The Lodger

<b>”’Do you think to escape the consequences of your hideous treachery. I trusted you, Mrs. Bunting, and you betrayed me! But I am protected by a higher power, for I still have much to do.’ Then, his voice sinking to a whisper, he hissed out ‘Your end will be bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword. Your feet shall go down to death, and your steps take hold on hell.’”</b><br><br><a href="https://s1183.photobucket.com/user/jkeeten/media/TheLodgerArrives_zpsea840476.jpg.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1540227405i/26484367.jpg" alt=" photo TheLodgerArrives_zpsea840476.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a><br><br>Mr. and Mrs. Bunting are on the verge of tightening their belts further than they have ever been tightened before when a knock comes at the door. It is a man, nay a gentleman, looking for lodging. It has all the nuances of a higher power providing a timely intervention. <br><br>He has a pile of gold sovereigns and wants to pay for his lodging a month in advance. His name is Sleuth, but generally he is thought of and referred to by the Buntings as The Lodger. <br><br><i>”As she walked down the stairs, the winter sun, a scarlet ball bringing in the smoky sky, glinted in on Mr. Sleuth’s landlady, and threw blood-red gleams, or so it seemed to her, on to the piece of gold she was holding in her hand.”</i><br><br>Mr. and Mrs. Bunting are both from domestic service and had retired to purchase this house in London and rent out lodging. When lodgers aren’t appearing as regular as they hoped Mr. Bunting makes himself available as extra help for birthday parties etc. Even those opportunities have been too few to keep them solvent. The Lodger has given them at least temporary respite from the necessity of giving up their dream and going back into domestic service. <br><br>A lady, well not a gentle lady, but a woman of ill repute has been found slashed to death. Mr. Bunting had been denying himself the newspaper, but with this new windfall he can devour them once again giving him much missed edification and exhilaration bordering on arousal. <br><br>More women are found dead, horribly disfigured, and the city trembles. These atrocities etch words of fear into every conversation. <br><br>The Lodger borrows a Bible. He reads this Bible out loud, but he is not reading passages that would offer comfort. His voice rings out with vengeance. <br><br><a href="https://s1183.photobucket.com/user/jkeeten/media/Hitchcock-Lodger-4_zps067eeb4b.jpg.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1540227405i/26484365._SY540_.jpg" alt=" photo Hitchcock-Lodger-4_zps067eeb4b.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a><br><br>The Lodger is...well...strange.<br><br>He nearly goes into hysterics every time there is a knock at the door. <br><br>He stays in all day muttering over his Bible and only goes out at night. <br><br>The fascinating part of the book for me was that Mr. Bunting and Mrs. Bunting each were gathering droplets of information about their lodger that they were afraid to share with the other. They had been so close to disaster they were unwilling to give up the very providence that kept them from the brink of ruination. <br><br><i>”She wondered at her temerity, her--her hypocrisy, and that moment, those few words, marked an epoch in Ellen Bunting’s life. It was the first time she had told a bold and deliberate lie. She was one of those women--there are many, many such--to whom there is a whole world of difference between the suppression of the truth and the utterance of an untruth.”</i><br><br>The press begins to call the killer <b>THE AVENGER</b>.<br><br>As a mound of circumstantial evidence begins to accumulate in the minds of the Buntings each new revelation makes it more and more clear that their angel of providence might prove to be a devil in disguise. <br><br>Alfred Hitchcock made a silent film about the <i>The Lodger</i>. It was made in 1927 and I’ve only seen bits of it, but I was struck by the expressions of horror that the director was able to achieve in his actors. <br><a href="https://s1183.photobucket.com/user/jkeeten/media/TheLodger_zps78cec6fe.jpg.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1540227405i/26484366.jpg" alt=" photo TheLodger_zps78cec6fe.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"> </a><br>Four more movies based on Marie Belloc Lowndes’s book were made in 1932, 1944, 1953, and 2009. Lowndes is the sister of the prolific and celebrated writer Hilaire Belloc. Like her brother she also published several books a year. <i>The Lodger</i> is considered her masterpiece and obviously the film industry agrees. <br><br>I was completely caught up in the events of this book. I felt the stress of not only the circumstances surrounding The Lodger, but also the tug of war being waged in the Buntings’s consciousness between the shame of greed and the specter of returning poverty. Lowndes has a deft hand in how she reveals information. I found myself constantly reevaluating what I knew and was frequently baffled about what I really wanted to have happen. Highly recommended for those who have a desire to read some well written, creepy, Victorian horror. <br><br>If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://www.jeffreykeeten.com">http://www.jeffreykeeten.com</a><br>I also have a Facebook blogger page at: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten">https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten</a>

