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Friday 28 April 2017

Green Tea by J. Sheridan Le Fanu Review


A clergyman drinks green tea, inadvertently opens his “third eye” and starts seeing a small monkey with glowing red eyes (the Devil, it’s implied). And that’s Green Tea by J. Sheridan Le Fanu! Absolute rubbish. 

It’s written in a plodding, dreary Victorian style which you can’t help but notice given how little actual story there is. I couldn’t believe that all there was was some dull clergyman wigging out over hallucinations! I guess the subtext might be the author’s xenophobia/fascination about the East (green tea is drunk a lot in countries like Japan)? But what the hell, did Le Fanu think Japanese people wander about seeing Satan monkeys everywhere?!

Green Tea is garbage Victorian “horror” that's not even remotely interesting – don’t bother. Le Fanu’s lesbian vampire novella Carmilla is a much better read instead.

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