The Dracula of Werewolves

This story was enjoyable, but so very melancholic. The way the writing goes, thank God for the last chapter and then appendix. Brilliant story.

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different than you'd expect

this is not just a blood and guts werewolf story, though there are some moments. it's much more of a psychological study and a biographical history of an individual that becomes a werewolf, and initially we get his ancestor's story for a stretch before he even comes into the story. it may not be fast paced enough for Twilight crowd but I thought there were some interesting things in it, and it is one of the "original" werewolf stories that laid the foundation for much that came after. with some modernization it could be done very well as a film. & was the basis for the Oliver Reed werewolf film. for being written in 1933 it had some elements that surprised me. it is always interesting to me to find in some old lit tidbits of history or even "pop" culture, for example how early a word or phrase was used that i thought was modern or even how long ago Coke was popular etc. probably not going to be a favorite among the MTV generation

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4 people found this helpful

The history of France

should be the title. overall it wasn't bad but I could have done without the history lesson, especially the last 1/3 of the book. there was also several weird niche things that really killed the story for me. I definitely have a different take on werewolf's after this book. I don't recommend it.

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Classic werewolf novel + Paris Commune history

Searching for the quintessential werewolf novel led me to this book. Reviews lauding it as the Dracula or Frankenstein of werewolf literature are not far off, especially because of its similar multi-narrative structure. The novel explores a young man's coming of age as a werewolf, and its effect on himself, his family, and the community. The book is also a deeply researched history lesson, giving great historical and personal detail about the time surrounding the 1870 Paris Commune. Of course, the monster's acts parallel the military and other human brutality taking place. You get a healthy dose of traditional European werewolf lore as well. Like most great tales of the supernatural, the main narrator is thoroughly logical and skeptical. Will he end up believing?

The narrator does a great job with different voices between characters, and his French accent is completely palatable.

After having read great the art-history book The Judgement of Paris, by Ross King ( https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Judgment-of-Paris-Audiobook/B002V5CUZU ), I feel like I have about as deep an understanding of this period, and from many differing perspectives, as a 21st Century American layman can get.

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2 people found this helpful

A horror-tinged look at the Paris Commune

This book really soars when it delineates the everyday horrors of life during a time of incredible social and political upheaval. Werewolves aren't the scariest thing on display.

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wow!

i read somewhere that this book did for werewolves what "dracula" did for vampires. and that's exactly right. moreover, it is a perfect book in so many regards that i am completely baffled why it doesn't rank as a 20th century classic, at least as a twin to "dracula". maybe "the paris werewolf" with an author's name like guy endore -- per'aps pronounzed as in guee encore -- does not sound sufficiently americain? possibly a "loup garou from noo awlins" would have done more to establish the book as an AMERICAN classic. audible does the right thing by telling us that THIS reading can be had "only from audible", but then gives it a confusingly classical packaging that furher distracts possible listeners. shooing them away from the book. the reader//renderer does an excellent job, providing a more-than-5-star production of the story, with some real french inflections, unlike so many american readers whose three words of french or german or yiddish are so much chopped liver, ie, total gobble-dee-gook. oh yes, there does exist some estimation that americans couldn't read a book that has more than a few words in some other language scattered through its pages. the same might be true for british readers, just as german readers would get every single english word wrong, spell it wrong, pronounce it wrong, understand it wrong. that's why this rendition by a master linguist in american english and french is so helpful, so enjoyable to listen to -- comparable, say, to stephen fry's rendition of sherlock holmes. i'm also surprised to see that the book -- as a book -- was published in germany, in a german version -- where it sank without a trace -- although it seems fairly obvious to me that this was the place where patrick süskind got a good deal of his inspiration for his very successful novel "perfume". bram stoker came by his "dracula" via sheridan le fanu's "carmilla" and wilkie collins's "the woman in white" and finally also by way of oscar wilde's helping hand -- so why begrudge süskind his success? but this is the original werewolf classic, an american novel written by an american who spent time enough in france to inject a major shot of strangeness into his story, much the same as the artist who painted "american gothic" did from his sojourn in paris. BTW there are longueurs and meanderings in this book, which i find rather nice in an audio book. the rigid editors of today would have surely jabbed their hedge-trimming tools at these passages, but a faster or shorter version doesn't always necessarily make for a better book. there are two books in english written in the 20th century that i would like to see translated into the viennese dialect of austria -- one being james joyce's "ulysses" --- and the other -- this one.

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3 people found this helpful

I feel icky for even having gotten through half

I thought the story was dark but compelling, the themes of humanity struggling with its bestial passions was fascinating. Felt like an allegorical analysis of human psychology (a human’s experience of a traumatic event can perpetuate that trauma and lead to further victimization, i.e. the famous maxim “Hurt people hurt people). However, I couldn’t stomach the depravity written into this story (surprising for a book written in the 1930s). I found it distasteful. I threw in the towel when he had sex with his mother and she enjoyed it. This book was not for me.

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Werewolf story, not so much.....

I started this audiobook right around Halloween, I mean anything that says it's equivalent to Bram Stoker's Dracula has to be good right? Unfortunately this is not the case for this book. This story should be about the main character, Bertrand Caillet, who was born to his mother after she was raped by a priest, in a church, underneath the stain glass windows. From this unholy act a child was born who seemed to be different from his brown eyes, his hairy palms, and his unusual howling and violent behavior as he grew older. Other strange and disturbing situations happen through the book, all perfectly disturbing parts of a good horror story, but sadly the book becomes more of a history of France during it's Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune of 1870-1871 than a werwolf story. The main character and werewolf, Bertrand, pretty much takes a back seat to the history of France. Add in a multitude of characters and events that just confuse the whole story and I found myself waiting impatiently for the book to end, and I so wanted to enjoy this book! I wasn't going into this book looking for blood and gore. I love how they keep to actual stories and "historical" accounts of lycanthropy with Bertrand. Unfortunately the rest of the events with the war and so on waters this book down and ruined it for me. The only saving grace that had me give this book two stars instead of one is the few parts scattered throughout regarding Bertrand, and the ending of the book and the appendix which goes into detail about Paris cemeteries at that time, including a detailed account about how Bertrand's grave was later dug up after he died and his body was not there. Where his body was at was instead a dead dog, which, after the long period of time being dead, has seemed to not decomposed.

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Couldn't finish it.

Neither of the two short stories in the first couple of chapters had anything to do with werewolves. The second story started off with a priest taking advantage of a 14 year old girl. While during other years I might have been willing to finish the book, I don't have the energy for that this year in 2020.

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1 person found this helpful

Pass!

Struggled through this story. Did not like it one bit, no action, only one compelling character, and a whole lot of period observations that did not enrich the story.

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2 people found this helpful