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The Gypsy Spiders and Other Italian Tales of Horror
The Gypsy Spiders and Other Tales of Italian Horror is a masterpiece of Italian fiction, a must for all readers of intelligent contemporary horror.
The Gypsy Spiders (I Ragni Zingari) was first published in 2010. In 2013 the collection won the Premio Polidori, one of Italy’s most prestigious horror awards. The title story merges old legends of the supernatural with the emotional devastation of World War Two, and the menacing, quasi-invisible spiders may or may not have been brought into being by the psychological stresses experienced by the family at the heart of the tale.
In ‘Striges’, an anthropologist undertakes a study of witchcraft, and a group of boys look on in horror as she and her son are transformed by the power of her subject. Other stories explore the real, the uncanny and the otherworldly in chilling detail.
Nicola Lombardi’s The Gypsy Spiders and Other Tales of Italian Horror have been brilliantly rendered into English by their translator, J. Weintraub.
Nicola Lombardi was born in Italy in 1965 and grew up in the Emilia-Romagna. He was heavily influenced by the traditional ghost stories told by his grandparents, the writings of Edgar Allan Poe and Lovecraft, and the graphic comics and horror films of the time.
His short stories appeared from the 1980s and are published in several collections, including Ombre (Shadows, 1989). He has edited several anthologies, translated into Italian the works of writers such as Michael Moorcock, and written critical essays on horror literature and cinema. Lombardi’s novelisations of the Dario Argento films Profondo Rosso and Suspiria, are well known. Recently, he has collaborated on stories with Lee Murray and Ramsey Campbell.
The Gypsy Spiders (I Ragni Zingari) was first published in 2010. In 2013 the collection won the Premio Polidori, one of Italy’s most prestigious horror awards. The title story merges old legends of the supernatural with the emotional devastation of World War Two, and the menacing, quasi-invisible spiders may or may not have been brought into being by the psychological stresses experienced by the family at the heart of the tale.
In ‘Striges’, an anthropologist undertakes a study of witchcraft, and a group of boys look on in horror as she and her son are transformed by the power of her subject. Other stories explore the real, the uncanny and the otherworldly in chilling detail.
Nicola Lombardi’s The Gypsy Spiders and Other Tales of Italian Horror have been brilliantly rendered into English by their translator, J. Weintraub.
Nicola Lombardi was born in Italy in 1965 and grew up in the Emilia-Romagna. He was heavily influenced by the traditional ghost stories told by his grandparents, the writings of Edgar Allan Poe and Lovecraft, and the graphic comics and horror films of the time.
His short stories appeared from the 1980s and are published in several collections, including Ombre (Shadows, 1989). He has edited several anthologies, translated into Italian the works of writers such as Michael Moorcock, and written critical essays on horror literature and cinema. Lombardi’s novelisations of the Dario Argento films Profondo Rosso and Suspiria, are well known. Recently, he has collaborated on stories with Lee Murray and Ramsey Campbell.
276 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 17, 2021
full post here: http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2021...
This book was a bit of an adventure out of my comfort zone, at least the last six stories, which are all gut-level disturbing; quite honestly they are a bit more on the dark side than I normally read, but god help me nothing short of a bomb blast in my living room would have made me put the book down while reading them. Frankly, that says a lot about how much I enjoyed this book.
on with the show:
Last year I read the first volume of The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, Volume 1, and in their introduction the editors posed the following question to their readers:
"What if there were a whole world of great horror fiction out there you didn't know anything about, written by authors in distant lands and in foreign languages, outstanding horror stories you had no access to, written in languages you couldn't read..."?
It's a very good question; as those editors also stated, "... there's a much larger body of world horror fiction out there than any of us would suspect." At the end of my post about that book, I noted that it is a true pity that "so much great writing is out there that remains unavailable to an English-language readership." Valancourt, of course, has a second volume of world horror on the horizon, but I'm beyond delighted that Tartarus has also opened the window onto that "whole great world of great horror fiction" with its publication this year of Nicola Lombardi's The Gypsy Spiders and Other Italian Horrors. To Tartarus and to translator J. Weintraub, a huge round of applause for making this book happen.
As Weintraub notes in the introduction to this volume, Lombardi grew up in an area of Italy the author once described in an interview as "a stewpot boiling over with folkloristic legend and dark tales of crime, filling the imagination with nightmares. " It was also a place where "so very many ghosts" wandered "between fogs and immense desolate spaces, between woods and abandoned farmhouses." A fan of writers such as Lovecraft, Poe, Blackwood, Bradbury, Fritz Leiber and Dino Buzzati (one of my favorite Italian authors) in his younger days and influenced as well by the stories told to him by his grandparents, Lombardi started publishing his own work in the late 80s.
