Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Magdalena the Sinner by Lilian Faschinger ::
by William the Bloody
Magdalena Leitner has had a need to confess all her life, but alas, close friends and relatives always cut her off, were impatient, or just didn't care. So now, her need for this confession greater than ever before, she gets her handgun, marches into a church during mass, and kidnaps the priest. She leads him to her Puch Sidecar 800, drives off with him, and ties him to a tree in a remote field. Her confession shall be heard in its entirety by a captive audience. So begins our tale.
We see this story through the eyes of the captured priest, as he is bound and gagged and forced to listen to Magdalena relay her exciting, adventurous, and fairly erotic international tale. The main subject of her confession is how she came to be a seven time murderess, but during all of this we also hear of her unhappy life at home in Austria and why she left her family and all she knows to embark on a simplistic, nomadic lifestyle and the events which led to her killing several of her lovers as she traveled abroad.
The Good: The writing style is unlike anything I have ever read before. It is a truly unique reading experience and very descriptive. We get a very in depth look into the mind and character of our two leads, the priest and Magdalena. It is very interesting to slowly notice the priest's change in view of Magdalena, the more time he spends with her (her confession lasts for almost three days), as his referring to her at first as simply "the Sinner" and then to "Magdalena" symbolizes. Definitely, in the beginning the Priest is steadfast in his mind to look upon her as simply that, a sinner, but then he begins to almost understand and condone the murders she has committed. The book jacket seems to try and sell this book on the erotic points, but I beg to differ. True, the murdered men were all her lovers, but for the most part, the sex part was glossed over. It was more about establishing the fact that the relationship was, yes, a sexual one, and the nature of it. I found the sexual relationship simply to be her reasoning behind the murders; she had to set the scene to justify it to the priest. And yes, to her every murder was perfectly justifiable. There is no remorse in her whatsoever. All she is looking for is understanding and absolution. Every relationship she details in the book is very real sounding. The people and their interpersonal relations sound like some real people would be.
The Bad: This book is over 300 pages long and there are no chapter separations. While some may find this a necessary technique to this book, most will likely find this draining. Magdalena does tend to be long winded and go off on equally long winded tangents and some may find these moments slightly boring, and there being no chapters, not knowing how long these moments will go on before they can set the book down and take a break. I found the ending to be a huge disappointment. It felt very rushed. Magdalena has not finished her story of the seventh murder, with barely any after-words, when bing, bang, boom and we're done. It didn't really give me a sense of closure, or dénouement at all. And I was really, really disappointed with how things went between Magdalena and the priest in the end. Bleh.
Overall, this book was an interesting read. The style was very different and the only thing I can even remotely relate it to is Unless by Carol Shields. It is rather wordy, and utilizes the big ten cent words. This book is a must read for the hard core book lover/reader, but for the common man, I say tread carefully.
B+
