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Message |
Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus
Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 12:17 pm: | |
This is probably not the right place to post this, but if it earns me exile from this board, so be it... I'll tramp off into the sunset and grow a beard in the desert and live in a cave and dine on wild honey. Yum! http://postmodernmariner.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-i-dislike-horror.html |
Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 01:08 pm: | |
Um, 'kay. |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.68
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 01:17 pm: | |
Interesting, but I think there's a fundamental difference between being moved by a work of art (and yes, being frightened is being moved) and suffering the emotion as a result of direct experience. As an analogy, I'd rather not have actual tragedy in my life, but I certainly value tragedy in art. |
Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec
Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 01:22 pm: | |
Interesting thoughts, Rhys - but isn't there a difference between being scared by horror *fiction* and being scared in real life? I've been scared in real life (muggings, etc) and it's no fun at all. But there's something different about what I get from horror fiction. It's not the same feeling, believe me. I don't actually know what it is. Some people suggest that we like horror fiction because it scares us in a *safe* way, but I'm not so sure about that. I really do think it's a different kind of feeling I get from horror fiction - not fear at all, which I agree is unpleasant and something to be avoided. So, what IS this feeling we get from reading/watching horror fiction? I certainly don't know. |
Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec
Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 01:23 pm: | |
Ooops, I was posting the same kind of thoughts at the same time as you, Ramsey! |
Des (Des) Username: Des
Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.221.108
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 02:04 pm: | |
All literature is frightening as it defaults, whether it likes it or not, to the frisson or the gore, to the Horror or the Ominous, even if along the way it's uplifting, humorous or absurd. |
Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.53.11
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 03:11 pm: | |
Our consciousness may know when something isn't real, but our autonomic systems don't. To them, the stimulus is real and intellectual reassurance that it isn't after the fact may be of limited use. |
Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.53.11
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 03:14 pm: | |
I suppose I'm addressing more realistic visual works which bypass the intellect and aim for a direct physiological effect. |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.68
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 03:53 pm: | |
I suppose I come back to my old refrain, Caroline - the finest horror fiction (or certainly some of it) reaches for awe: "The Willows" and "The White People", for instance. I'd compare my own experience of terror in those tales to the effect (on me) of the Dies Irae in the Berlioz Requiem, or the final movement of Janacek's Sinfonietta. Other examples - Hawksmoor, House of Leaves, Never Let Me Go - I find insidiously disquieting. In none of these cases (or in many others) is the effect simply to scare the audience, and I may as well add that it doesn't interest me as a writer much, or at any rate often. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 120.126.96.2
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 03:57 pm: | |
I dislike dentists and surgeons (JLP excepted!). But sometimes what we don't like is good for us. |
Craig (Craig) Username: Craig
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 04:00 pm: | |
I think in one kind of the best horror works, the better word I'd use is, "unsettle." I just read from my new old horror collection two short stories by Shirley Jackson, "The Summer People" and "The Beautiful Stranger." Both hardly frighten. Both are supremely "unsettling." They unsettle because of deeper, more abstract notions than a piece of fluff landing on your shoulder: life contains in its core, in its particular elements and choices, some kind of nameless, existential horror, one difficult to define, grasp, see... but it's there, right? I'm not imagining it's there, right? That unsettling uncertainty is also the horror of "Hamlet," and its art. That's one end, the more abstract. The more immediate, on the other end, emphasizes the point that "Sometimes the monsters do get you" - much of Ramsey's work is in this vein, I'd venture, and King's and many others. Sometimes tragedy does occur. It might, and it does... those two, are horror. But if it's, again, no more than a fluffy fallen from the ceiling and our hair going up straight like The Three Stooges - well, that's just bad horror. |
Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris
Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 04:03 pm: | |
I'm confused. Given the profile of the writer at Rhys's blog, is Rhys's post supposed to have been written by "Rhys" or by a "fictional character" (the postmodern mariner)? |
Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw
Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 04:14 pm: | |
