Reading for the Sake of Spookiness
Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales, Yoko Ogawa, my thoughts. Let me see...
On the surface, nothing too special. The settings are, for the most part, generic, but elegantly established. And often times there are certain aspects of the setting that are intended to off-put the reader. Example: the hillside described at the start of “Old Mrs. J” is depicted as a “swarm of dark green bats” that “might fly away at any moment”. Imagine that, a veritable horde of winged rats taking to the sky all at once. Sort of intimidating. How about this: the hall in the basement in “Lab Coats”, the way it slopes so that the “laundry cart rolls forward on its own...like it’s going to race forward and crash through the door of the morgue”. Magnetic corpse chambers. Fun stuff. Definitely tons of fun for the receptionists who have to be down there sorting out laundry in the same general vicinity. You get my point.