Lighten Up

Harriet Ankim’s seminal work of gothic horror, The Shadow of Elgin Abbey, concerning a monster made of pure darkness that consumes the monks who reside within the titular structure one at a time, has been the topic of debate since its initial publication. Does Elliot intend us to read the shadow as symbolic in some way, thus signaling a critique of religious institutions? Or do we simply set these concerns aside and enjoy the novel for what it is: a delightfully spooky tale about a sinister shadow’s methodical progress along a path of destruction? It’s impossible to say, and certainly Ankim never elucidated in her lifetime.

Two things about the work, however, are inarguable.

First: Ankim’s own career arc did not, in any way, follow the same steady trajectory as that of her most famous monster. Before Shadow, she had but one published story to her name. What’s more, she put out only two novels after it, both of which failed to reach the same heights as her debut.

Second: she wrote about shadows better than just about anyone.

In his review for the Montclair Post Sentinel, critic Gilbert O’Neil wrote:

At times, one might find oneself squinting at the book, despite sitting upon one’s porch in full sunlight. Such is Ankim’s command of language when it comes to the description of the novel’s central terror: she does not merely describe darkness, she creates it on the page.

In this regard, Ankim, for all her imagination, followed perhaps the quintessential dictum of creative writing instruction, “write what you know.” In his own memoir, her publisher H.T. Hesch described an experience of visiting her crowded little home to collect a draft of the novel at lunchtime one day:

It was like the sad end of a war in which one power was greatly outmatched yet refused to wave the white flag. Each source of light–whether it be one of the dim lamps or the oddly located windows–found itself flanked by at least four mechanisms of blockage. Harriet herself seemed to move through the shadow-laden arena as if by echo location, stepping over and around obstacles that my own eyes could not make out, even as they adjusted to the gloom. When I took off my hat, she told me to hold it tight. “To set things down in here is to lose them,” she said.

Ankim did not occupy this residence for long. With Shadow’s earnings, she purchased herself a much larger home, one with floor-to-ceiling windows throughout, many of them overlooking a lake, which further reflected the light of both sun and moon. This, some think, accounts for her literary failures moving forward. She lost touch with the thing that guided her writing: darkness.

And thus, it might seem as though she would not have benefited from these Enbrighten 24" Smart Under-Cabinet Tunable LED Lights, whose brightness can be adjusted via a straightforward app. Had she had access to such a product earlier in her life, her masterpiece might never have been written.

But consider the following tidbit from an interview late in her life. The interviewer asked if her lack of success after her first novel disappointed her, to which Ankim responded:

I wrote a book about shadows when I found myself trapped within them. My failure to re-achieve that level does not speak to my failure to chronicle fear with the same precision. It speaks to my failure to experience that fear. It speaks to the fact that I no longer had to sit slumped over a typewriter just to feel as though I had any control over the shadows at all.

So, perhaps these under-counter smart lights would have cut Askim’s career short before it ever began. But maybe she would have been happier that way.

In any case, you should definitely buy some lights.