Tag: ocean

“We came here every year to renew the bargain. Oh, it’s not a good bargain.”

Listen. We all know damn well that it is a rare feline indeed who enjoys going swimming.

I’m not saying I disliked doing this review, but I should have avoided doing some field research.

Today’s horror story is called The Ocean and All Its Devices, and it is the premier short story in an anthology of the same name by William Browning Spencer. Published in 2006, this anthology takes on a distinctly Lovecraftian theme, my personal favorite. There are ancient beings which mere mortals cannot comprehend – human ones anyways; a distinct saltwater setting; and themes of madness and isolation.

But The Ocean and All Its Devices is also unique and award-winning for many reasons. I just wish The Writer hadn’t asked the Good Doctor to get me in the “mood” for reviewing something watery.

The Plot

This story is told from the perspective of one George Hume, a man who runs a seaside hotel with his wife. Every year for an unspecified period of time, the same somber family, the Franklins, make a reservation for the off-season.

Every time the Franklins appear, they are dressed like they are going to a funeral. They spend their days wandering their desolate beach in formal dress – a mother, father, and daughter trio.

This year, the Humes hear devastating news: Mr. Franklin has drowned. Mrs. Franklin is in shock and spends her time at a mental hospital for treatment, while the daughter is left in the care of the Humes, their college-aged daughter, and her boyfriend.

The girl, who is roughly 12, wears full formal dress at all times and has strange habits. She insists her father is not dead, and that those around her don’t understand the “real” things about the world. Plus, water seems to be attracted to her.

Over the next few days, disaster strikes again and again. The college boyfriend is decapitated by a wave trying to stop the girl from drowning, and the Humes are on the verge of madness trying to figure out where all of the seaweed and strange behavior in the hotel is coming from.

In the end, it turns out the daughter has been dead all along. She drowned when she was 3 and her parents made a deal with strange machines/gods underneath the ocean to bring her back.

Unfortunately, she is not the same, for she no longer only belonged to the human world.

At the end, she returns to the deep, her body exposed to be distinctly fish-like indeed.

That is one bowl of tuna I would not touch with a 10 ft. pole.

The Review

If there is one thing The Ocean and All Its Devices impressed upon me, it is the importance of mystery. Mystery can generate intrigue, interest, suspicion, and ultimately horror.

For George, there are many layers of mystery which need to be unraveled. Why do the Franklins consistently visit during the off-season, despite having first vacationed in the summer almost a decade ago? Why is his daughter so fiercely protective of the Franklin girl? Just what is wrong with the Franklin girl?

With several pages of build-up, the entire story reaches a satisfying conclusion in the span of a page and a half without revealing everything. Instead, it gives enough to wrap up the writing without finishing it with a gaudy bow.

William Browning Spencer earned his reputation as a powerful and influential writer, and The Ocean and All of Its Devices is a great example of my favorite style of writing – the Climate Change Iceberg.

I’m coining terms now.

In the original iceberg theory, roughly 10% of the story is revealed, with the reader left to draw many of their own conclusions. In a more modern take on the iceberg theory, around 40%-50% is given to the reader. It’s enough to generate a satisfying conclusion without leaving casual indulgers confused.

The writing itself is additionally tight. Because The Ocean and All Its Devices is a longer short story, there is room to develop the characters, especially George Hume. He is caring but disinterested. Disturbed by his surroundings, but wanting it all to go away. A loving father and husband, but also old-fashioned and the provider of strange commentary on the female characters.

I.E. “The girl walked and gestured with a liquid motion that was oddly sophisticated, suggesting the calculated body language of an older and sexually self-assured woman.”

• This comment was about a 12 year old whose father just died and who is visiting a child psychiatrist.

But such comments reveal a lot about the narrator himself and how he views the world.

Overall, this story gave me much to consider and was entertaining and horrific in a skin-crawling, “the universe is out to get us” kind of way – my personal favorite. It earns 5/5 Paws.

Has it left me considering things which are best not considered? Shall I be scared I have seen things which should not be seen?

Of course.

But, I always am.