In 2013 "The Gypsy Spiders" won "one of Italy's most prestigious awards for horror fiction," the Premio Polidori. Originally published in 2010, this story (which is actually novel length) begins in late summer of 1943, the year that an armistice with the Allies had been declared by the Italian government, a move which turned their former German allies into their enemy. Michele, an Italian soldier now in a hospital in Albania after being wounded, decides it's time to leave the front and go home to his family. On his return he discovers that his younger brother Marco has completely vanished, his family left suffering from the loss. As we're told,
"He had lived next to death for months, side-by-side with it, and now that he had managed to escape and find shelter in, for him, the safest and most beloved place on earth, he realised that the horror had only preceded him there, to welcome him home."
But what he hasn't realized is that the true horror is only beginning. While revealing nothing, I wil say that this story and the two that immediately follow are rooted in "the actuality of the war and its aftermath that lead to madness, obsession, and significant 'collateral damage'," and in these three tales, these elements scream loudly from the page.
These are stories which demand more than just a quick read through, and which also need to be pondered on many levels. While they are extremely disturbing, these stories reveal a major depth of insight into human nature on the author's part, as through his writing he makes very clear that, as noted in the introduction, the source of evil can often be seen to stem from the "individual and collective hearts of men and women." He doesn't have to resort to old, well-worn and tired tropes for cheap thrills here that quite honestly turn me off -- Lombardi offers his readers an eerie but sophisticated blending of the "uncanny and otherworldly" that slowly seeps not only into the lives of his characters, but under the skin of his readers at the same time.
Absolutely brilliant and very, very highly recommended. And Tartarus people: please consider more translated works in the future ... they would be very much appreciated.
This book was a bit of an adventure out of my comfort zone, at least the last six stories, which are all gut-level disturbing; quite honestly they are a bit more on the dark side than I normally read, but god help me nothing short of a bomb blast in my living room would have made me put the book down while reading them. Frankly, that says a lot about how much I enjoyed this book.
on with the show:
Last year I read the first volume of The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, Volume 1, and in their introduction the editors posed the following question to their readers:
"What if there were a whole world of great horror fiction out there you didn't know anything about, written by authors in distant lands and in foreign languages, outstanding horror stories you had no access to, written in languages you couldn't read..."?
It's a very good question; as those editors also stated, "... there's a much larger body of world horror fiction out there than any of us would suspect." At the end of my post about that book, I noted that it is a true pity that "so much great writing is out there that remains unavailable to an English-language readership." Valancourt, of course, has a second volume of world horror on the horizon, but I'm beyond delighted that Tartarus has also opened the window onto that "whole great world of great horror fiction" with its publication this year of Nicola Lombardi's The Gypsy Spiders and Other Italian Horrors. To Tartarus and to translator J. Weintraub, a huge round of applause for making this book happen.
As Weintraub notes in the introduction to this volume, Lombardi grew up in an area of Italy the author once described in an interview as "a stewpot boiling over with folkloristic legend and dark tales of crime, filling the imagination with nightmares. " It was also a place where "so very many ghosts" wandered "between fogs and immense desolate spaces, between woods and abandoned farmhouses." A fan of writers such as Lovecraft, Poe, Blackwood, Bradbury, Fritz Leiber and Dino Buzzati (one of my favorite Italian authors) in his younger days and influenced as well by the stories told to him by his grandparents, Lombardi started publishing his own work in the late 80s.
In 2013 "The Gypsy Spiders" won "one of Italy's most prestigious awards for horror fiction," the Premio Polidori. Originally published in 2010, this story (which is actually novel length) begins in late summer of 1943, the year that an armistice with the Allies had been declared by the Italian government, a move which turned their former German allies into their enemy. Michele, an Italian soldier now in a hospital in Albania after being wounded, decides it's time to leave the front and go home to his family. On his return he discovers that his younger brother Marco has completely vanished, his family left suffering from the loss. As we're told,
"He had lived next to death for months, side-by-side with it, and now that he had managed to escape and find shelter in, for him, the safest and most beloved place on earth, he realised that the horror had only preceded him there, to welcome him home."
But what he hasn't realized is that the true horror is only beginning. While revealing nothing, I wil say that this story and the two that immediately follow are rooted in "the actuality of the war and its aftermath that lead to madness, obsession, and significant 'collateral damage'," and in these three tales, these elements scream loudly from the page.
