My attempt to introduce horror to a general literary audience

[D_Davis]

And I'm bowing out of this conversation - it's starting to get far too semantic about what is "literary" and what is "horror."

We all have our own opinions on the subject.

 

[Fried Egg]

More experience from the reader - I think those authors are more like deep cuts, and can be more fully appreciated with a basic groundwork in horror fiction.

I think I misread you there actually. I realise now what you're saying; that one shouldn't start with authors such as those.

Lol, I guess we will just have to disagree about King because I have read damn near everything the guy has written and he does have subtlety, depth, complexity, and a richness of writing in great abundance.

Well, I hope one day to find such in his writing. See my request in the Stephen King thread for recommendations for books of his that might turn me on to him.

 

[j d worthington]

How exactly was I on the borderline of being personally abusive? Because I called you stuffy, intelectual types? From everything that I've read from you, that is exactly what you are going for. The real abuse is that I stated a critical opinion on what was written about the "splatterpunks" and I get bombarded with all of you trying to tear me down. It was criticism, that is all and even you have to admit that any critism should be welcomed criticism in order to become better at your art.

I absolutely believe that King, especially some of his short works, will be read in class rooms because like D Davis said "he connects so well with the human spirit." Whether you believe it or not, I know it to be true. No other author has brought out the surplus of emotions in me than King. Many of the "literary" authors works are bland and boring, the only emotion they bring out in me is "please let this end so I can move on to something more worthwhile and entertaining!"

I don't have the time this morning to address all your points here and in some of your other (often quite interesting) posts, as I have to leave for work in about 15 minutes; I'll try to get back to it during my afternoon break, or later this evening. But...

On the first point (and pardon me for taking this thread off-topic folks), the "borderline abusive" refers to the fact of arguing to the person, not the argument. Address the person's argument, but avoid being insulting to the other member. That's one of the rules of the establishment that we all agree to, and all of us are expected to abide by that.

As for your statement that you "know" King will be so taught -- I'm afraid that's nonsense. You may firmly believe he will be, but neither do you know he will be, nor do I know he will not. Neither of us is able to say wha the future will bring; but we each have to rely on our experience with life and what we've learned by watching how these things work out. In my view, then, based on a rather broad taste in literature, from the pulps to Henry James, and seeing what has and has not, throughout history, been accepted into the canon -- a requirement for serious consideration when being included in such courses (with an occasional, almost always ephemeral, exception), King simply won't. His work is too full of solecisms, pleonasms, excess verbiage, and just generally sloppy writing. Again, it isn't that he can't do better (he most certainly has, at times), but that the bulk of his writing falls into this sort of trend. And even his exceptions often have wincingly bad passages when it comes to writing; which is different from story-telling.

It's a pity, in a way, because I think King has some great stuff in him, if only he'd reign in these tendencies and be a more careful, selective writer who edits himself more critically. But... as long as it appeals to the masses and sells for his lifetime, I doubt he will. And, like so very, very many best-selling writers of the past, once he is dead, his work will eventually be forgotten, or even (as happened with Bulwer) derided as examples of how not to do it. And, frankly, I hate to see that happen to any writer, especially one who does have some genuine talent like King.

As for attracting the literary audience: if you wish the genre to attain any stature in the larger world beyond cult fandom, then hell, yes, you want to get the serious attention of people who are literate on a higher plane. Otherwise, you keep the genre in a ghetto; and it doesn't deserve that. No truly imaginative branch of literature does. And we've had some fine writers in this little teapot: Shirley Jackson, Theophile Gautier, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, Vernon Lee, Oliver Onions, Walter de la Mare, Edith Wharton, Edgar Allan Poe, T. E. D. Klein, Ramsey Campbell, Robert Aickman, Mary Wilkins-Freeman, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith (his best work, anyway), Maurice Level, Nikolai Gogol, E. T. A. Hoffmann, M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Roald Dahl...... I'm sorry, but the likes of King, Barker, and the splatterpunks simply don't come even close. They may (or may not) entertain, but they far-too-often offer little more; and that isn't what literature is. There is a difference between popular literature (which, I remind you, depends entirely on the very unstable tastes of the general populace, a taste that is ever-shifting and will damn the writing today that they lauded to the skies yesterday) and the stuff which lasts. I'm more interested in seeing literature taken seriously as being a field wide enough to offer all kinds of reading experiences; the gaudy and vulgar, and the refined and subtle. And to do this, yes, you need to attract the attention of "the literary", and get them arguing on your side.....

