There is just something about a classic book, especially a classic horror book. The Case Against Satan by Ray Russell is a story we are quite familiar with, but it is still worth the read to see how the genre changed throughout the years.

Susan was a straight laced 16 year old, until the fits started happening. She wouldn't go into church anymore, she has started swearing, and when confronted by a priest, she attempts to seduce him before digging her nails into his throat.

Two other priests are called into action. One is the Bishop of the area, who has seen something like this in the past, but doesn't want to believe it is happening again. The other is a younger priest who struggles with his faith as well as a drinking problem.

Susan is brought to the priest's house to have the ancient rite of the exorcism performed. Throughout the next few days, both men must clear Susan of the devil. She will tell their darkest secrets, parishioners will become suspicious as they hear a woman in the priest's parsonage, and the two men will fight one another. They will continue on to help Susan become the sweet 16 year old she once was.

Now immediately, most people will say- that sounds like The Exorcist! You would be correct, except this book was written almost a decade before the Exorcist made its way onto the screen. This book is an original work of a now well known genre.

The book is tamer than most of the newer exorcism type stories, but it still has a lot of bite for a book written in 1962. Imagine the idea of a 16 year old seducing a priest by sitting nude on his desk and telling the priest she knows he wants her to a soon to be counter culture group, but not there yet. Think about the idea that priests can rape children to this same group, which we would find out later was happening, but the idea would have been shocking. This is why one reads classic books.

The book was a very fast read at just over 150 pages and was a lot of fun. I enjoyed myself while reading this and was glad I cracked the spine to see the origins of a genre.

I gave this one 4 stars. ( )

Maybe a bit dated now, it was considered shocking in 1962 but seems almost quaint by today's horror standards. A good ol' devil in the soul story that probably has a little too much Roman Catholic baggage for the average reader today. It's still a good story well told but the deep questions it wrestles with don't really seem so important when you are faced with berserk fanatics in the streets every day, It partakes of a simpler time when stories like this could really make you think. Now it's just a jolly good read and appropriately for Christmas time. ( )

https://sravikabodapati.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-case-against-satan-by-ray-russe... ( )

This was an interesting story, though, really, despite the excellent cover, it's not really that much of a horror novel. It starts reasonably strong, and with a scene that's somewhat shocking--bearing in mind it was published 53 years ago, so most of its shock factor has been superseded over the years--it then gets a bit tangled up in religion and belief for a bit. It doesn't circle back around to the matter at hand, the exorcism of Susan Garth, until about halfway, and doesn't really get started on it for another two-dozen pages past that, and it's over fairly quickly, leaving the rest of the novel a bit of a police procedural.

I believe this may be the crux of the issue for me. For such a slim novel--weighing in at 140 pages--it doesn't quite seem to know exactly where it wants to go. Ultimately, I agree with Laird Barron in his introduction to the novel: This is a story about truth. But it takes a few different paths to get there.

It's a well written novel with, at times, a bit of a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits feel to it. As I read this, going through the dialogue and the descriptive areas, I couldn't help but see it in black and white, with that slightly overdramatic music in the background.

It's a good story, but don't go in expecting scares. There's some horrible things contained between its covers, but not a lot of scares. ( )

My memory of [b:The Exorcist|179780|The Exorcist|William Peter Blatty|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1375168676s/179780.jpg|1945267] is clearer on the film—which I've watched at least once per decade since I was old enough to view it—than it is on the best-selling novel, which I read only once in high school, a few years after it was published in 1970. That said, [b:The Case Against Satan|24612020|The Case Against Satan|Ray Russell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1439904470s/24612020.jpg|44223119] from 1962 seems more cerebral than Blatty's novel or Friedkin's film, and less lurid. Although present in the story, The Case's action doesn't come from showers of vomit and flurries of curses; the action is in the struggle between scientific rationality and theological faith within the mind of local parish priest Father Gregory. He and his Bishop perform the rites of exorcism on a troubled young girl who exhibits signs of either mental illness or demonic possession. Along the way, the novel touches on conflicts and concurrences between Catholic doctrine and Freudianism, religious rapture and sexual ecstasy, crimes of commission and sins of omission, parental incest and clerical rape, the oddness of celibacy and the normalcy of small-town gossip, private failings and public faces, religious dogma and civil law. Without spoiling anything, I can say that in the end, both the committed atheist and the devoutly religious can walk away from this story with their pre-conceptions of the nature of Evil unchanged. Or, as I'm certain Mr. Russell intended, they may close the book, yet find the barest hint of doubt remaining. ( )