It's the thrill of the unusual I get a kick out of in genre fiction, cinema, TV or art, whether it be horror, fantasy, sci-fi or even comedy. The "unusual" can manifest itself as something frightening we would never want to experience in real life, something that strikes us with awe (as Ramsey says), something that subtly haunts the mind with enigmatic ambiguity, something that fires our imagination and makes us look at the world in a different way, something that gets the adrenaline pumping and the heart racing or makes the hairs on the back of our necks stand up, something that plucks at our heartstrings in a way we've never experienced before or makes us laugh our socks off with shocked delight. All these emotional responses are heightened by that extra ingredient of the "unusual" in my mind. It's what draws our attention and drives us to explore the world as kids and is that same 'thrill of the new' we get from the greatest genre fiction that makes it so damn addictive. In the hands of a master we become awestruck children once more. That's my theory anyway... |
John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.0.116
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 05:07 pm: | |
Gary Fry you've made me smile |
Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker
Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 62.30.117.235
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 05:08 pm: | |
I know what Rhys means. I'd probably read a lot more horror if the best books didn't give me the worst nightmares. |
Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 05:10 pm: | |
"I dislike dentists and surgeons (JLP excepted!). But sometimes what we don't like is good for us." So by extrapolation - Does that mean that JLP is bad for you? |
John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.0.116
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 05:17 pm: | |
Rhys - you sound just like my Dad did when I was about nine and couldn't understand why I wanted to keep reading The 12th Pan Book of Horror Stories instead of 'something nice'. "Isn't there enough horror in the real world without these people creating more?" I remember him saying, completely missing the point that, certainly at that age, one of the reasons I read horror was to expose myself to things I would most likely find utterly terrifying in real life but in the context of a book I could at least start to deal with - as a rehearsal, if you like, for if I might come across something truly disturbing in real life. And surprisingly enough horror has served me very well in that respect. Of course there were, and are, many other reasons why I like horror (no, that's far too mild a verb - I LOVE it), but I can remember even at the age of nine thinking there was no point trying to explain it to my Dad because you either get these things or you don't. And you obviously don't, for which you have my unending sympathy and hopefully the warmth of this board to console you. |
Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.78
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 05:50 pm: | |
I read horror for those moments of transcendent bliss. Awe. It's there, I think, to be found in moments of supernatural fear especially. MIDNIGHT SUN gave me shudders, but different shudders from SILENT CHILDREN. In MS I was struck by the vastness of the icy reaches extending into and beyond the universe, moments of transcendancy and supernatural-induced awe. In SC I enjoyed the delicious dread of anticipatory horror. I think MS is the superior work, and the one I admire most, but SC is the scarier piece. |
Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw
Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 06:04 pm: | |
I guess what I'm trying to say is that genre fiction - and horror is the best of all genres imo - gives us back our sense of wonder at the world, through the experience of extreme emotional reactions to things we have never experienced in reality. The buzz I get from good horror fiction, or cinema, is like a drug and I'm hopelessly addicted, have been since as far back as I can remember. |
Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus
Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 80.4.12.3
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 06:45 pm: | |
Oops, I wasn't expecting serious replies. I was hoping for silly answers! Thanks for all your thoughts on this topic, though! |
Des (Des) Username: Des
Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.221.108
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 07:05 pm: | |
But yours was a serious point, seriosuly made, Rhys. It deserved a serious reply, I feel. |
Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus
Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 80.4.12.3
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 07:29 pm: | |
Ah yes indeed, there's plenty to think about when it comes to "horror" -- why such a genre exists, what purpose it serves, etc. However, my chief motivation for writing that piece was my realisation that there was a self-negating negative waiting to be pointed out! I'm a sucker for any statement or argument with the form ¬¬p=p I'm not much interested in whether the conclusion is true or not. I just like the logical form! Earlier today, I read Ramsey Campbell's Introduction to the Library of Wales reprint of Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan. At the end of that Introduction he quotes from an author (can't remember who; I don't have the book with me at the moment) who pointed out that Machen's work aims for awe and thus achieves terror; but that too many modern horror authors aim for terror and achieve only disgust... Ramsey adds that some authors aim only for disgust (and presumably achieve only low comedy). This point about "awe" must figure in any serious debate about horror, of course. Funnily enough, I'm doing an event with Arthur Machen a week tomorrow. I don't think he'll make it though, partly because he's been dead for ages! http://aklo.blogspot.com/2010/11/weird-wales-rhys-hughes-arthur-machen.html |
John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.0.116
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 09:03 pm: | |