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I used to think until fairly recently that I didn't like horror. My understanding of what horror had to offer was based on my limited reading of the likes of King and Barker (plus a few others such as Guy N. Smith). I didn't realise there were many other aspects to the genre, aspects that would appeal to me greatly. I'm sure there are many others like me.

And I am one of them. You make a very interesting point there, FE, as I, too, tend to have a certain 'stereotype' in my mind when thinking of horror.

I would be very interested to know examples of some works that encouraged you to change your mind about the genre.

 

[dlsevern]

J.D. I'm honestly tired of arguing about this, you've made your points, I've made mine. Neither of us will agree with other, let's just leave it there.

 

[Fried Egg]

And I am one of them. You make a very interesting point there, FE, as I, too, tend to have a certain 'stereotype' in my mind when thinking of horror.

I would be very interested to know examples of some works that encouraged you to change your mind about the genre.

Well, it was a gradual process. I've been a long time reader of fantasy and SF so many of my best early experiences of horror were with books where these genres overlapped with horror. On the fantasy side you've got authors like Clark Ashton Smith and Robert Howard and on the SF side you've got authors like Richard Matheson and John Wyndham. Reading authors like these are natural gateways into horror for readers of SF and fantasy.

And then gradually I started to read authors who like Algernon Blackwood, Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Robert Aickman, Jonathan Thomas, Ramsey Campbell and man more who are more horror than anything else (although many of these authors often retain elements of SF or fantasy in their work).

 

[j d worthington]

Well, it was a gradual process. I've been a long time reader of fantasy and SF so many of my best early experiences of horror were with books where these genres overlapped with horror. On the fantasy side you've got authors like Clark Ashton Smith and Robert Howard and on the SF side you've got authors like Richard Matheson and John Wyndham. Reading authors like these are natural gateways into horror for readers of SF and fantasy.

And then gradually I started to read authors who like Algernon Blackwood, Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Robert Aickman, Jonathan Thomas, Ramsey Campbell and man more who are more horror than anything else (although many of these authors often retain elements of SF or fantasy in their work).

I think that's the point, really. If we wish to see horror taken as a branch of literature worthy of serious attention, then we need to introduce people to the best the field has to offer; we also need to keep in mind the audience at which we're aiming. There's nothing inherently wrong with suggesting King, Barker, Schow, Lansdale, etc., as long as such writers would fit in with the level of literature the group (or particular individual) tends to like. But for those with more developed tastes -- that is, with a broader spectrum of reading, who are more familiar with the standard literary classics rather than generic literature -- one needs to offer the higher end of the spectrum, the writers with some genuine literary clout.

Despite my intense fascination (read: obsession) with Lovecraft, I am often reluctant to suggest him for that very reason. In part, this is because his style is so distinctive -- as Joshi notes, a blending of the classic essay form with prose-poetic techniques -- and is such an "Asianic" style, whereas most modern readers are more attuned to a leaner, more "Attic" style of writing. That rich, Asianic style can be quite off-putting to many, who tend to see it as prolix, verbose, and (to use D-Davis' phrase) "clunky", when it is actually quite a precise, nuanced style... it is just that it is "orchestrated prose" of a particular type often at odds with the majority of models of the last century. (This has been changing for a while, however, given such writers as William Styron, Thomas Pyncheon, Mervyn Peake, Thomas Ligotti, and Wilum Pugmire.) It has nothing to do with my feeling he isn't good enough; simply that he isn't going to fit with the modern sensibilities in that particular way. (His themes are another thing; they seem more relevant than ever today.)

 

[Connavar]

Im the prime example when it comes to Lovecraft prose when i first read him i couldnt get the weird prose cause i didnt know the prose styles of classic authors. After having read many classic horror writers with different, archaic prose styles and read Lovecraft his prose seemed very easy ,faster to get after read many of the best horror writers. I could see he was trying for prose-poetic style, trying to read archaic. "Orchestrated prose" is well put.