There have been many theories about who Jack the Ripper was...<br><br>There was The Royal Conspiracy Theory<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1389986415i/8120327.jpg" alt=" photo 28fdd026-ef5c-421e-a0ea-23a873466153_zpsa0194802.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>The Jack Was A Jill Theory<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1389986415i/8120328.jpg" alt=" photo f20f7805-50d5-456b-b595-80a18ee45eca_zps1e700f15.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>The Crazy Doctor With A Big Mustache Theory<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1389986415i/8120329.jpg" alt=" photo 15dba982-89c9-467c-830e-8255422fc5e3_zps3c2eefb1.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>Or the theory that Marie Belloc Lownde's novel is based on-<br><br>The Lodger Theory<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1389986415i/8120330.jpg" alt=" photo df12efa5-db59-4327-9aa5-ccd543b9de74_zps064dd262.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>Belloc Lowndes is supposed to have gotten the idea for her story after overhearing a dinner conversation- where a guest was telling another- that his mother's butler and cook claimed to have once rented rooms to Jack the Ripper, and after reading THE LODGER- this fictional account seems to be a mix of Walter Sickert (a German Artist), G. Wentworth Bell Smith (a Canadian religious fanatic), and Francis Tumblety (an Irish/American- physician/quack). All visiting London during the Ripper murders...all lodgers...<br><br>Ellen and Robert Bunting have fallen on hard times. After spending years in "service"- they sunk their life savings on a house and furnishings. They had hoped to rent out rooms to make a nice living in their old age, but now are within weeks of losing everything.<br><br>One night a stranger comes to the Bunting home looking for lodgings. His name -"Mr. Sleuth", and Ellen in particular takes to him. He seems a bit eccentric, but he pays her in advance- takes two rooms and settles in for the long haul. The Buntings breathe a sigh of relief and start to relax into their new good fortune...but not for long...<br><br>The arrival of Mr Sleuth coincides with crimes happening in the area. The London newspapers have been covering the story of a group of murders. The victims- women. The killer- a man calling himself- "The Avenger". With a slow building horror, Ellen Bunting realizes that her upstairs lodger could be the mysterious killer, and eventually- her husband Robert Bunting is having that feeling too. <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1389986415i/8120331.jpg" alt=" photo 3b93c5ec-e706-490f-826c-68065d2b1917_zps8761fef0.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><br>The Lodger is a story of psychological suspense as two people are faced with the sickening possibility that they may be harboring a murderer. The pace is very slow. There is no gore, but what it is...is quietly terrifying- if as you are reading it- you put yourself in the Bunting's place and think about what it would be like living with a serial killer upstairs.

A lost quality in modern psychological suspense - the key word is <b>subtlety</b>. An intriguing look at the infamous Jack The Ripper case told through the eyes of his landlady Mrs. Bunting, an impoverished women with her back to the wall. I won’t mislead, not much happens, zero gore. It’s a character study, a morality tale –brooding and melodramatic, in fact almost claustrophobic in it's intensity – thought it delicious.<br />Marie Lowndes resists spelling out the obvious, instead tension is provided by a feeling of dread as Mrs. Bunting’s suspicions (those midnight forays through London’s foggy streets a dead giveaway) turn to certainty, that the ‘unspeakable’ is reality <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="78c38d18-da24-48b9-b725-06b41ea8df00" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="78c38d18-da24-48b9-b725-06b41ea8df00">in that her gentleman lodger is actually a homicidal maniac. </label> With the rent money so desperately needed, to let on that she's privy to his secret would be sheer folly, but to say nothing? As they enter into an unspoken collusion Mrs. Bunting's feelings for her lodger seesaw between revulsion and attraction. <br /><br /><b>Cons:</b> disagree with others, rather than slow thought this perfectly paced but then I’m maybe more patient than most - thoroughly enjoyed the build. The rushed conclusion though, it did disappoint... <br /><b>For the genre of psychological suspense 4 ½ stars</b><br /><br /><i>For the first time in her life she visioned the infinite mystery, the sadness and strangeness of human life; “Poor Mr. Sleuth - poor unhappy, distraught Mr. Sleuth!” An overwhelming pity blotted out for a moment the fear, aye, and the loathing.</i><br />________________________________________<br />Meanderings on Hitchcock – not a spoiler: <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="5b14cb8e-7a36-436e-b432-d957d2eecad5" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="5b14cb8e-7a36-436e-b432-d957d2eecad5">Part of Hitchcock’s genius had to lay in his ability to recognize great writing, those who mastered atmospheric suspense – he leaned towards female authors - Daphne du Maurier a case in point, his decision to film this book in 1927 another. Per wiki “The Lodger’ is hailed as "the first time Hitchcock revealed his psychological attraction to the association between sex and murder, between ecstasy and death” and would pave the way for his later work. I haven’t watched it, silent movies leave me cold - I may have to make an exception.</label><br />