Silly answers! Oh my dear sir I do apologise! How about: Horror can be good for you Better than Fybogel to make you poo A really big shock can purge your nerves And make you aware of terrible perves Who live in this world and prey on those Who cannot see much further than their own nose But you'll be safe if you just see That horror's a warning to all and sundry To take care when you sit on the toilet And now I'll stop in case I spoil it. Written under the influence of alcohol, a beautiful girlfriend, and having just read HPL's The Shadow Over Innsmouth and been bowled over by it for the umpteenth time |
Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec
Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 09:14 pm: | |
I didn't realise you were a poet, Lord P! |
John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.0.116
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 10:15 pm: | |
Thank you, dear Caroline. I can't honestly call it poetic but if it raised a smile... |
Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21
| Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 10:58 pm: | |
I read horror for those moments of transcendent bliss. Awe. Same here. Which doesn't mean I experience them often or that they cannot be experienced through some other medium, say music. When I was seventeen or eighteen well-nigh every single story I read had that capacity, whereas now I'm happy to experience it once every other year or so. There's something about being eighteen . . . - the Great Romantic Escape, I call it. Too, the authors I discovered back then were Machen, James, Hodgson, Lovecraft - I mean they came at exactly the right time in my life and not much of their sort of grandeur is out there anymore. |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.68
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 08:17 am: | |
"Isn't there enough horror in the real world without these people creating more?" I'm often asked that in pretty well those exact words. I invariably find that those asking the question never want to do away with tragedy or crime fiction on the same principle. |
John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.0.116
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 09:38 am: | |
Another common thing 'normal' people used to say to me was they couldn't get into horror because it was 'make-believe' whereas televsion programmes like Eastenders were 'real-life'. Much as I tried to explain that soap operas are as much a cosy fantasy world (with all its rehearsals and playings-out of disasters for its audience to relish) as a lot of horror I could never get them to see that. So it's probably just as well such people don't become horror fans if they have such trouble distinguishing fantasy from fact |
Des (Des) Username: Des
Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.221.108
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 09:46 am: | |
I agree with the awe and transcendence points as well as more intangible things relating to the style and subject matter of Horror Fiction (that many now seem to call Weird Fiction, I note). Rhys, I hope you will be submitting a Horror story featuring a Horror Anthology in its plot to my 'The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies' Horror Anthology. (And many others here who are eligible to submit, too). |
Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.70
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 09:47 am: | |
Soap operas are terribly depressing. And never ending. Without hope or aspiration. Shameful. |
Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus
Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 11:38 am: | |
Once again, I thanks everyone for their thoughts and psychological speculations. It has been most interesting! However, the crux of my post was the paradox of the man (let's call him x) who dislikes horror (let's call that y) because it creates the feeling of fear inside him, which he regards as an attack: he resolves to take revenge on the author responsible for creating y and the suggestion is that it's going to be a lethal revenge. So we have a situation where in the act of destroying y, x becomes y. I had hoped that this little paradox would raise a smile on a few faces. But it fell flat and for that I apologise! |
Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus
Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 11:41 am: | |
I'll try another routine soon -- probably a proof that self-pity is selfless -- or something equally inverted. And if that one doesn't work, I'll probably pack it in. Ideally what I want is for someone to take my initial idea (assuming it appeals to them) and run with it, expand it and pass it back. A sort of paradox tennis! But thanks anyway, folks! Some great psychological insights in the above posts! |
Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.41.120
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 12:23 pm: | |
"Soap operas are terribly depressing. And never ending. Without hope or aspiration. Shameful." That's life, innit? |
Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec
Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 12:51 pm: | |
>>I had hoped that this little paradox would raise a smile on a few faces. But it fell flat and for that I apologise!<< I noticed it, Rhys, but it was the other aspect (ie. horror 'fact' vs. horror 'fiction') which set my mind going. I guess the turn this thread took was my fault for starting it off that way - sorry! But it's been an interesting discussion, I think. No need to apologise! |
Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus
Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 12:59 pm: | |