Nowadays my only issue with HPL is the few stories i have read dont build up as i expect in atmosphere,feelings.

 

[nomadman]

I would have no hesitation in recommending Lovecraft to a "general literary audience", though it would be interesting to know exactly the type of people that might comprise. Good work is good work, and I'd expect most people of a reasonably open mind to be receptive to it regardless of their familiarity with the genre. And with Lovecraft's recent surge in popularity and penetration into mainstream literature (via Penguin Classics and the Library of America) I'd hardly consider him a niche author anymore.

 

[D_Davis]

In part, this is because his style is so distinctive -- as Joshi notes, a blending of the classic essay form with prose-poetic techniques -- and is such an "Asianic" style, whereas most modern readers are more attuned to a leaner, more "Attic" style of writing. That rich, Asianic style can be quite off-putting to many, who tend to see it as prolix, verbose, and (to use D-Davis' phrase) "clunky", when it is actually quite a precise, nuanced style... it is just that it is "orchestrated prose" of a particular type often at odds with the majority of models of the last century. (This has been changing for a while, however, given such writers as William Styron, Thomas Pyncheon, Mervyn Peake, Thomas Ligotti, and Wilum Pugmire.) It has nothing to do with my feeling he isn't good enough; simply that he isn't going to fit with the modern sensibilities in that particular way. (His themes are another thing; they seem more relevant than ever today.)

See the thing is though, I like that affected style - I just don't think Lovecraft was very good at it. There are other weird others, of the time and now, who use a purple-prose or affected style that I like, and that isn't clunky. Ligotti, Cisco, Merritt, Hodgson, Chambers, Machen, Blackwood, and many others all employ a dense, affected style, but I don't find their writing to be clunky, where as I often do with Lovecraft. I love authors with a nuanced, and strong voice.

 

[j d worthington]

This may simply be one of those areas where, for whatever reason, we can't ever quite reach an agreement. I will agree that there are passages in Lovecraft which are risible -- I've mentioned a coupled of them here and there -- but I don't find most of his work to be at all of this nature. I also tend to read much of his work aloud, but find his rhythms and cadences, his choice of words with their numerous associations, quite effective. Perhaps it's the difference in literary as well as general experiential background; perhaps its a philosophical difference in approach to certain things. On that, I'm not sure. I do know, however, that he does affect others this way, so neither you nor I are alone in our positions.

One thing I can agree on is that he was often too given to melodrama; and this is a trait on which he himself commented disparagingly more than once....

 

[D_Davis]

And hey, that's totally cool.

 

[nomadman]

I think one of Lovecraft's underappreciated traits was his readability. His clarity of insight and the methodical and elegant way in which he laid forth his thoughts and ideas in his letters, essays and other non-fiction pieces naturally transferred to his fiction, though I agree that he was prone to melodrama and a marked hard-headedness in altering his plots to aid the fluidity and plausibility of his tales, (see The Whisperer in Darkness). Still, considering the rather archaic style Lovecraft adopted, he continues to be read and enjoyed by a great many people who might not necessarily engage with many other writers of that period. I speak from personal experience here, having introduced Lovecraft to more than a few people whose reading diets had hitherto been confined to writers of a more modern type.

 

[j d worthington]

Even though I like his stories a lot, I do sometimes wonder why Lovecraft is held in such high esteem, at least regarding his prose. He was very, very creative, and his imagination was boundless. However, personally I think he was a pretty terrible writer, and his prose is often borderline-laughable. Try reading some of his dialog and metaphors out loud; so much of it is cringe-worthy.

With authors like him, I tend to separate the ideas from the writing. Because while I love Lovecraft's ideas, I'm just not a huge supporter of his writing skills. So yeah, the modern critical appraisal of HPL does tend to baffle me, even if I do like his stories.

