Review: all that glitter
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 10 17, 2012
This is an extract, probably a prologue, of a series titled "The Eternal Dungeon" about which it provides some basic background information.At first sight this dark fantasy novella appears original.Through a fluid, competent writing we are given an introduction to a founding institution of an alternative Victorian England: the Eternal Dungeon, a place where prisoners accused of heinous crimes are only tortured for their own sake, so to say. Many big words are spoken about a code of conduct the torturers must apply, a code that certainly represents an improvement on the real British prisons of the times, where people were tortured to obtain a confession no matter what, their innocence a negligible factor in the equation. The interaction between Elsdon and Layle is clever and keep the plot tense and interesting.While reading these pages I had mixed feelings.Code of conduct or not, a prison is a prison, certainly not the jolliest of places. A pre-modern prison, where people are tortured, is even less jolly. A nation where people guilty of lesser crimes are beaten by a militia (both soldiers and policemen) looks a little more civilised than one where Newgate was the main prison but only slightly so.A prison is a great setting for depicting complex characters but it is also true that legal/mystery thrillers (from "Murder She Wrote" to "Perry Mason" to countless others) have this knack for showing humanity at his worst without being really insightful or providing any sort of catharsis. For the likes of me, people who do not care for horror novels nor delight in the intricacies of the -perverted- human mind intent on criminal purposes, a work such of this bears no fascination.Another point of contention for me were the undercurrents of BDSM: there is no actual gore in this pages but it is clear that the impending menace of physical harm is essential to the plot and to its tension, a fact that makes me uncomfortable.What finally sheds light on the work's meaning and ruins it for me completely is a paragraph in the last pages. The actual story is framed by an introduction and a conclusion written by a fictional scholar investigating the history and merits of the Eternal Dungeon as an institution.*** SPOILER MIGHT FOLLOW *** - *** SPOILER MIGHT FOLLOW ***In this paragraph the scholar states that only people whose "guilt had been determined as certain" were sent there to obtain a confession and ascertain whether they had any accomplices. He writes that the torturers' method, though unacceptable, were nonetheless a premise to the developement of psychiatry.This point goes in pairs with previous statement by a story's character that a truthful confession is needed to free the soul of the criminal from his guilt.*** END OF SPOILER *** - *** END OF SPOILER ***The attempt of the author to have its reader see the Dungeon as a primitive psychiatric institution of sorts where the well being of the criminal/patient is the goal backfires entirely.Ms Peterson's Dungeon may be better than prisons of the past -than some of our present as well, unfortunately-  but ethically it is just as cruel. Only someone self righteous and probably bigoted could give so much importance to a "confession".I cannot but agree with the early statement of the prison's healer who deems all the prison's employees sick.I am not implying that that self righteous view belongs to the author (she might as well agree with the prison's healer for all we know) but she still bases an entire work of fiction on this assumption and on those ethically uncomfortable BDSM elements.