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2nd out of 15 books
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21 voters
Vathek
Vathek (1786), originally written in French, remains one of the strangest eighteenth-century novels and one of the most difficult to classify. Perverse and grotesque comedy alternates with scenes of 'oriental' magnificence and evocative beauty in the story of the ruthless Caliph Vathek's journey to superb damnation among the subterranean treasures of Eblis. Underlying the...more
Paperback, 170 pages
Published
March 18th 1999
by Oxford University Press, USA
(first published 1786)
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Underground palaces! Concealed didacticism! Homosexual indiscretions!
Caliph Vathek is the ruler in Baghdad and its large Empire, in the Middle East and Africa...Grandson of the illustrious Harun al -Rashid.Of the Arabian Nights fame(this is fiction, folks , with only a very vague resemblance to a real man, so don't bother to look him up on Wikipedia). Being the 9th century,the Caliph has absolute power.Also an evil eye, deadly when angered.As a lot of his poor victims discovered too late. Nobody looks at Vathek's fearsome eye, when the Caliph is in a very bad moo...more
A fun old Gothic with a tale of the Arabian nights sort of feel. We have a power and knowledge hungry leader with a weakness for food and women, and his even more ambitious astrology reading mother (sort of McBeth-ish, only mother not wife). Then there is the Giaour with a thirst for young pretty young boys (as food, not for sex), a huge tower of babel sort of thing with a floor dedicated to each of the senses, little dwarfs that pinch to death, a young couple in love (cousins) who are tricked i...more
Vathek was Caliph in the area of approximately present-day Iraq, at some unknown time in the past. He was generally a fair person, but woe unto him who got Vathek angry. He lived in an immense castle, with the absolute finest of everything. One day, a very strange, and very ugly, man stood before his throne. He had a hideous laugh, but didn’t speak. He showed Vathek all manner of rare and exotic items, including sabers inscribed in an unknown language, inscriptions which kept changing from day t...more
An odd book, and not a completely successful one. I cannot deny it a wealth of ironic observation and an elegant style, but I believe the author indulges his hobbies and obsessions--his Orientalism, his ephebophilia, his loathing of his mother and other termagants--to an extent that distorts this tale of sensuality, pride and and destruction instead of informing and enriching it. The last twenty pages or so, however, that relate Prince Vathek's damnation in the underground realm of the angel Ebl...more
Postmodernism has nothing on Vathek. An absolutely bizarre Gothic tale, rich in Orientalism and deviltry. You may think that the modern era has corned the market in strange, difficult texts, but there is truly nothing new under the sun. Vathek is stranger than strange.
After reading The Moor I was in the mood for some more “Orientalist” gothic novels, Vathek was the first Oriental Gothic novel (according to the blurb on the back) and I thought it would be quite fun and it was. It was quite short, especially by gothic novel standards only 160 pages but I think this worked in its favour. It had fewer diversions and stayed focused more closely on the plot than other novels in this genre. The start of the book was very Orientalist in its descriptions of the pleasu...more
Dass diese Geschichte nicht wirklich gut ausgehen kann, das weiss der geneigte Leser schon nach einigen wenigen Seiten bzw. insofern er sich die Mühe macht und das geistreiche Vorwort des genialen und phantastischen Erzählers Jorge Luis Borges gelesen hat, das der in der Bibliothek von Babel erschienenen Ausgabe des 'Vathek' vorangestellt ist. So bleibt dem Leser nurmehr übrig zu lesen und zu staunen, was sich William Beckford als nächste Steigerung der für den nimmersatten Kalifen einfallen li...more
Originally published on my blog here in April 2000.
William Beckford was an eccentric millionaire; his short novel Vathek is an eccentric novel. It is apparently a morality tale based on some of the stories in the Arabian Nights. It tells the story of Vathek, an imaginary descendant and successor of Caliph Haroun al Raschid. He has two passions: for decadent luxury (vast feasts, beautiful concubines) and arcane knowledge. When an evil looking Indian magician visits his court, his desire for knowl...more
William Beckford was an eccentric millionaire; his short novel Vathek is an eccentric novel. It is apparently a morality tale based on some of the stories in the Arabian Nights. It tells the story of Vathek, an imaginary descendant and successor of Caliph Haroun al Raschid. He has two passions: for decadent luxury (vast feasts, beautiful concubines) and arcane knowledge. When an evil looking Indian magician visits his court, his desire for knowl...more
I seem to have embarked on a re-exploration of the gothic genre. After finishing a re-read of The Castle Of Otranto by Horace Walpole a couple of days back, Last night I finished Vathek by William Beckford, a novel which also stems from the trend for Orientalist fiction which played upon the exoticism of an imagined Arabic setting, largely inspired by translations of The Thousand And One Nights.
