In the world of the Gothic novel, we've come a long way since Horace Walpole's 1764 The Castle of Otranto or even such modern classics as Rosemary's Baby or Interview with The Vampire. How far? I just did finish Pablo Katchadjian's Thanks,
a short novel set on a remote island complete with castles (natch), an
evil tyrant. slaves, a beautiful damsel in distress and other Gothic
tropes; however, Thanks is also filled with absurdity and the
surreal humor one finds in Fernando Sorrentino, Daniil Kharms, Russell
Edson and Barry Yourgrau. This combination: Gothic horror plus surreal,
absurdist humor adds up to one unique whiz-bang novel.
Are you familiar with Annihilation
by Jeff VanderMeer, an action/adventure yarn where a reader is
compelled to keep turning those pages to discover what happens next?
Well, I have some good news: Thanks is also a page turner compressed into twenty-three brief, action-packed chapters.
The
tale's narrator, unnamed, waits in a wooden cage along with two hundred
other slaves. He doesn't have to wait long since a fifty-something guy,
bald, pleasant and a little fat, takes him in his car to his castle
where he's shown to his room, served a meal by a servant and told to get
a good night sleep to prepare for a very long workday. A few chapters
in, we witness some weird twists fueled by imbibing roots with
hallucinogenic properties and then, deeper into the story, a setting
fire to repulsive substances causing the tale to move from fractured
fairy tale to one of ...for Pablo Katchadjian to tell.
As one
reviewer stated in his brief write-up: “This novel has been dipped in
mescaline. This is peyote poetry. This is Jim Woodring's character Frank
writing a book. A hallucinatory whirlwind where every day is similar
but different, where every morning starts the same, then grows stranger
and stranger and stranger.”
Stranger and stranger is right - but a
captivating read. Highly recommended for those looking for a quick,
bizarre hit of adventure. And, hey, this novel is published by Dalkey Archive Press so you can tell your friends you've read a work of Latin American literature. Special thanks to Priscilla Posada for her fluid translation. 
Argentine author Pablo Katchadjian, born 1977
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