Thanks Caroline! I guessed I blur too much the distinction between the ideas I actually believe and those I just like to throw out there to see what happens... Chris Morris in his post above almost got it right when he wrote, "Given the profile of the writer at Rhys's blog, is Rhys's post supposed to have been written by "Rhys" or by a "fictional character" (the postmodern mariner)?" It's not quite the case that it was supposed to be written by a fictional character. What I tend to do is perhaps a bit odd. I take an idea that I think is right (or at least is valid in part) and stretch it logically as far as it can go, until it stops representing what I believe. That doesn't necessarily mean I no longer believe it, but that it has mutated into a new form, a self-parody, that partly takes the piss out of itself and my own beliefs. I suspect this is a perverse thing to do, but I enjoy doing it, for some strange reason. Hey, maybe I'm some sort of pervert?! |
Joel (Joel) Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.220.101
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 02:16 pm: | |
Sorry, I'm going to join the 'taking it seriously' contingent... To like supernatural horror fiction you have to find it emotionally resonant, and not everyone does. You could appreciate the quality of the writing (where appropriate) and understand the metaphors (ditto), but unless those metaphors are important to you the genre will not mean a lot to you. I think weird fiction revolves obsessively around certain themes – mortality, disease and madness being the most obvious ones – and if those themes are not deeply embedded in your imagination, you won't see the point. You need to have a certain kind of emotional infrastructure. It has nothing to do with your ability to understand at an intellectual level. Nor is it just about 'fear' – I have a logical fear of losing my job due to the recession, but that's not as active on an emotional, metaphor-generating level as losing my physical or mental health, and an effective weird story would have to progress from the first to the second or third loss before the metaphors began to bloom. Different people have different fears, of course. And where weird fiction shades into awe and mystery, as Ramsey describes, is where what we fear is explored for its mind-changing potential. Not just seeing in the dark but seeing by the dark. Rhys, I know you're an enthusiast of Arthur Machen. His work is a very 'pure' case of weird fiction as a language of metaphors in which the objects of fear are so transmuted that terror, desire and the appeal of mystery are mashed together. At some level 'The White People' is about female sexual awakening, but it would be a crass simplification to say that it's motivated by fear of female sexuality, sex or the body. Within Machen's imaginative realm, fear is bound up with other kinds of emotion towards the unknown and the idea of fundamental change in our lives. As Rilke said, "Every angel is terrible". I get that kind of complex, ambiguous emotional charge from quite a few other weird fiction writers beside Machen, but he is certainly one of the best. |
Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 02:40 pm: | |
I forget who said that only dissonance, decline, corruption, decay and death show us the true nature of the realities surrounding us. It may well have been Lovecraft, or Poe for that matter. |
Joel (Joel) Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.198.35
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 03:22 pm: | |
Whoever it was forgot to mention digestive biscuits. |
Joel (Joel) Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.198.35
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 03:26 pm: | |
And it's no coincidence that D minor is the signature chord of many bleak and despairing songs – such as the Velvet Underground's 'Heroin'. |
Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 04:21 pm: | |
Not to mention 'Cocaine'. Hang on, that's in D major |
Huw (Huw) Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.49.26
| Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 04:26 pm: | |
'Heroin' is D major too (it's pretty much all D and G - very simple). 'Heart and Soul' by Joy Division is a melancholy song that's has a lot of D minor. There must be many others. |
Nathaniel Tapley (Natt)
Username: Natt
Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.15.150.255
| Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 - 03:27 am: | |
Let's not forget Spinal Tap's 'Lick My Love Pump' - D Minor. "I often think think D minor is the saddest key..." |
Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21
| Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 - 11:45 am: | |
"Another Brick in the Wall" is in D minor. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.227.164
| Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 - 12:38 pm: | |
So is Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'. Go figure. |
Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55
| Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 - 01:54 pm: | |
I dropped a piano down a mineshaft. the note that played was A flat miner |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.227.164
| Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 - 02:38 pm: | |
Hmm, plenty of body; a fine bouquet which concentrates the nose; pepperish aftertaste. So yes, I'd say . . . 1984? Is that the vintage of your jokes, Weber? 1984? |
Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55
| Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 - 03:15 pm: | |
1884, possibly 1784 forsooth |
Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus
Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177
| Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 - 03:40 pm: | |
How do you tuna fish? |
Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55
| Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 - 03:50 pm: | |
adjust the scales? |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.227.164
| Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 - 03:55 pm: | |
With a tuna-ing fork? |
Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus
Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177
| Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 - 03:58 pm: | |
Whey-hey! And the resultant note? Eel flat! Er... no, that doesn't make sense! |