These are stories which demand more than just a quick read through, and which also need to be pondered on many levels. While they are extremely disturbing, these stories reveal a major depth of insight into human nature on the author's part, as through his writing he makes very clear that, as noted in the introduction, the source of evil can often be seen to stem from the "individual and collective hearts of men and women." He doesn't have to resort to old, well-worn and tired tropes for cheap thrills here that quite honestly turn me off -- Lombardi offers his readers an eerie but sophisticated blending of the "uncanny and otherworldly" that slowly seeps not only into the lives of his characters, but under the skin of his readers at the same time.
Absolutely brilliant and very, very highly recommended. And Tartarus people: please consider more translated works in the future ... they would be very much appreciated.
May 16, 2022
3.5 rounded up to 4
Currently Reading
February 22, 2022Sucht man im Internet nach Nicola Lombardi, stößt man zuerst auf einen Fußballtrainer. Erst die Ergänzung "Autor" führt dann zum gewünschten Ergebnis. Lombardi wird auf mehreren Internetseiten vorgestellt mit der scheinbar griffigen Beschreibung "writes horror-weird fiction since the late ´80s". Ob weird fiction nun tatsächlich eng verwandt oder gar identisch mit horror fiction ist, darüber mag man streiten. Wer Lombardis Titelerzählung THE GYPSY SPIDERS liest, wird darin keine leichte Kost finden, schon gar keinen kommerziellen Horror a la Stephen King (ohne den King diskreditieren zu wollen).
Der Erzähler, Michele, ist als italienischer Soldat im Zweiten Weltkrieg in Albanien, als am 8. September 1943 Italien einen Waffenstillstand mit den Alliierten schließt. Waren schon die Kriegserlebnisse und die erlittene Kopfverletzung für den jungen Mann der blanke Horror, kommt nun die Orientierungslosigkeit hinzu. Wofür hat er gekämpft, sind die Deutschen jetzt seine Feinde, sind die ehemaligen Feinde jetzt die Freunde? Fest steht nur, dass er zu seiner Familie und in sein italienisches Dorf zurückkehren möchte.
Mit Flucht und Ungewissheit beginnt die Novelle THE GYPSY SPIDERS, und die alte albanische Legende von den Gypsy Spiders, die aus der jenseitigen Welt im Spiegel in die diesseitige krabbeln können und sich immer am äußersten Blickrand verbergen, gerade noch als sich bewegende Schemen wahrnehmbar, ergänzt den Horror des Kriegs um das unheimliche Element (weird!) dieser Kreaturen aus einer Anderswelt, die in gewisser Weise doch ein Spiegel der unseren ist.
Als Michele auf dem elterlichen Hof ankommt, muss er erfahren, dass sein 11-jähriger Bruder Marco seit einigen Tagen verschwunden ist. Während sich die deutschen Truppen dem Dorf nähern, um Rache an den ehemaligen Verbündeten nehmen, und immer mehr der unheimlichen Spinnen auftauchen, nimmt Michele die Suche nach seinem Bruder auf. Dabei kommt er einem alten Familiengeheimnis auf die Spur und muss sich seinen eigenen Dämonen stellen.
Der Leser mag entscheiden, ob er die Spinnen als Metaphern verstehen will. Auch wenn er sich dagegen entscheidet, vielleicht gerade dann, bleibt THE GYPSY SPIDERS eine "Horrorgeschichte", in der es keinen Moment gibt, in dem man sich entspannt zurücklehnen und in behagliches "ach ja" seufzen möchte. Zu dicht ist die bedrohliche Stimmung, an der jedes Element der Novelle seinen Anteil hat: das (Un)Wetter, das die Handlung immer passend orchestriert, die heruntergebrannte Scheune des Onkels, deren Reste mahnend in den Himmel zeigen, die Spinnen und die heranrückenden deutschen Soldaten.
THE GYPSY SPIDERS ist eine sehr gelungene Kombination aus realem Zeitgeschehen und düsterer Phantastik, die dem Leser anstatt ihn zu gängeln viel interpretatorischen Freiraum lässt.
*****
Der Erzähler, Michele, ist als italienischer Soldat im Zweiten Weltkrieg in Albanien, als am 8. September 1943 Italien einen Waffenstillstand mit den Alliierten schließt. Waren schon die Kriegserlebnisse und die erlittene Kopfverletzung für den jungen Mann der blanke Horror, kommt nun die Orientierungslosigkeit hinzu. Wofür hat er gekämpft, sind die Deutschen jetzt seine Feinde, sind die ehemaligen Feinde jetzt die Freunde? Fest steht nur, dass er zu seiner Familie und in sein italienisches Dorf zurückkehren möchte.
