WARFARE! WAIT, I HAVE MORE–!

#the beetle #literature review #spoilers #racism #orientalism #british imperialism #lots of isms #I've tried to imagine how this would be adapted #but the imperialism and racism is EMBEDDED #at best you could do a weird postmodern adaptation that critiques the views of the characters as it goes #but that honestly sounds awful tbh #this is dedicated to Tal from re: dracula #im sorry and good luck #re: dracula

[see-arcane]

So I've heard quite a bit about Richard "Em Dash" Marsh and his book The Beetle, but I've been quite curious: What elements about it are compelling? I refuse to read the book itself (made that mistake with... other gothic-based media (Damn you, Moore), so I was curious about your thoughts on it?

I think it's just the sheer amount of wasted opportunity for metaphor left laying around. Like, I know everyone likes to call it "Dracula but so much shittier," but I've always seen more resemblance to Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," and not just for the insect element.

The two characters we're introduced to as (mistaken) protagonist and antagonist are Robert Holt and the Beetle. Holt is a clerk who lost his job, applied everywhere after, followed all the rules he was taught to trust in, certain that society would naturally play as fairly with him...only to find himself homeless and starved and refused entrance even to a shelter because it was too full. He watches on in mingled surprise and envy as a fellow vagrant blithely breaks a window and waits to be arrested, thrown in jail for the sake of shelter from the rain.

Robert Holt does not throw a brick with him. Robert Holt is too shackled by his ingrained sense of If I Follow the Rules, If I am a Good Citizen, I Will be Helped.

He isn't. He walks away into the rain, still starving, still scraped off the edge of society, shooed like vermin. He reaches the Beetle's home with its window ajar. He slinks in.

And then is immediately preyed on by the Beetle, his free will suddenly ripped away, ordered to strip and walk and talk and die and live and rob and generally be violated on every mental and external level. He is literally so low as to be overpowered and stepped on by an insect.

But Holt isn't immune to his own (read: Marsh's) callousness. He refers to the Beetle, who is an Egyptian visitor here for revenge reasons, in some fairly ugly terms. How much we can shrug off as being a fear/disgust response versus being Conditioned to Other Anyone Not Anglo-Saxon Enough is up in the air in-universe.

The frustration here is that between this opening and the future cast members' rancid treatment of Holt, who tries to help and warn them, and of the Beetle, met with disdain simply for being a foreigner in England before one chitinous move can be made, there could have been SO MUCH to play with in terms of...

Human beings reduced to pests not worth dignity or care because they are Poor, they are Homeless, they are the Lowest Rung of Society, they are Foreign, they are Dirty and Different from What's White Right

The examination of in-fighting of 'verminous' people. Figurative insects living underfoot in supposedly civilized countries, now preying on and demeaning each other rather than extending the empathy they were never shown by polite*** society

Spotlighting the brutality and villainous aspects of our group of well-to-do "heroes", the main cast being mixed up in building genocidal weapons and plotting asylum stays for romantic rivals and hypocrisy and so many layers of bigotry it makes your eyes ache

A better version of the story in which the aforementioned genocidal weapon, a killer gas to be used on South America for some fucking reason, becomes the focus of the story--bonus points for the accidental 'bug spray' comparison to be made--with the potential of the Beetle and Holt switching tracks from singular vengeance and/or the desperate thwarting of this fruition; knowing that the existence of such a thing would be a prelude to 'dealing with the vermin problem' on a terrifying scale. Perhaps by making use of a new kind of 'shelter.' The insects become the heroes, the polished creme of England now turned to fertilizer.

...a better version that might have Holt ending the story with his own metamorphosis, but as a Gregor Samsa with actual strength and will of his own, and acceptance waiting for him on the other side of the change.

But no.

Richard Dickard Marsh couldn't be bothered to reach beyond squeezing out a Sydney Atherton-shaped turd onto the typewriter and calling it done.

It's so, so, SO goddamn infuriating as a storyteller to find the seeds for something that would have been amazing and groundbreaking, especially for its time period, only to see the whole thing salted and burned until all that's left is racist caricatures, a trashfire of a plot, and the most eye-watering syntax ever put to paper.

#in which I am Bitter about the Beetle #the beetle #richard marsh #I hope he's being eaten by scarabs in the afterlife

[re-dracula]

Readle The Beetle is a new patreon-exclusive podcast where Tal reads The Beetle so you don't have to. Tune in weekly for recaps and reactions of this... very interesting... novel. Patrons of any paid tier get access!

Transcript of this clip is under the cut.

