Book Review: 'Conjure Wife' by Fritz Leiber

in #books5 years ago

ConjureWife.jpg
The novel Conjure Wife has been made into a film three times.

#books #bookreview #horror #film #movies #cinema #writing #literature #witchcraft #supernatural

Conjure Wife (1943), is a famous novel of the supernatural, published in an era when such reading material was relatively rare. As such, it has acquired a reputation that’s unfortunately much better than the actual book.

This book has been made into a film three times. Weird Woman (1944), Burn Witch Burn (1962), and Witches' Brew (1980). Of the three, I’ve only seen Burn Witch Burn, aka Night of the Eagle. This is a great little b&w film starring Janet Blair and Peter Wyngarde, which was the first horror movie I ever watched that scared me so much I got a stomachache. It was at a Halloween slumber party when I was ten (a long story.)

Burn Witch Burn is pretty tame by today’s standards, but it still has a few creep-out moments that stick with the viewer, even now.

Conjure Wife, the novel, tells the story of Norman and Tansy Saylor, an upper-middle-class academic couple living a comfortable, if stifling, life in a small Northeastern college town. Norman is a sociology professor who focuses on folklore and cults, and Tansy is a “faculty wife” who subtly pushes her husband’s career along by hosting bridge nights, spring soirees, and cocktail parties for academics and students.

Tansy is also a practicing witch, a fact which Norman uncovers while snooping in her dressing room. A man who prides himself on his devotion to reason and objectiveness, Norman is mortified by Tansy’s superstitious and, in his view, primitive activities. He makes her throw out all of her protective charms and swear off witchcraft forever.

The problem, however, is that most of the other faculty wives are witches too—in fact, as Tansy makes plain later on in the book—almost all women are secretly doing at least a little “practice” now and then. Sensing that Tansy has dropped her magical shields, the other faculty wives attack Norman and Tansy with everything they’ve got, including stealing Tansy’s soul—not once, but three times. In order to fight them while Tansy is out of commission, Norman has to start practicing witchcraft himself. Oh, the irony!

Too Much Internal Philosophizing?

The main problem with Conjure Wife is the way it’s written. The style is dry, long-winded and erudite, in a way that books from more than seventy-five years ago tend to be. In addition, as told from Norman’s point of view, it contains a seemingly endless amount of internal monologues. There’s some exciting stuff here—a stone gargoyle that comes to life, a frantic chase to the seaside—but it’s all buried time and again by the professor’s internal philosophizing and theorizing about almost everything under the sun.

At least in this book, Fritz Leiber can’t seem to set a menacing tone or plot some page-turning suspense if his life depended upon it. He’ll introduce a creepy, scary situation, and then sabotage it by having Norman ruminate for several pages on something like: “This reminds me of the time I studied that primitive hill tribe in Barbados. See, in my view, the mating rituals of modern college students aren’t all that different...”

It’s all so tedious! Conjure Wife does have a pretty good premise and plot, which is why it’s been filmed so many times. I could see a very good film emerging from its bones, after stripping out all of Norman’s fatuous ramblings. Note, Burn Witch Burn, although a good movie, left out a lot of the plot, and then added in some new elements as well. It’s available on disc and streaming if you want to check it out. Conjure Wife is still in print and is also available on Kindle.

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I own a copy of Conjure Wife, as its showed up in numerous "Best Horror Novels of All Time" lists, but I've yet to sit down and plow through it. Sadly for it, your review has done little to whet my appetite to do so.

I'll not cross it off my list all together, but there are other books that have probably moved up in front of it. :)

I don't think you would like it, but it's probably worth reading just for the understanding of the evolution of modern horror. It's relatively short and can be read in a couple/three sittings.

One thing I found amusing: there's a dark spirit called "He Who Walks Behind" mentioned briefly in the book. Now we know where Stevie got "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" in Children of the Corn.

You know, just knowing that makes me want to push it back up a few places in the TBR pile...thanks, ya big jerk! LOL! :)

LOL! That's not the only thing Stevie lifted from an old horror story!

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