Mit Flucht und Ungewissheit beginnt die Novelle THE GYPSY SPIDERS, und die alte albanische Legende von den Gypsy Spiders, die aus der jenseitigen Welt im Spiegel in die diesseitige krabbeln können und sich immer am äußersten Blickrand verbergen, gerade noch als sich bewegende Schemen wahrnehmbar, ergänzt den Horror des Kriegs um das unheimliche Element (weird!) dieser Kreaturen aus einer Anderswelt, die in gewisser Weise doch ein Spiegel der unseren ist.
Als Michele auf dem elterlichen Hof ankommt, muss er erfahren, dass sein 11-jähriger Bruder Marco seit einigen Tagen verschwunden ist. Während sich die deutschen Truppen dem Dorf nähern, um Rache an den ehemaligen Verbündeten nehmen, und immer mehr der unheimlichen Spinnen auftauchen, nimmt Michele die Suche nach seinem Bruder auf. Dabei kommt er einem alten Familiengeheimnis auf die Spur und muss sich seinen eigenen Dämonen stellen.
Der Leser mag entscheiden, ob er die Spinnen als Metaphern verstehen will. Auch wenn er sich dagegen entscheidet, vielleicht gerade dann, bleibt THE GYPSY SPIDERS eine "Horrorgeschichte", in der es keinen Moment gibt, in dem man sich entspannt zurücklehnen und in behagliches "ach ja" seufzen möchte. Zu dicht ist die bedrohliche Stimmung, an der jedes Element der Novelle seinen Anteil hat: das (Un)Wetter, das die Handlung immer passend orchestriert, die heruntergebrannte Scheune des Onkels, deren Reste mahnend in den Himmel zeigen, die Spinnen und die heranrückenden deutschen Soldaten.
THE GYPSY SPIDERS ist eine sehr gelungene Kombination aus realem Zeitgeschehen und düsterer Phantastik, die dem Leser anstatt ihn zu gängeln viel interpretatorischen Freiraum lässt.
*****
September 4, 2022
One story in this collection, the first and the title piece, is of novella length, and was award winning in Lombardi's native Italy in 2013. Spiders may worry some people, but I count them amongst my friends, and am reassured by their presence. Consequently, though I found the story an interesting piece of historical fiction, it was a long way from being unsettling.
The last four stories in the book however, were excellent. Many of them concern young boys, and indeed are partly autobiographical, based on the concerns and night terrors Lombardi had himself when he was young.
My opinion only of course, but any one of the last four could be expanded to novella size, particularly the last, Stiges, in which the narrator is one of a group of adolescent friends who become involved in witchcraft.
The last four stories in the book however, were excellent. Many of them concern young boys, and indeed are partly autobiographical, based on the concerns and night terrors Lombardi had himself when he was young.
My opinion only of course, but any one of the last four could be expanded to novella size, particularly the last, Stiges, in which the narrator is one of a group of adolescent friends who become involved in witchcraft.
July 8, 2023
The Gypsy Spiders ⭐⭐⭐
Alina's Ring ⭐⭐⭐
Sandcastles ⭐⭐⭐
Tests of Courage ⭐⭐⭐
Little Kastle ⭐⭐⭐
Professor Aligi's Puppets ⭐⭐⭐
Even the Stars Fall ⭐⭐⭐
The House of the Scolopendra ⭐⭐⭐
Striges ⭐⭐⭐
Alina's Ring ⭐⭐⭐
Sandcastles ⭐⭐⭐
Tests of Courage ⭐⭐⭐
Little Kastle ⭐⭐⭐
Professor Aligi's Puppets ⭐⭐⭐
Even the Stars Fall ⭐⭐⭐
The House of the Scolopendra ⭐⭐⭐
Striges ⭐⭐⭐
February 28, 2022
A good collection, with none of the translation issues that the excellent novel The Tank / La Cisterna suffered from. Since I also enjoy writing short horror stories, I could appreciate the craft that went into these in order to create effects in the reader. Still, The Tank is one of my favourite horror stories ever, despite its translation issues: this collection confirms Nicola is a great writer, but doesn't push The Tank from its pedestal. (It would be too heavy, for a start.)
January 3, 2022
This starts with the titular novella, set in Italy at World War 2, big spiders are coming through mirrors and there's a whole family crisis a soldier is returning to. The other best stories "Professor Aligi's Puppets" and "Striges" have some memorably ghastly moments. The writing is very careful and thorough (maybe sometimes too thorough?) and Lombardi makes some really good observations. The stories are bleak and there's usually some naïve character (often children) wandering into a horrible trap they probably can't escape. It's a strong collection, sometimes a bit more set in realism than I would have liked but the introspection and most horrific moments won me over. I'm a little sad that the sex worker with the spider in her eye never reappeared but it was a good moment.