It's the story of the Caliph Vathek, a sensualist and seeker of knowledge whose quest for novelty lead...more
It's the story of the Caliph Vathek, a sensualist and seeker of knowledge whose quest for novelty lead...more
Mar 22, 2013
Stephanie "Jedigal"
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
1001-books
I'm sure this story's inclusion in the 1001 list is due to some status it has regarding a first SOMEthing. But that doesn't make it so great today. It IS an interesting combination of a classic adventure story with a morality tale. There is plenty of description (and fairly good actually), but not to the point where it prevents the plot from moving fairly steadily forward. Its mildly entertaining, quite inventive seeming, but seriously I doubt that any of it will stick with me.
There's an "openi...more
There's an "openi...more
May 21, 2010
K.D. Oliveros
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Aaron Vincent, whose YA taste I respect most
Recommended to K.D. by:
501 Must Read Books and 1001 Books You Must Read Before You DIe (2006 to 2010 editions)
Surprisingly quite an interesting read! The plot is thick, interesting characters and definitely written by somebody with a very rich imagination! Wiki says that Mr. Beckford, at the young age of 21, wrote this straight 3 days and 2 nights in French in 1782. Now, after 228 years and the story is still interesting and can put to shame the contemporary fantasy gothic novels we have.
The character of Caliph Vathek, still from Wiki, is inspired by the life of Al-Wathiq ibn Mutasim (Arabic الواثق), an...more
The character of Caliph Vathek, still from Wiki, is inspired by the life of Al-Wathiq ibn Mutasim (Arabic الواثق), an...more
This book was an amazingly hilarious diversion. Very loosely based on the knowledge-hungry 7th century Abbasid Caliph Al-Wathiq, Beckford gives us a Gothic, Orientalist and just plain bizarre rendition of events. Vathek builds a tower the rival those of Babel and Nimrod and stirs the anger of the Prophet, who decrees that Vathek should be left to his own folly and receive whatever fate his impiety and pride earn him. Enter the Giaour (infidel) who tempts Vathek (with a little/a s*&$ton of nu...more
There are not a lot of good reasons to read a Gothic horror story these days since they are generally silly and not scary in the slightest. However, every once in a while they do some little thing right in a formal style different than modern authors. The author of this cautionary tale of an Arab potentate who has delusions of deification does do one thing right, at the very end, after you have read some well written, sometimes dark, but ultimately ridiculous stories about dwarves, genies, mummi...more
I had to read this book for my English Unit on The Dark Hero. However, to be perfectly honest Vathek isn't much of a hero. He's so self-indulgent and easily distracted from his quest that it's quite tedious to read. Also, a lot is packed into it and the book is very short, which makes reading it slightly confusing when so much is going on at the same time. I'm glad I read it, but in some parts it was quite boring, and it wasn't until the end that it got interesting and then well...it was over. T...more
I have a love for fables, for "orientalist" tales such a those found in Arabian Nights or the travel literature of explorers in the middle east ... or the modern reinterpretations by people like Salman Rushdie and Italo Calvino. I even like the overblown nature of decadent literature. Which is to say that with such a strong predisposition it was impossible for me not to enjoy Vathek. Which is also to say that I'm not very well equipped to decide if it is a good book or not. The story of William...more
So plodding, this book. It was painful to read. Even in Starbucks with wonderful smells of cinnamon and chocolate wafting around. Page by page, I trudged on.
Some great imagery, but at great expense!
Some great imagery, but at great expense!
It's a fun little Gothic novel about the Caliph Vathek, a man who despite his great riches is ever hungry for more. Ultimately, he commits all kinds of evils to get at the great marvels promised by an evil spirit, leading to his eventual doom.
It's imaginative and fairly well-written (in contrast to the Castle of Otranto), but also a bit over-the-top. Palaces don't feature long corridors, they feature hundreds of long, dark corridors. When Vathek is hungry, he doesn't eat five dishes, he eats 13...more
It's imaginative and fairly well-written (in contrast to the Castle of Otranto), but also a bit over-the-top. Palaces don't feature long corridors, they feature hundreds of long, dark corridors. When Vathek is hungry, he doesn't eat five dishes, he eats 13...more
Jan 02, 2013
Stela
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
devoted gothic readers
Shelves:
gothic-and-urban-gothic
I used to recall, with appalled amusement, the words of a former colleague of mine, who was slyly intrigued (and very proud of his cleverness) that anyone could read dead writers. What can I say? You don't usually argue with fools, whose minds are relaxed. Moreover, ignorance has many faces, and some of them are really funny even if in an involuntary way.
