THE SELF-ENCHANTED

    Spoiler alert! I try to avoid revealing any information about a book that might be considered a spoiler. My general rule is to limit my discussion of plot to the first 15 percent of the book. The idea is to encourage readership rather than present thorough analysis. But rules are made to be broken, right? There’s no better candidate for spoilers than The Self-Enchanted. First, the full flavor of the book can’t be appreciated from the initial forty-five pages. And second, the number of prospective modern readers is very, very low. The book, incidentally, was never published in the United States.

    The Self-Enchanted by David Stacton. Faber and Faber (1956), 304 pp.
    Christopher Barocco, a dangerous and self-contained man from San Francisco, decides to build a house on the eastern slope of the Sierras south of Reno. He hires an architect, Curt Bolton, and a crew of local workers to do the job. He has contempt for most people but makes friends with Sally Carson, the twentyish daughter of the project's mason. Neither he nor Sally cares much when her father falls from a ledge and dies. Christopher goes to Santa Barbara to visit his dying mother, whom he hates. She demands to see his new house but dies before they arrive. He then decides he must marry Sally to forestall loneliness. Their marriage is a series of trips, none of which diverts attention from his impending death from cancer. Christopher dies, but his spirit will live on because Sally is pregnant.
    Stacton is trying to concoct a modern-day Gothic melodrama. He throws in a house on a cliff, an isolated village, a mysterious stranger, a naive young woman, and an evil mother. Characters are always in turmoil. Emotions, which run from hatred to loathing, constantly burst forth. Unfortunately, Stacton has little ability to elicit sympathy for his characters or probe their motivations. It's unclear why Barocco and his mother are so vicious and why Sally decides to marry a man who despises her. And it’s less clear why anyone should care. Readers are likely to find the whole thing pretty silly.