This is among the nicer looking books I own and I'm glad Tartarus are trying to increase their translated output.
This is among the nicer looking books I own and I'm glad Tartarus are trying to increase their translated output.
January 27, 2023
La primera decepción del año.Le tenía mucha fe a este libro porque el autor habia novelizado algunos films de Dario Argernto,cuyo cine amo, y eso me llamaba la atención. Además este libro ha sido editado por Tartarus press, una editorial cuyos libros son geniales y que demuestra un verdadero amor al género. Pero lo que me he encontrado son unos relatos en donde hay poco terror y mucho sentimiento de perdida, tristeza o nostalgia. Algunos relatos me han parecido buenos y si incluian esas gotas terroríficas o fantásticas que me han llamado la atención pero otros me han resultado flojos o con finales muy sosos. Destacará los siguientes:
Las arañas gitanas (**): Un chico vuelve de la guerra a su antigua casa en el pueblo. Su família lo acoge con una desgraciada noticia:su hermano pequeño ha desaparecido. A partir de aquí nuestro protagonista se pondrá a investigar a su tío que parece el sospechoso principal y descubrirá más cosas sobre una antigua leyenda que le contaba su abuelo: la leyenda de las arañas gitanas que viven en la otra parte del espejo y pueden arrastrarte a su mundo. La premisa suena bestial pero el autor se enrolla como una persiana y el interés se va perdiendo paulatinamente. Es una pequeña novela que ha sido premiada,lo que no me explico porque es de lo más flojito del libro para mí.
Marionetas del profesor Aligi (***): Un niño va a ver una función de marionetas y se enamora de la hija del titiritero que le invita a su camerino para ver las marionetas. La cosa acabará mal para él y se las tendrá que ver con unos vampiros. Buenos toques gore.
Incluso las estrellas caen(****): Un chaval llega a un pueblo y se pone a trabajar en el puerto. Por la noche los jóvenes le invitan a una fiesta pero hay gato encerrado porque en ese pueblo les gustan los sacrificios. Final muy heavy y me recuerda a Lovecraft.
La casa de la escolopendra(***): Un niño vive con su madre loca en una casa llena de escolopendras.
El niño intenta ayudar a su madre en esa casa llena de bichos y encuentra un secreto muy desagradable.
Estriges(****): De lo mejor del libro y es el último relato. Unos niños van a jugar a la mansión de un amiguito rico cuya madre investiga cultos para escribir libros. La cosa se pondrá negra cuando la madre invite a una bruja a vivir con ella y el niño. Al fin algo me recuerda a Suspiria aquí.
En fin, me ha faltado bastante para recomendarlo. Recomiendo antes el libro de Unholy tales de Tod Robbins, también de Tartarus que me parecio soberbio.
Las arañas gitanas (**): Un chico vuelve de la guerra a su antigua casa en el pueblo. Su família lo acoge con una desgraciada noticia:su hermano pequeño ha desaparecido. A partir de aquí nuestro protagonista se pondrá a investigar a su tío que parece el sospechoso principal y descubrirá más cosas sobre una antigua leyenda que le contaba su abuelo: la leyenda de las arañas gitanas que viven en la otra parte del espejo y pueden arrastrarte a su mundo. La premisa suena bestial pero el autor se enrolla como una persiana y el interés se va perdiendo paulatinamente. Es una pequeña novela que ha sido premiada,lo que no me explico porque es de lo más flojito del libro para mí.
Marionetas del profesor Aligi (***): Un niño va a ver una función de marionetas y se enamora de la hija del titiritero que le invita a su camerino para ver las marionetas. La cosa acabará mal para él y se las tendrá que ver con unos vampiros. Buenos toques gore.
Incluso las estrellas caen(****): Un chaval llega a un pueblo y se pone a trabajar en el puerto. Por la noche los jóvenes le invitan a una fiesta pero hay gato encerrado porque en ese pueblo les gustan los sacrificios. Final muy heavy y me recuerda a Lovecraft.
La casa de la escolopendra(***): Un niño vive con su madre loca en una casa llena de escolopendras.
El niño intenta ayudar a su madre en esa casa llena de bichos y encuentra un secreto muy desagradable.
Estriges(****): De lo mejor del libro y es el último relato. Unos niños van a jugar a la mansión de un amiguito rico cuya madre investiga cultos para escribir libros. La cosa se pondrá negra cuando la madre invite a una bruja a vivir con ella y el niño. Al fin algo me recuerda a Suspiria aquí.
En fin, me ha faltado bastante para recomendarlo. Recomiendo antes el libro de Unholy tales de Tod Robbins, también de Tartarus que me parecio soberbio.
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