Our 102nd week of Lite Reads comes to a close (after turning into an unexpected four-week long pick) as we finish our selection The Spider’s Widow by Houyem Ferchichi, chosen especially for the Halloween season. There were questions as food for thought on social media as people had the chance to read it and think about it. Before I announce the next Lite Reads selection (November 22), I will be sharing my own thoughts here. Spoilers ahead for those who have not read the story yet. Content warning, as per the labels on the story: Body transformation, Death/dying, Murder, Sexism/gender discrimination, Spiders/insects, Violence/combat. Additional content warning for mention of incest.
The Spider’s Widow by Houyem Ferchichi, translated from Arabic by Ali Znaidi, is a short Tunisian folk horror story. The story focuses on a small community of sheepherders and wool weavers where there are rumours of a distorted spider on the outskirts of the small village that spins webs around intruders like bandits and terrorists, only for their slightly dissolved bodies to be found later. The story manages to weave together unconventional elements, which leads to a deep and surreal horror concealed within what might otherwise be a normal community, with that horror offering both fear and protection to the community. As we witness the community gossip about the “distorted spider,” we also receive a flashback to when the spider was a woman who lived within the community when bandits killer her father and stole his sheep, leaving her to care for her family as a weaver. She took inspiration from “the spider’s widow” and began luring men sexually to kill them in webs she wove. This led to her being cursed and turned into a spider living in an otherwise abandoned house and killing those she perceives as deserving it.
The Spider’s Widow is incredibly evocative in its language and imagery. It reads very much like a folk story one might hear from a relative, although the language can be a touch stilted at times (perhaps intentionally, perhaps due to the translation, it’s difficult to tell), but it still manages to work for this tale. I felt like the imagery built throughout the story is what built a certain sense of terror that helped place this story firmly in the category of “folk horror.” Throughout the story, the spider is often referred to as “the distorted spider” which adds an unexpectedly unsettling flavour to the story, and with victims of the spider being described as “dissolved bodies swept away by floods” it’s hard not to picture the grim experiences of the villagers dealing with the aftermath of the spider’s activities. The imagery of weaving is actually woven into the fabric of the story itself as well. We read of the villagers raising sheep, shearing them, and going through all the processes of washing and spinning the wool; in turn, we also read of the spider’s life as one of the villagers, doing the same work. This imagery is taken even further into the imagery of a spider weaving a web, to the extent that it feels almost like a natural next step for the woman to take in her path for vengeance.
I definitely have a personal fascination with folk horror in both writing and film. The way folk horror takes rural settings with a small community or family and using horrors within the community and the location to provide all the terror you need is exactly to my taste. Folk horror can definitely lean towards white and British though, so it’s refreshing to read The Spider’s Widow, a story that has all the key elements of great folk horror, but was published in Arabic by a Tunisian author. One of the elements that most clearly signals this as a prime example of folk horror is that it’s essentially impossible to imagine this story set anywhere else but this remote community. Raising sheep for wool, and then washing, spinning, and weaving that wool, is such a core element of the community, and it directly shapes how the spider even becomes a spider, how she learned to weave before she underwent any amount of transformation. The way she becomes a sort of warning and curse for the rest of the community feels like a folk story all on its own before we address the elements of horror in the story.
The theme I least expected in The Spider’s Widow, but somehow feel like I should have expected, was revenge. I thought it was interesting to see the idea of revenge move in a sort of atypical cycle. The spider’s father had been murdered and her family’s livelihood ruined, and so she begins luring men (primarily bandits and terrorists) to their deaths with the promise of sex, but poisons their drinks. Not only is the woman cursed to be a spider, but the villagers gossip horribly about her, suggesting that she had engaged in incest with the only relative she had originally remained in contact with once she and the relative had severed ties. In turn, she looms over the village, leaving them all with a sense of terror of what she might do, although she still offers a sense of protection to them all, killing bandits and terrorists who might harm them. I thought it felt especially true to life that although the woman was maligned and feared as the spider, she was the one who had suffered the most.
Overall, The Spider’s Widow by Houyem Ferchichi, translated by Ali Znaidi, was a fascinating piece of folk horror. Parts of it were a bit too stilted to be completely to my taste even though I thought that suited the story, but I largely thought it was a beautifully written piece of fiction that had a lot to say despite its short length.
I hope everyone who participated by reading the story and following along on social media enjoyed reading this short story. If you have more thoughts to add, please feel free to comment on this post, or anywhere on The Feminist Bibliothecary’s social media. Our 103rd week begins shortly, November 22, with a brand new short story selection!
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