Abstract
The paper discusses The House with a Clock in Its Walls (1973) by John Bellairs and its film adaptation, directed by Eli Roth (2018), from queer theory and gender studies perspectives. The author of the article aims to overview and develop existing queer in‑terpretations of the first novel in the Lewis Barnavelt series, with contextual references to the cycle’s subsequent volumes, and to conduct a queer theory ‑inspired analysis of Roth’s motion picture. The genre represented by the novel and the film is also consid‑ered by taking the scholarly reflections on the queer aspects of the Gothic and the hor‑ror into account. The author concludes that although both versions of the story fail at portraying femininity in an unconventional way, they succeed in showing that queer‑ness and, more generally, the Otherness should be highly appreciated and valued.
Highlights
Is There a Queer in This Text?A mong the comments on Grady Hendrix’s (2013/2018) web article “The Genius of John Bellairs’s The House with a Clock in Its Walls,” most of which praise the titular author and his novel, one clearly stands out
I forget if the sexuality of Bellairs was ever stated.”. This comment alludes to the first book in the Lewis Barnavelt series, The House with a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs (1973/1998b), and its film adaptation of the same title (Fischer, Vanderbilt, Kripke, & Roth, 2018)
As Dawn Heinecken (2011) states, The House with a Clock in Its Walls and the other two ‘original’ novels in the Lewis Barnavelt series are often perceived as “exemplary works initiating the development of supernatural mystery for children,” and Bellairs seems to still have a “continued significance as a major writer of children’s horror” (p. 119)
Summary
A mong the comments on Grady Hendrix’s (2013/2018) web article “The Genius of John Bellairs’s The House with a Clock in Its Walls,” most of which praise the titular author and his novel, one clearly stands out. I forget if the sexuality of Bellairs was ever stated.” This comment alludes to the first book in the Lewis Barnavelt series, The House with a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs (1973/1998b), and its film adaptation of the same title (Fischer, Vanderbilt, Kripke, & Roth, 2018). I will outline and develop existing queer interpretations of the first novel in the Lewis Barnavelt series, with some references to the subsequent volumes, and propose a queer theory-inspired analysis of Roth’s film; gender studies approaches will be used. As Dawn Heinecken (2011) states, The House with a Clock in Its Walls and the other two ‘original’ novels in the Lewis Barnavelt series are often perceived as “exemplary works initiating the development of supernatural mystery for children,” and Bellairs seems to still have a “continued significance as a major writer of children’s horror”
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