While I obviously disagree with you on HPL's abilities stylistically, some of the other things you say here got me to thinking you might find the following of interest. In his The Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft: The Route to Horror, Prof. Timo Airaksinen begins his opening chapter by citing Malone's fainting fit early in "The Horror at Red Hook" "'without visual provocation'", then goes on to say this:

Earlier he experienced something which is intolerable and, to use Lovecraft's word, "unmentionable."

Lovecraft writes about such experiences, allowing his readers to peek into the unknown. This is both his strength and weakness: his texts are interesting because they explore extreme realms of mental life, but at the same time they tell a tale of the unmentionable which, of course, cannot be told.

Another problem is that the Lovecraftian world of experience is so narrow that the reader might not be able to relate to it. The reader may well live in the type of subjective world which leaves the Lovecraftian themes untouched. From this reader's world Lovecraft's fiction is not accessible.

If Lovecraft wrote about love or even hatred, such a negative proposition would be automatically false because we all know these things. Lovecraft, on the contrary, bypasses the human world and addresses something else[...]. Hence, to take him seriously may be difficult, although his texts are well crafted and intriguing. He penetratse into areas which challenge the limits of the literary realm. Exactly this makes him an author worth the effort of a study.[...]

The reader's problem is that Lovecraft is such a demanding author. The vast scope of his fictional principles, his cosmic views, together with their strange philosophical implications are an undeserved handicap. He is a weird writer in more than one sense.[...]

He was a thinker who had all the spare time to work on his thoughts, an effort which produced a convoluted picture which is not easy to decipher. Shelley and Stoker are more manageable. Tolkien is cute. Lovecraft, on the contrary, develops a comprehensive literary theory, a personal philosophy, and a metaphysics which he follows in his fiction. His writings create a new kind of world, based on science, myth, and magic, so that he can be classified among the most difficult authors to understand.

-- pp. 1-3​

Without going into a lengthy list, I would nonetheless say that some of the more talented writers out there have supported the view that HPL was, in Stephen Mariconda's phrase, a "consummate prose stylist", including Fritz Leiber and (believe it or not) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Borges has at times praised him, at times dismissed him... but Borges was good at such contradictions. Prof. Thomas Ollive Mabbott, one of, if not the, leading Poe scholar, ranked HPL very highly in this regard, as did Stephen Vincent Benét (according to his brother William, at any rate). And, of course, Clark Ashton Smith, who was a very fine poet, also found Lovecraft's prose to be admirably crafted. So it isn't just a "modern critical perspective", but one which has been around for quite some time. However, his style is an acquired taste, very "Asianic", as I've said elsewhere, and with an odd mix of influences; and it certainly isn't going to appeal to everyone... and those who don't like it tend to see it in a very negative light, while those who do, frankly, tend to run the gamut from indifference to overpraise....

If you'd like to see one of the more interesting approaches to this question, try reading Mariconda's essay; it not only addresses the majority of complaints which have been lodged against HPL's style, but also shows how varied his style actually was, depending on the sort of tale and the effect it was intended to have....

nomadman: On the subject of "The Whisperer in Darkness", see if you can't locate a copy of Mariconda's essay "Tightening the Coil", which deals with the differences between HPL's original manuscript for the tale and the final product. Quite a convoluted piece, that....

 

[blacknorth]

I always considered that George Orwell offered horror its best chance at literary appreciation, because he gave us its most recognisable living space - Room 101.

Each and every horror writer offers us a variation on our worst fears, and a realistic appraisal of our chances of survival; Winston Smith's terror never touched me because I don't share his fear of rats, but that doesn't mean I don't question Big Brother's extraordinary power to reach into my mind and extract my worst fears - and casting our favourite horror writers, or those horrors writers who do it for us, in the role of interrogator and judge and executioner is all part of the mysterious process of choosing to be touched at the quick. I say choosing - Winston Smith volunteered himself through dissent; now why do I surrender myself to Algernon Blackwood, or Aickman, or MR James. I thought about it and realised that for me reading horror, and reading certain horror writers was an act of dissent - dissenting from law, from order, from logic, from love, from everything.

