allison ✒️ reviewed Black Hunger by Nicholas Pullen
1.0 star
This is a book club pick for the Queer Horror Book Club I’ve recently joined. I’ve actually never been in a book club, and I’m excited to meet everyone in a few days.
Unfortunately, for me, this book was terrible. It tells the story of an English army office named John Sackville in epistolary form, taking place from roughly the 1870s through the 1910s. From the beginning, he says he will soon be dead and he’s recounting his tale. Significantly, his longtime friend and lover Garrett travels with him everywhere, but they must hide their relationship. Garrett is technically from a lower class, and they act like he is John’s servant. They spend the whole of the novel (except a brief early life period) in east Asia, and soon learn disturbing things that sets John on an adventure.
I’ve not seen a single review mention this, but pure …
This is a book club pick for the Queer Horror Book Club I’ve recently joined. I’ve actually never been in a book club, and I’m excited to meet everyone in a few days.
Unfortunately, for me, this book was terrible. It tells the story of an English army office named John Sackville in epistolary form, taking place from roughly the 1870s through the 1910s. From the beginning, he says he will soon be dead and he’s recounting his tale. Significantly, his longtime friend and lover Garrett travels with him everywhere, but they must hide their relationship. Garrett is technically from a lower class, and they act like he is John’s servant. They spend the whole of the novel (except a brief early life period) in east Asia, and soon learn disturbing things that sets John on an adventure.
I’ve not seen a single review mention this, but pure appropriation is the life of this novel, in addition to a white-savior plot. I found it offensive within the first twenty pages or so. The whole story is based around an evil version of Buddhism. John speaks with many spiritual leaders in the book who confirm this darkness and that John must save them all. I don’t understand how no one acknowledges this.
However, if we disregard that, the book is not good. The pacing in the beginning and end of the novel is off, shifting so frequently with long stretches of description dotted with brief scenes of dialogue. The middle of the novel is the most interesting part because it switches from John’s POV and tells the history of the events happening in the novel. That section was enjoyable and I was interested enough to want to keep reading. The long stretches of description are dull. I often wanted to quit this book, and I would have, if it wasn’t for the book club.
There’s obviously homophobia given the time period, and severe antisemitism (where they strangely point out swastikas and even use the term “Nazism” when it’s at lest 30-40 years before those things are related to antisemitism). The horror elements don’t really start until the end of the book, with the middle history lesson showing some of them. There’s murder, immolation, cannibalism, and orgies.
I don’t recommend this to anyone.