So he sees these two eyes, and he's just like, frozen with fear. Deer in the headlights in this house with an open window and nice carpet. And he determines that the creature is small. And this is where I'm going "The Beetle? The beetle? Chapter two, do we get to meet the beetle?" And then we get another, another really long sentence. I highlighted this because I'm trying to find the longest sentence in this book. This one has only one semi colon, but hear me out, hear me out.

"Ordinarily, I believe that I have as high a spirit as the average man and as solid a resolution. But when one has been dragged through the valley of humiliation, and plunged again and again into the waters of bitterness and privation, a man can be constrained to a course of action of which, in his happier moments, he would have deemed himself incapable."

Hey, did you space out while I was reading that? Cause I almost spaced out and I was the one reading that.

#re: dracula #the beetle

[thealmightyemprex]

Who is Spider Mans best villain tournament Round 1 part 10

@countesspetofi @angelixgutz @amalthea9 @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @piterelizabethdevries @ariel-seagull-wings @filmcityworld1 @princesssarisa

#morbius the living vampire #the beetle #spider man #Spider-Man villain tournament

[general-sleepy]

Do you think Theb made Robert get basically naked to rob Paul as a way of mocking Paul's escaping naked from the cult? Or am I thinking about this more than Richard Marsh did?

#the beetle #i mean probably #but i'm choosing to pretend this is intentional because it's nifty #oh good version of the beetle that exists inside of my brain #i wish i could quit you

[that90ssmshow]

Spectacular Spider-Man #164 (1990) AKA That time Spider-Man got sick of The Beetle's bullshit

#the spectacular spider-man #Sal Buscema #gerry conway #the beetle #abner jenkins #spider-man comics #smcomics

[realllyrandommann]

Not a single day missed

#the beetle #richard marsh #reading progress #goodreads #literature

[annabelle--cane]

sydney atherton gets steaming mad when a woman rejects his confession of love, feels extremely possessive of her, goes to the house of her fiance, sees someone fall out a window, and thinks "god I hope I'm about to see this asshole kill himself"

#normal guy #the beetle #suicide ment #marina marvels at life

[mindblownie2]

God bless the Victorians. To kidnap and mind control a nice upper class girl is awful, but to have her disguised as a boy in tattered clothes - now that's truly horrific!

#the goblin talks #the beetle #so disappointed because all throughout i was hoping she disguised herself to escape and snoop around. #but that've been too cool for this book

[forthegothicheroine]

Sydney Atherton has married Miss Dora Grayling. Her wealth has made him one of the richest men in England. She began, the story goes, by loving him immensely; I can answer for the fact that he has ended by loving her as much. Their devotion to each other contradicts the pessimistic nonsense which supposes that every marriage must be of necessity a failure.

Makes you wonder what kind of person Dora Grayling is...has Sydney Atherton found his partner in supervillainy?

#the beetle #the beetle weekly

[ieidolon]

"Come, I see that you suppose my intentions to be harsher than they really are--do not let us have a scandal, and a scene--be sensible!--give me those letters!" "Come, I see that you suppose my intentions to be harsher than they really are--do not let us have a scandal, and a scene--be sensible!--give me those letters!"

"It's a conjurer's trick!--Of course!--Nothing more--What else could it be?--I'm not to be fooled.--I'm older than I was. I've been overdoing it--that's all."

"Strike the revolver out of his hand, Matthews!--knock him down!--take the letters from him!--don't be afraid!--I'm not afraid!"

Mr. Richard Marsh you would really save a lot of money on ink if you learned how to make a space between sentence fragments sometimes

#the beetle #Richard Marsh #googling how to revoke the em-dash privileges of an author who has been dead since 1915 #besties these are all from the same page. the same page #the beetle weekly #i suppose i might as well

[canyourfavesurvivecastledracula]

He is the anti-fave, but could Sydney Atherton from The Beetle survive Castle Dracula?

Oh my good and dear friend, you will never guess the specific character who inspired this blog

I have terrible news for you: Sydney lives.

Dracula expects his guests to behave in a certain way and Sydney Atherton does not react as expected. He takes Arbitrary Skeptecism to the next level and starts gaslighting Dracula. Dracula tries to be spooky with "I never drink... wine" type sinister hints and Sydney calls him a slur about it. IF Sydney cuts himself, Dracula goes for his throat and Sydney's like "...and then what 😏" If Dracula takes his mirror Sydney decks him - and if Dracula responds in kind Sydney is a little too into it. Sydney can't be hypnotized but he lets the Girlies kiss him anyway - or maybe he seduces them with his excellent dancing. He gives Dracula unsolicited mustache care advice and it's actually good.

Dracula delays his own travel plans indefinitely because he needs to study Sydney like a bug.

So I very sorry to say, Sydney Atherton can survive Castle Dracula. (No one liked that)

#the beetle weekly #the beetle #sydney atherton #gothlit #inventors