My own feeling is that, when it comes to authors, we are reading into their work what we already know to be true about our worst fears about the world we live in and our place in it - we're looking for confirmation of it, and probably some form of expiation (release?), whether it be Lovecraft or King. The difference, I think, between literary and, let's say, standard horror writing is in the author's ability to use his skills to trump even our worst fears - to push it all the way to the point where one begins to think, there is no end of things that can cause me pain.

In effect, if one could defect from life to death without the process of dying, that little room is the venue for the inimaginable, and our favourite horror writers are very good at the unimaginable.

 

[D_Davis]

Without going into a lengthy list, I would nonetheless say that some of the more talented writers out there have supported the view that HPL was, in Stephen Mariconda's phrase, a "consummate prose stylist", including Fritz Leiber and (believe it or not) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Borges has at times praised him, at times dismissed him... but Borges was good at such contradictions. Prof. Thomas Ollive Mabbott, one of, if not the, leading Poe scholar, ranked HPL very highly in this regard, as did Stephen Vincent Benét (according to his brother William, at any rate). And, of course, Clark Ashton Smith, who was a very fine poet, also found Lovecraft's prose to be admirably crafted. So it isn't just a "modern critical perspective", but one which has been around for quite some time. However, his style is an acquired taste, very "Asianic", as I've said elsewhere, and with an odd mix of influences; and it certainly isn't going to appeal to everyone... and those who don't like it tend to see it in a very negative light, while those who do, frankly, tend to run the gamut from indifference to overpraise....

Oh yes - I know there are many scholarly and artistic people who love Lovecraft and his style. I'm just not among them. While some may find him "demanding," I see him as cumbersome and awkward. I realize that I'm in the minority here on that, and that's cool!

Like I've said elsewhere, I do really admire some of his stories though. No denying his talent!

He was definitely unique, and I have to, at the very least, respect him for that.

 

[j d worthington]

Oh yes - I know there are many scholarly and artistic people who love Lovecraft and his style. I'm just not among them. While some may find him "demanding," I see him as cumbersome and awkward. I realize that I'm in the minority here on that, and that's cool!

Like I've said elsewhere, I do really admire some of his stories though. No denying his talent!

He was definitely unique, and I have to, at the very least, respect him for that.

Without meaning to flatter, I appreciate the tone you take with this sort of thing. I wish I saw more of a balanced give-and-take like this, where each side has their say and remains civil and even cordial, whether the writer under discussion be Lovecraft, King, Cervantes, Barker, or (gawdelpus!) James Malcolm Rymer. Honest, thoughtful assessment of a writer's work, to me, provides much more fruitful arguments, and at the very least tends to hone one's ability to argue one's own views.

Blacknorth: I don't entirely subscribe to your theory, but it is a very interesting one, holding more than a little truth, I think, at least for some of us....

 

[Fried Egg]

I always considered that George Orwell offered horror its best chance at literary appreciation, because he gave us its most recognisable living space - Room 101.

Good point. Indeed, in 1984 generally Orwell constructed the most complete, fullest and supreme (and therefore the most horrific) tyranical regime could conceivably come to dominate mankind. The extent to which it most impose itself upon each and every individual, allowing not even the smallest place in the back of your mind for free thought sends a tremour down my spine. No other dystopian vision has been quite as chilling for me.

 

[blacknorth]

The extent to which it most impose itself upon each and every individual, allowing not even the smallest place in the back of your mind for free thought sends a tremour down my spine.

This is the point at which, for me at any rate, Nineteen Eighty-Four stops being a sort of dystopian horror story (I regard it much more as horror than sf) and becomes literature.

Rats are a genre staple but they are are not the worst thing in the world. Rats are not even the worst thing in Room 101. It's what the rats force Winston to do to Julia that is the worst thing in Room 101, and that is also the worst thing in the world.

There is the real horror - do it to Julia.

 

[Christopher Lee]

Every horror writer is going to do it a little differently. Every writer in any genre for that matter will do things differently. Every person has their own unique take on one story or another from another person's take on those same two stories.

There is to much to debate on exactly which authors to use to safely introduce horror to a general literary audience. They will still all have their own opinions and beliefs. I think horror is in a good place right now and there's enough people out there to justify it.

On the other hand, this topic is a VERY interesting read.