First Things First…
This is the third story in Volume 1 of The Books of Blood. The main thing I remember from reading this a few years ago is how funny it is. After the first two stories in the volume are so grotesque, this one is great comic relief—and it has a twist about halfway through that caught me off guard and has still stuck with me.
3 Things I Like
3. The Yattering Goes “Beast Mode”
Early on, the Yattering’s attacks are either minor annoyances, like trying to drive Jack mad by whispering obscene suggestions to him in the shower and squeezing toothpaste around the toilet seat…
Or they’re not harming Jack himself. He kills three of Jack’s cats and his fish.
But before Jack’s two daughters arrive at his house to share Christmas together, the Yattering, in a last-ditch effort, begins…
“…planning its attacks with all the imaginative malice it could muster.”
This leads to a more head-on assault aimed at all three of them.
It starts by throwing one of his daughters out of bed. Then it progresses to a grotesque scene where he reanimates the turkey that’s currently cooking in the oven.
As a visual gag, it’s hilarious. The turkey is headless and oozes stuffing and onions as it beats its wings…
“But the joke was lost as the cooker began to dance, and the pans of boiling water were twitched off the burners on to the floor. Scalding water seared Jack’s leg.”
Jack is very aware this much more than a funny prank. It could have been deadly to any of them if they didn’t escape the kitchen right away. He now realizes…
“The house was suddenly a prison. The game was suddenly lethal. The enemy, instead of playing foolish games, meant harm, real harm to them all.”
And it culminates when the Yattering sets pretty much every object in the living room spinning rapidly, starting with the Christmas tree. The spinning causes it to fling its ornaments and the presents underneath it in every direction.
And if that wasn’t dangerous enough, it then sets the TV spinning, and the clock, and the pokers by the fire—all potentially deadly projectiles.
Even though Jack ultimately outsmarts the Yattering by drawing him outside and enraging him enough so that he touches Jack—two big “no-no’s” that make the Yattering his slave—I like how the Yattering perseveres through all his failures and takes his game to another level for as long as he can.
2. Depressed Demon
The first half of the story is from the Yattering’s perspective. He sees Jack as a complete pushover and loser who can’t even be bothered to get upset when he catches his wife in the act of cheating on him.
The guy’s actual job is a gherkin importer. For real.
And yet nothing the Yattering does—none of its normal tricks—bother Jack in the slightest.
The story begins with the Yattering wondering why it’s been sent to break Jack. It’s struggles have already started…
“This endless game of hide and seek was to nobody’s benefit, and the Yattering’s immense frustration. It feared ulcers, it feared psychosomatic leprosy (condition lower demons like itself were susceptible to), worst of all it feared losing its temper completely and killing the man outright in an uncontrollable fit of pique.”
But the situation only gets worse after Jack’s wife dies by suicide. For months on end the Yattering keeps trying, but Jack’s indifference remains…
“It was deeply embarrassing, and it was gradually destroying the demon’s self-confidence, seeing this bland victim survive every trial and trick attempted upon him.”
It gets so bad that the Yattering appeals to Beelzebub himself to get off of this duty—going so far as to ask to die, which it’s told is impossible.
Even before I found out there’s a method to Jack’s actions, I loved the idea of this low-level demon suffering from anxiety and depression and slowly going stir-crazy because it couldn’t properly frighten or make any kind of impression on this man.
1. Outwitted by an Imbecile
Here’s where the story gets really clever.
At almost the halfway, we’ve read enough to feel like we have a handle on the kind of submissive imbecile Jack is, and how his particular brand of indifference makes him the perfect foil for the Yattering.
But the perspective shifts without warning. And for the first time, we get insight into Jack’s thoughts while leading up to his daughters’ Christmas visit. Jack, it turns out, isn’t at all the pushover he makes himself out to be. He’s well aware of the Yattering’s presence in his house.
His indifference has been his way of fighting back. At least until he can take matters into his own hands more directly.
It’s a twist I didn’t suspect at all. And it adds a new dimension to the story once it becomes clear how much strategy is being employed, and that this is a fair tug-of-war.
0 Things I’m Mixed On
2 Things I Don’t Like
2. Who Are Jack’s Daughters?
Very little background is given about Jack’s daughters, either before they show up or while they’re at his house. Maybe it’s not the most important thing in the story—they’re more of a plot device to spur Jack’s fight along.
But they could be more than a plot device. And it could be a lot more meaningful if Amanda was fleshed out for longer before the Yattering drives her insane.
1. Oppo Research?
As I mentioned, my favorite part of the story is the reveal that Jack actually knows what’s going on and has been fighting back against the Yattering indirectly for months before fighting back directly.
But my question is—how?
Beelzebub tells the Yattering that the reason they care about Jack’s soul is because he’s the child of a worshipper at the Church of Lost Salvation and that…
“We want him because his soul was promised to us, and his mother did not deliver it. Or herself come to that. She cheated us. She died in the arms of a priest, and was safely escorted to—Heaven.”
I have so many questions about this that would be fascinating to find out, and that wouldn’t have to be long, drawn out answers.
Like—what is this church? Is it a Christian church, or is it some sort of devil-worshipping church? Why did his mother promise him to hell? And then fail to deliver? Did she teach Jack about this stuff and tell him what she did before she died? Has Jack done a ton of opposition research about demons and hell? And if so, how would he even know to do so?
Tim Matassa
