Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
Knivesout no more
Ramsey Campbell has assembled some of the best horror anthologies I've read, so I feel it behoves me to make some attempt to appreciate his own work as well. To this end, I've read two of his novels - To Wake The Dead and The Doll Who Ate His Mother - but with mixed results. I'll concentrate on the latter novel here, since I just finished reading it a day back, but many of the points I'll make apply to the other work as well.
What strikes me most vividly about Campbell's work is his talent for creating a vivid sense of place and character. In the opening passages, he creates an image of Liverpool by night that is both convincing, in the sense that I felt I was being given a believable image of a place I've never been to, and a wonderful piece of atmosphere building, juxtaposing realistic details with the sense of ad-hoc bizarreness and menace that urban settings lend themselves so well to. The characters also came into vivid focus, and Campbell's use of character viewpoint continues to impress me with its ability to show us both sides of a particular relationship. I also have to note appreciatively his seamless weaving in of elements of non-trad horror themes, such as urban decay and the sense of human alienation.
On the other hand, the story failed to scare me, despite the horrific concept thatlay at its core. The actual scenes of horror were too vague to make a serious impact. I'm certainly not expecting Campbell to delve into what China Mieville calls 'the pornography of violence', but it seems as if the sense of character immersion actually serves as a barrier between the reader and the scary stuff.
I also like his sense of responsibility - at the end of a King novel, I often feel there's a real lack of a sense of consequence - so much has been destroyed, so many killed, I always feel that the protagonist is going to have a hard time explaining his or her involvement, and will probably wind up being arrested. Campbell is far more restrained in the scope of his horror, and doesn't leave me with that sort of feeling.
It wasn't a very cleverly built-up and paced book either - the sense of creeping horror, of the source of evil remaining disturbingly numinous until the very end, that makes horror work for me, was utterly absent. I was certain who the killer was a few sentances after his introduction. Campbell's skill at conveying a character's inner workings worked to his detriment in this case.
Campbell clearly seems to focus on the impact that the horrific makes on the people whose lives he touches - a commendable approach - but somehow one that serves to obscure the actual experience of coming face to face with that horror as a reader. My friend Ravi suggests that, in this novel, Campbell was so horrified and perhaps embarassed by his own concept that he tried to make it as palatable as possible, thereby ruining the story to a great extent.
I'd have to agree. A certain restraint in a horror writer is admirable, given the sort of slash-gore-porn that seems to fill up a lot of shelf space - but Campbell seems to take that reserve too far, and cross over into actual reticence. The best horrors are the ones that we barely glimpse - like old man Howard's various indescribable beasties - but nothing of Campbell's horror really seems to come into sharp enough de-focus (I am a card-carrying OxyMoron) to be really unsettling.
Campbell's short stories work a bit better for me. Even though they share the same focus character and setting, the nature of the format dictates that the horrific element is satisfyingly numinous, rather than merely vague.
Nevertheless, I'm impressed enough by Campbell's undeniable skill as a writer to give him another shot.
Lastly, 'coz I'm a sweet bloke who doesn't want to leave you at the mercy of my critical faculties alone, here's a review of the book that addresses all the points I've raised, and offers a different, and to my mind reasonable, take on the real theme of the book: http://www.skrause.org/writing/bookreviews/campbell_ramsey-the_doll_who_ate_his_mother.shtml
What strikes me most vividly about Campbell's work is his talent for creating a vivid sense of place and character. In the opening passages, he creates an image of Liverpool by night that is both convincing, in the sense that I felt I was being given a believable image of a place I've never been to, and a wonderful piece of atmosphere building, juxtaposing realistic details with the sense of ad-hoc bizarreness and menace that urban settings lend themselves so well to. The characters also came into vivid focus, and Campbell's use of character viewpoint continues to impress me with its ability to show us both sides of a particular relationship. I also have to note appreciatively his seamless weaving in of elements of non-trad horror themes, such as urban decay and the sense of human alienation.
On the other hand, the story failed to scare me, despite the horrific concept thatlay at its core. The actual scenes of horror were too vague to make a serious impact. I'm certainly not expecting Campbell to delve into what China Mieville calls 'the pornography of violence', but it seems as if the sense of character immersion actually serves as a barrier between the reader and the scary stuff.
I also like his sense of responsibility - at the end of a King novel, I often feel there's a real lack of a sense of consequence - so much has been destroyed, so many killed, I always feel that the protagonist is going to have a hard time explaining his or her involvement, and will probably wind up being arrested. Campbell is far more restrained in the scope of his horror, and doesn't leave me with that sort of feeling.
It wasn't a very cleverly built-up and paced book either - the sense of creeping horror, of the source of evil remaining disturbingly numinous until the very end, that makes horror work for me, was utterly absent. I was certain who the killer was a few sentances after his introduction. Campbell's skill at conveying a character's inner workings worked to his detriment in this case.
Campbell clearly seems to focus on the impact that the horrific makes on the people whose lives he touches - a commendable approach - but somehow one that serves to obscure the actual experience of coming face to face with that horror as a reader. My friend Ravi suggests that, in this novel, Campbell was so horrified and perhaps embarassed by his own concept that he tried to make it as palatable as possible, thereby ruining the story to a great extent.
I'd have to agree. A certain restraint in a horror writer is admirable, given the sort of slash-gore-porn that seems to fill up a lot of shelf space - but Campbell seems to take that reserve too far, and cross over into actual reticence. The best horrors are the ones that we barely glimpse - like old man Howard's various indescribable beasties - but nothing of Campbell's horror really seems to come into sharp enough de-focus (I am a card-carrying OxyMoron) to be really unsettling.
Campbell's short stories work a bit better for me. Even though they share the same focus character and setting, the nature of the format dictates that the horrific element is satisfyingly numinous, rather than merely vague.
Nevertheless, I'm impressed enough by Campbell's undeniable skill as a writer to give him another shot.
Lastly, 'coz I'm a sweet bloke who doesn't want to leave you at the mercy of my critical faculties alone, here's a review of the book that addresses all the points I've raised, and offers a different, and to my mind reasonable, take on the real theme of the book: http://www.skrause.org/writing/bookreviews/campbell_ramsey-the_doll_who_ate_his_mother.shtml