On the other hand though, maybe because there are strange points where ineptitude and intelligence seem to cross (not always clear whether for...more
On the other hand though, maybe because there are strange points where ineptitude and intelligence seem to cross (not always clear whether for...more
Vathek is a curiosity. A story of a fictional sultan who lives elaborately, has adventures along the way, and winds up in Hell. Much of the book is levity and chaotic nonsense. Through all of that the only part I really like was the episode with Vathek's mother and her great camel. Fun stuff. At the end of the book the atmosphere changes and we are show a depiction of Hell that is as fascinating as it is terrifying. The last half of the book, indeed even the last quarter of the book almost redee...more
What a strange book. This fairy tale of the doomed was written by the richest man in England. William Beckford was fabulously wealthy because of his parents' Caribbean plantations; he eventually had to flee England at a time when sodomy was a capital crime. While the text is riddled with problematic colonialist and orientalist assumptions, it's also nearly hallucinogenic in its presentations of magic, lavish consumption, and cartoonish evil. It reads like a product of the eighteenth century; but...more
This has to be one of the strangest, most rambling books I have ever read. I shouldn't call it a book actually, it is more like a chapter-less novella. Crazy caliphs, dark and magical monsters, swords with unintelligible, changeable writing on them, food, wine, women, murder, human sacrifices, subversive allusions to Catholicism - this story has it all! Go into this book the way you would when reading Arabian Nights - except a tale with strange characters who you won't really care for, but expec...more
Vathek is a very strange Gothic, Oriental fantasy about a surfeitous Caliph that gets duped into thinking his journey to inherit the treasures of the Subterranean Palace of Fire (or something like that)—what we would call "Hell"—will result in great power and eternal happiness. It's well-written and very ornate (very Rococo), but the characters are pretty shallow, really, although the Caliph’s mother, a Saracen queen of sorts, does have a bit more depth than the rest of the cast, in a creepy sor...more
Jan 07, 2013
Emma
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
bookcase-1,
read-in-2013
At first I found this book strangely engaging. It was so weird and random that I couldn't help but laugh at in what I thought was amazement. As I read on it became obvious that I was really just a bit bemused by it all as the novelty wore off and the constant shifting between scenes and characters became very tiring. I found my mind wandering constantly. I did enjoy the portrayal of some of the characters like the horrible Carathis who was wicked and selfish. The level of imagination was very im...more
This is one of the strangest novels I have ever read! It's the story of Vathek, ninth Caliph of the race of the Abassides, and his temptation by a supernatural being (known as 'the Giaour'), who promises to bestow on him the treasures and talismans of the 'palace of subterranean fire'.
The best way I can describe Vathek is that it's a sort of dark, twisted fairy tale reminiscent of The Arabian Nights. Beckford mixes eastern mythology and Islamic culture with elements of the gothic novel (ghouls,...more
The best way I can describe Vathek is that it's a sort of dark, twisted fairy tale reminiscent of The Arabian Nights. Beckford mixes eastern mythology and Islamic culture with elements of the gothic novel (ghouls,...more
A bit of a bizarre stream of consciousness but a wonderful lesson in morality. Vathek is a sultan who greatly indulges in the desires of his own appetite, something for which there is no satisfaction. His mother, Carathis, desires nothing more than to learn all the secrets of evil. Together, they embark upon a journey that will lead them to eternal knowledge as well as eternal damnation.
My favorite quote from the novel is as follows:
Such was, and such should be, the punishment of
unrestrained p...more
My favorite quote from the novel is as follows:
Such was, and such should be, the punishment of
unrestrained p...more
As my classmate put it...this was a novel that just screamed "LOOK I'M WILLIAM BECKFORD I HAVE A GRAND IMAGINATION AND GREAT DEAL OF TEENAGE ANGST WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED THIS HAPPENED IT'S BY WILLIAM BECKFORD!!!1!" It was an entertaining read and there wasn't much else to discern from the plot. I was more creeped out by its ridiculousness than amused. Unlike other gothic novels, there isn't a real immersion into the tale and the common gothic elements are absent. The terror is there, but Beckford...more
Apparently Beckford, an Englishman, wrote this in French at the age of 21, as writing Gothic novels was quite fashionable at the time. In terms of Orientalism, Beckford makes Marsh look like Edward Said with this account of a mad caliph who gets involved in every sort of vice and devilry imaginable. Perhaps the earliest literary use of ghouls is just one of the reasons to recommend it, with other snippets of Middle Eastern folklore liberally peppering this fast-paced hootenanny. Fans of Vance’s...more
After reading this book, I have to question why it was selected as one of the 1001 books to read before you die. I read this in online installments - maybe it would have been better in audio or paper... I could see how the whole plot was farcical, but unlike other books of that genre like Candide, I didn't see the point. Definitely could have used some Cliff Notes to accompany this one...
What a weird book. This one's considered one of the first gothic novels, and it certainly is, though it was called an "Oriental Tale" in its day. Naturally, the term's not in use anymore. It tells the story of the Caliph Vathek whose descent into hell is bizarre and fueled by strange forces. The ending is great, though. Worth it if you can get through Beckford's convoluted style.
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