Slowly creeping to its dreadful denouement, The Lodger is a wonderful progenitor of the psychological mystery which I adore. Decent, honorable, former-serving folk, Mr. and Mrs. Bunting are close to starvation when they are finally blessed with a wealthy lodger for their house. Mr Sleuth is strange acting, but undoubtedly a gentleman, which is what the couple were praying for as their other lodgers had been of the lower class.<br /><br />Mrs. Bunting comes to know their guest and his eccentric ways best, as she is the only one who Mr. Sleuth will allow to wait on him. He slinks about at odd times of night and sleeps by day. He reads the bible aloud to himself, especially passages about the evilness of women. Mrs. Bunting doesn't mind that, because who wants a lodger that brings strange women into their abode? Mr. Sleuth knows no one and has no relatives or friends. He is shy and gentle and fragile. Mrs. Bunting feels sorry for him and somehow deathly afraid of him.

“Absence does make the heart grow fonder—at first, at any rate". <br /><br />The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes <br /><br /><br />I just ordered this and realized I read it quite a long time ago. It happens.<br /><br />Anyway..this book, which is beyond creepy, involves a an older couple on the brink of complete poverty, who take in a lodger.<br /><br />At first things are fine. But the re is a serial killer running around and to the deepening horror of the couple they ever so slowly start to suspect it may in fact be their lodger.<br /><br />If you like slow moving dark, Gothic stories that unfold with an ever slowly heightening feeling of doom, you will like the Lodger. Highly recommended.

<strong>Another Classic Whodunnit!</strong><br /><br />Published in 1913, Marie Belloc Lowndes’ The Lodger, is filled with suspense and mystery.<br /><br />Mrs. and Mr. Bunting are three seconds from the poor-house, when they get a new lodger.<br /><br />He pays in sovereigns and he isn’t stingy. An answer to their unprayed prayers.<br /><br />But his behavior is strange. Very eccentric. He talks to himself, doesn’t tolerate women and takes walks at night during the nasty, cold fog.<br /><br />The Buntings barely have enough to think about him, with all the mutilated murders upstaging the usual London crimes.<br /><br />Just who is this unnatural murderer who dares to leave a calling card? The answer is close to home ?

Gosh, absolutely eerie. Compelling and disturbing read. Highly recommended!

In Marie Belloc Lowndes brilliant novel the reader is introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Bunting, a middle-aged couple, both previously from domestic service who have retired to run a lodging house. <br />When we meet them they are in severe financial trouble and on the verge of giving up hope of ever renting out their rooms when a gentleman one evening, and in timely fashion knocks on their door looking for lodging. <br />The gentleman’s name is Sleuth, but is generally referred to as The Lodger. <br /><br />From the onset The Lodger, tall and gaunt and dressed in black is revealing a series of particular habits. He is beyond reserved, startles easily and doesn’t allow for Mrs Bunting to clean his room or for her to rent out any of the other rooms in the house, but as he brings with him a pile of gold sovereigns and wants to pay for his lodging a month in advance, she is beyond pleased with the arrangement that so fortuitously saves her and Mr. Bunting from the brink of starvation. Mr. Bunting has already pawned quite a few valuable things and as there aren’t many items left of any value, the fear of humiliating ruination has been hanging over the couple like a darkened shroud tearing at the seams of their already frayed relationship. <br /><br />The Lodger borrows a bible from the Buntings and begins to read aloud in his room especially violent passages about vengeance. In fact he seems to be especially revolted by the lowly acts of loose women, that he attempts to purge himself from through the repeated readings of the Gospels. <br />He also immediately turns a series of framed lithographs of innocent young women against the wall of his new room, and he conducts strange unexplained experiments in one of the top floor rooms, both strange actions that initially disturbs his landlady, but that she early on dismisses as nothing but a gentleman's peculiarities. <br />However these rather benign acts instantly cast an eerie shadow over the following narrative, and clings to The Lodger like a second layer of skin, making every single action circumspect. <br /><br />Before the appearance of The Lodger a woman of ill repute has been found brutally murdered and Mr. Bunting with his friend, a young policeman Mr. Chandler exhilarated and obsessively discuss the case as more women are found dead, sometimes slashed beyond recognition. <br />While everyone is waiting apprehensively, yet excitedly for the atrocities that cover London in a blanket of fear, The Lodger, who becomes visibly upset bordering on hysterics whenever there’s a knock at the door continues to read from his borrowed bible during the day. Only under the cover of darkness and when the city is enveloped in heavy fog does he leave his lodgings to go on his enigmatic wanderings to do whatever it is he does. <br /><br />The most fascinating part of the book, besides the exquisite writing and the anxious tonality of the narrative, is the realization that Mr. and Mrs. Bunting each know that they might be harboring a killer and that they independently and collectively are unwilling to let go of the fortunate stroke of serendipity that has saved them from hunger and potentially from the poorhouse. The underlying knowledge of their circumstance is what drives this creepily eerie story forward, and even as the implicative evidence accumulates, and it becomes more and more clear to the Buntings that their savior might also prove to be the very thing they fear the most, they are incapable of the action that would release them from their terrifying constrain. <br /><br />I will not ruin the reading experience by revealing too much more about the novel and it’s leaning on the famous Ripper murders, but I would however like to add that the stress of the events surrounding The Lodger only heightens throughout, and that the introduction of Daisy, Mr. Bunting’s daughter and Mrs. Bunting’s stepdaughter adds an entirely new level of baleful anxiety to the story. <br /><br />It is a fabulously written and marvelously engrossing novel that has stood the test of time perfectly, and if you are fan of Victorian mystery and general eeriness this is a true gem.

