The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper is not the kind of horror story I thought that it would be, mostly because it’s written in a literary style and I haven’t really read a lot of this genre in that form. It definitely added an interesting element to the reading experience, as in the begging I often found myself stopping to admire a certain turn of phrase, and that generally isn’t something I enjoy. Typically, anything that interrupts the narrative tends to annoy me, but since the stopping was caused by my own interest and thoughts about different ideas that were brought up, I actually quite enjoyed this. Weird, eh?
The story is compelling, with an added layer of mystery. In it we follow the main character, David, a depressed university professor specializing in literature’s portrayal of demons, but particularly keen on John Milton’s Paradise Lost. When a set of strange circumstances gives him an opportunity to travel, David finds himself flung into a weird twilight zone like mind space. Completely distraught over the loss of his daughter, he goes on a journey to find her, and through his searches we get a better picture of the story and journey of the man himself. Frozen somewhere between sanity and madness he follows whichever crazy lead he stumbles across next, keeping us guessing as to how this is all going to play out.
Although I wasn’t terribly impressed with the end of the book, I found the journey and subject matter kind of fascinating. After all the delving into Milton, which peppers it’s way through the book in the form of quotes, random clues and whatnot, I now have a burning desire to read it for myself. It’s been on my to read list forever, but I never managed to get around to it. After reading this, I think I just might need to try it, or at least bump it up a bit. And embarrassing confession, until this book said so I never realized Paradise Lost was a poem! Yup, I do hide under rocks for fun!
I enjoyed this book more than I thought I might, although if you aren’t into literary works you may find it occasionally dry reading. I also didn’t find it particularly scary, but it was still very interesting and twisty, so I did enjoy the fact that I wasn’t always sure what was going to happen next. I think it’s worth adding to your reading list, particularly if you have a thing for Milton, demons, and mysteries, although I suspect it may fall into the either love it or hate it category.
Have you read this book? If so, it would be great to know what you thought of it, or if you think it might be something you would, or wouldn’t read, so feel free to comment below. I’d love to know.
