The Doubtful Guest by Edward Gorey Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Doubtful Guest
Book Review: A Gorey story for kids and adults
Summary: 5 Stars
Edward Gorey's humor is delightfully absurd. Although this particular tale is unlike any other Gorey story, the humor and pen & ink illustrations are beautifully done and unmistakably Gorey.Book Review: A Gothic Delight
Summary: 5 Stars
Edward Gorey uses gothic illustrations to tell the tale of a strange creature who appears one day in a family's home. The prose is an amusing rhyme which describes the family's confusion and frustration at dealing with this unwanted guest. Although the illustrations are gothic and dark, the reader is still amused by the creature and the family who must deal with it.Book Review: A nameless creature arrives at a Victorian household.
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is very light compared to most Edward Goreys. The creature is so funny, especialy when he puts on that innocent look that my dog puts on when she's down something bad. The family pretends to want to get rid of this animal while they really probally like the change from their boring, Victorian lives. I treasure this book as much as a picture I have of Edward Gorey with a Doubtful Guest stuffed animal.Book Review: American strangeness
Summary: 4 Stars
I used to pick up my dad's Edward Gorey books when I was a wee boy, read them in half an hour and put them back on the shelves, quivering with fear. Admittedly I was also scared of Doctor Who, old people and "Strawberry Fields Forever". But Gorey has definitely tapped into a seam of subterranean panic; his hollow-eyed pseudo-Edwardian families have a look about them as though some sort of hideously deformed ancestor has been chained up in the attic for centuries. The Doubtful Guest is ostensibly for kids, telling the story of a strange, aardvarkesque creature in tennis shoes (typical Gorey touch, the tennis shoes) that comes to stay one "wild winter night", but maybe you have to be an adult to find it truly unnerving. The creature slopes about the house, eating plates, lying in doorways and hiding towels, and the hapless family can't bring itself to dispose of the thing. At the end of the book it's been there for seventeen years and is sitting in the drawing room with the same look of wide-eyed expectancy, while the enervated family stands about aimlessly with as little of a clue as ever. This isn't quite my favourite Gorey. Other contenders would be the almost absurdly depressing The Hapless Child (small girl is born, parents die, is sent to workhouse, winds up perishing in the street, is found by its actually-not-dead-but-until-recently-in-Africa father who, typically, fails to recognise his daughter) and the surreal The Object Lesson (classic Gorey opening line: "It was already Thursday, but his Lordship's artificial limb could not be found..."). Or else there's the sexy but menacing The Curious Sofa...
He's still a master and a true original. Check out the way that the house in The Doubtful Guest seems to have been invaded by a black fog; Henry James took over a hundred pages to write The Turn of the Screw, but Gorey can squeeze comparably effects into 26 pages. Not many "children's" books of 43 years ago still have this power to charm and alarm.
Book Review: CREATIVE AND ARTISTIC
Summary: 5 Stars
This book tells a simple and easy story with rhyming couplets. It is a sort and fun book that, unlike some of his other books, is completely appropriate. It is drawn in a complex, dark, crosshatching technique. The characters are beautiful, with their flowing robes and melancholy expressions. The background is just as detailed, and appears have as much effort put into them as the characters, so as a result, the illustrations fit and are nicely proportioned. Over all, this book is one of Gorey's best works, along with After the Outing. It is a macabre, enjoyably fantasy that anyone should have on his or her bookshelf or coffee table.