Illustration by Christian Northeast/The New York Times

I’m not a Potter-head, though my husband is¹, and one of our bookshelves holds a Polaroid of us wearing the iconic black-rimmed spectacles at a Barnes & Noble release party for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (Chekhov promptly sat on mine the next day, snapping them in two, possibly to indicate his lack of enthusiasm for J. K. Rowling’s oeuvre.) I do adore these illustrations by Christian Northeast, however, from an article about Harry-mania by an equally unimpressed Christopher Hitchens in The New York Times.

¹And he very thoughtfully keeps me abreast of everything that happens in and outside of Hogwarts, even when I pretend to have been momentarily struck deaf.

Illustration by Christian Northeast/The New York Times

Sweet zombie jeebus on a toasted cracker, will this book not END?

I picked up The Historian from the library only because Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of my favorite novels. I didn’t realize I was in for a Nancy Drew potboiler rife with Dickensian coincidences and cliff-hangers that would do even Dan Brown proud. (Yes, I read that one, too, but that was only because my brother introduced me to Holy Blood, Holy Grail at a tender and impressionable age. Also, I’m an idiot who for one brief, shining movement had faith in the taste of the American reading public.)

The overtly formal, fusty prose the author employs doesn’t just scream of pretension, it’s also godawful writing. Observe:

“Where did he take Rossi?” His eyes blazed. It was a shocking sight - the contortion, the normal human features hieroglyphic with terrible meaning. “Where I should have been allowed to go! To the tomb!”

Features HIEROGLYPHIC WITH TERRIBLE MEANING? What in the name of Bela Lugosi is that supposed to mean? Most of the shocking revelations uncovered during the course of the story—and trust me, they couldn’t be more shocking or revelatory if the author came up to you and bludgeoned you to death with the BATON OF FORBODING—brought to mind the exchange Cloris Leachman and Gene Wilder had in Young Frankenstein.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: You played that music in the middle of the night…
Frau Blücher: Yes.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: … to get us to the laboratory.
Frau Blücher: Yes.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: That was YOUR cigar smoldering in the ashtray.
Frau Blücher: Yes.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: And it was you … who left my grandfather’s book out for me to find.
Frau Blücher: Yes.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: So that I would …
Frau Blücher: Yes.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Then you and Victor were…
Frau Blücher: YES. YES. Say it. He vas my… BOYFRIEND.

(Cue flash of lightning.)

Yup, there’s nothing like a good historical thriller.

And that was nothing like a good historical thriller. Zing!

Margaret Atwood positively boot-scoots through The Penelopiad, a lively, postmodern retelling of the myth of Odysseus through the eyes of a long-dead Penelope and the 12 maids that Odysseus strung up and hanged for treachery upon his return. Floating in mid-air with their pretty toes still twitching, the maids form the chanting and singing Chorus of traditional Greek theater, doing an about-face by saucily burlesquing the main narrative with sailor costumes, can-can high kicks, and an anthropology lecture. Still bitter, still hungry for vengence, the maids’ interjections color Penelope’s underworld soliloquy—their spectral fury culminates in a farcical 21st century courtroom drama, “The Trial of Odysseus, As Videotaped.”

Unapologetically feminist, Atwood’s words slip, slink, and slither:

…we’re right behind you, following you like a trail of smoke, like a long tail, a tail made of girls, heavy as memory, light as air: twelve accusations, toes skimming the ground, hands tied behind our backs, tongues sticking out, eyes bulging, songs choked in our throats.

Atwood adroitly recasts this old, familiar story with her signature wit, cunning, and pathos. What was Penelope really up to all those years, she asks, deftly skewering the historically maudlin depiction of Penelope as the long-suffering, faithful wife. (While Odysseus was screwing every goddess, sorceress, and queen he encountered, I might add.)

Haunting, in every sense of the word.