I've never seen either the original Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr. or the remake with Anthony Hopkins, so I had no idea what to expect from this book. Except of course that it would be about a werewolf. Fortunately, in a way, I was sick when I sat down to read this. So I had nothing else to do but sit and read the books through in about a day. And to my mild surprise, it actually held my attention the entire time. Werewolves being so done lately, I wasn't sure how interesting I would find it.
The key to this story for me was the time Maberry took to establish the characters. Done a certain way, werewolves are immediately sympathetic. A person's free will taken away, forced to do horrible things they never would on their own, and then forced to live with that knowledge and the consequences. Maberry, and the original screenwriter, compound this by creating a sympathetic character right from the start. Lawrence isn't perfect. Far from it. But he is painted as someone who has endured some horrible things and already feels as though he doesn't belong. From a certain perspective, you could see how the power of the werewolf would be an allure to him. This is then countered by Sir John. Who is completely unsympathetic for most of the book, and welcomes the power and savagery of the werewolf.
This characterization is what made the book imminently enjoyable. The actual scenes of the Wolfman causing mayhem fell a bit flat for me. I did think it was interesting that Maberry built weaknesses into the Wolfman. Such as being confused by all the possible targets in London, or being mesmerized by the singing. But in the end he was an invincible killing machine and he did what you would expect.
And then the ending. I actually thought this was very well done. I particularly liked Maberry's decision to use Werewolf and Wolfman as names for the two beasts. It felt like a stroke of genius to me, though I suppose it might seem obvious to others. It allowed me to easily tell who he was talking about through the entire fight. The fight itself was good, and I was glad the walking-stick came back to play a part.
And of course the Inspector gets bit and the cycle continues. Excellent.
And speaking of the stick, am I the only one who felt like a vampire gave it to him?
Over all it was a very fun read. Definitely far better than I expected.
I think we agree on a lot of the same things for this book. Maberry does a great job of developing Lawrence and revealing his traumatic past. Maberry writes everything so beautifully that the story flowed smoothly for me. I found the distractions for the wolf to be a little weird too. Sure, it has plenty of targets, but with that super speed it can eat most of them, not stare and be confused. And the singing part was weird. I hadn't even noticed the Wolfman and Werewolf distinctions. You're right, it was a great way to help clarify which monster he was talking about.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I just watched the recent adaptation of this book with Anthony Hopkins. As usual, the book is better.