<b>”Her lodger was given to creeping out of the house at a time when almost all living things prefer to sleep.”</b> <br /><br /><i>The Lodger</i> is a 1913 mystery-thriller that explores the psychology of guilt and paranoia in an elderly couple who take in lodgers for their means. This was a slow building story that focused on the interactions and secrets between this couple as they attended to their new lodger.<br /><br />As this late nineteenth century story began, Mr.and Mrs. Bunting of London were in dire straits. They haven’t had any income from a lodger in so long that they have given up basic comforts. They shiver with cold and are nearly starving. No surprise that Mrs. Ellen Bunting was overjoyed to fine such a fine-looking gentleman on her doorstep wanting to see a room for let. Mr. Sleuth, a particular sort of man, had special requirements for the space he needed. Ellen thinks her prayers were answered when Mr. Sleuth decided to take rooms and pay her to not take other lodgers while he was there. <br /><br />The reader will get an idea of what is coming early on. However, the way Mr. and Mrs. Bunting noticed things, kept secrets, and realized what the other knew held my attention. It was the best part; that they slowly became aware of something sinister about the lodger. I relished how Ellen Bunting’s character changed as her suspicions grew. And take notice of how Mr. Bunting’s interest in reading the newspaper differs as the story progresses. As if the Bunting’s are not under enough stress already, they have a house guest come stay with them that multiplied their worry. Then there’s Joe Chandler, a young police friend of Mr. Bunting’s who frequently stopped by. <br /><br />It is a tense book, sans the gore but, hearty on irony, foreboding dread, and suspense. I’m relived the POVs remained with the Buntings and not the lodger. The ending couldn’t have been better in my opinion. <br /><br />Some books are better on audio, and this is one of them. Narrator, Lorna Raver, did a fantastic job voicing the characters! The accents, emotions, and urgency rang out clearly. It was read at the perfect pacing. The newspaper boys’ call held the right cadence. And the voices Ellen Bunting heard in her dream were creepy! If I had read the text alone, I would not have rated it 5-stars. So, I highly recommend listening to the 2009 Blackstone publication.<br /><br />And I’m so glad that the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/24026-english-mysteries-club" rel="nofollow noopener">English Mysteries Club</a> picked this for their October read or I might have missed this great book. <br /><br /><i>The Lodger</i> would be perfect for readers who enjoy the excitement of a psychological thriller. <br /><br />*You can find a free download of this book on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lodger-Marie-Belloc-Lowndes-ebook/dp/B0084A9E14/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&amp;keywords=the+lodger%2C+Marie+Belloc+Lowndes%2C+free&amp;qid=1633640766&amp;s=digital-text&amp;sr=1-1" rel="nofollow noopener">Amazon</a> or <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2014" rel="nofollow noopener">Project Gutenberg</a>.

First of all I'd like to thank my Goodreads friend Anne for bringing The Lodger to my attention. Her review really piqued my interest and, even though I'm so far behind on my books, I ordered it from amazon for my Kindle. As the blurb states, "This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers." and I say huzzah for them! (Sorry, I've been watching The Great on Prime!)<br /><br />Marie Belloc Lowndes wrote The Lodger in 1913 and it was the first novelization of the Jack the Ripper murders of the late 1800s. The Buntings, an older couple now retired from service in grand houses, are destitute and wondering where their next meal will come from when Mr. Sleuth appears at their door enquiring about lodging and paying in advance. Meanwhile, women in London are being murdered by a man known only as “The Avenger”. Mrs. Bunting grows fearful that their lodger may be the murderer but she doesn't want to lose such a lucrative opportunity. Little does she know that Mr. Bunting has suspicions of his own. The story is well told with lots of fog and some creep factor, even a little old-fashioned romance between Mr. Bunting's daughter and a young policeman friend of his. Some stories certainly withstand the test of time.