| Author | Message | ||
     Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.220.33 |
I feel this is an interesting interview on this subject with Laird Barron: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/12/be-my-victim-laird-barron/ | ||
| Matthew_fell (Matthew_fell) Username: Matthew_fell Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.180.184 |
Laird makes a number of interesting and valid points. Good interview. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Personally, I've always seen horror as a very literary genre. Unfortunately, a lot of horror reaers (and writers) don't feel the same way. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.220.33 |
A discussion on 'anti-intellectualism' on the Vault of Evil site a few months ago: http://vaultofevil.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=offtopic&action=display&thread= 4011 | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.204.107 |
I remember talking with one of the Fear magazine staff back in the early nineties and asking him why Fear couldn't be more like Interzone – he said "Because horror fans aren't as intelligent as science fiction fans." I'm reminded, also, of Ramsey being told by an editor back in the 80s that something he'd written was "too sophisticated for the readership". On the bright side, we don't see novels about human-munching crabs, praying mantises or rabid ferrets on the horror shelves any more. Nothing in the genre now is anywhere near as crude and illiterate as Guy N. Smith. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.29.161.183 |
Shaun Hutson's still out there... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.202.102 |
He said that. Not me.  | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.142.147.0 |
Here’s a topic that always gets my blood boiling. I’ve done my best to restrain myself from posting on this thread but… I don’t think horror is that literary a genre, and more importantly I don’t think it should be. Most importantly I think if all the horror that was published was ‘literary horror’ then very soon there wouldn’t be any horror published at all. Because literary horror is a sideline, it’s a minority interest, it’s a luxury that more often than not caters to (pseudo)intellectuals who can chuckle to themselves about how clever they are for thinking they understand some impenetrable piece of prose that the ordinary fan in the street who likes ‘Night of the Crabs’ would never ever have the wherewithal to comprehend. The problem is that horror is a genre that, like science fiction, or crime, needs to be popular to survive and to be popular it needs to be entertaining. The increasingly tedious argument that seems to come round again and again, one that is pretty much always put forward by the literary brigade (I think everyone else is having far too much fun reading those terrible ‘lowest common denominator horror novels’) is that literary horror = good, whereas ‘lowest common denominator horror’ (whatever that exactly means) = bad, whereas that simply isn’t so. It’s probably already clear from the above that I’m not a big fan of literary horror. That doesn’t mean I hate all the literature that might be classed as such, but there is a lot of bad stuff out there – horrible, pretentious, uninterpretable stuff that’s going to kill the genre stone dead faster than slugs or crabs or moody vampires. Because what have Shaun Hutson, Guy N Smith and all the other authors who are so vilified by the literary brigade ever done other than help keep the horror genre alive? And they haven’t just done that – they’ve raised its profile and made it a huge, rip-roaring success. Why aren’t the more ‘literary’ inclined authors praising these people for getting far more people interested in horror than we could have dreamed possible? Because of all those people who pick up a horror bestseller, there may be a few new converts to the literary horror subgenre as well, so everybody wins. I’ll leave the (almost) final words to Laird Barron: "Unfortunately, gratuitous violence and pornography have become the public face of horror." I remember reading something similar in a 1957 review of Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein and we all know how simply terrible that movie was for the genre. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.169.220.33 |
That Laird Barron interview was my reason for exhuming this debate, because what he had to say, I feel, was interesting whether you agree with it or not. It is Ok for people to decry things they don't like. Like being anti-Guy N Smith books, for example and being honest enough to say so. Equally, it is also OK for people to decry particular examples of so-called intellectual fiction, although 'intellectual' is probably the wrong word. So is 'literary', but you know what I mean. IMO. It is RIGHT to be PRO things in general, the things you love in life whether it be Guy N Smith or The House of Leaves. But I feel it is WRONG to be ANTI general things in Art (ie lumping many different things under a single label as John seems to have done above) ... like being anti-intellectual as much as being anti-unintellectual... whether you are or consider yourself to be intellectual, unintellectual or neither. This thread, I feel, is about the views of those who are or consider themselves to be (or seem to be to others) anti-intellectual GENERALLY. And the contention is that the Horror genre is anti-intellectual. Discuss. (As I've said earlier I'm not sure I agree with this contention). Myself? I'm PRO all sorts of Horror literature as I hope I've shown with my few years of Real-Time Reviewing. But that's just to show where I'm coming from. Horror being a very broad church and not a religion. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
I'm currently reading Laird's "Occultation" collection on my Kindle, and it's very good indeed. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.142.147.0 |
I'm currently reading Laird's "Occultation" collection on my Kindle, That sounds as if you're resting it on something rude  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.202.102 |
I don't think there's anything snobbish about diminishing inept writing, John. Hutson doesn't care about his books - it's hugely apparent. So why should anyone else? Personally I have nothing against writers succeeding and promoting the genre (hell, King's popularity kicks Hutson's ass); it's a matter of principle, concerning his cynicism about the genre. At the same time, infinitely better writers and more honourable ambassadors for horror such as Ramsey work in relative obscurity. That's simply not right. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.234.214 |
"Unfortunately, gratuitous violence and pornography have become the public face of horror." Horror is nearly always associated with its worst examples. I'm sure ye Landlord said something along that line, but I forget where. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
The problem I have with most horror is that it relies on props -- vampires, psychos, ghosts, werewolves, zombies, etc -- rather than concepts. Even most "literary horror" relies on props: they just happen to be more subtle than the props of ordinary horror. There is a kind of horror that relies on concepts and is all the more powerful for it, but it's very rare. Harlan Ellison's 'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream', for example, which is essentially about how unbearable eternal life must be -- even worse than eternal oblivion. It's the same with SF and Fantasy. Most SF and Fantasy relies on props rather than concepts, but there is some that does rely on concepts. Whether "conceptual" genre fiction is literary or not is a separate issue. I've read plenty of SF full of great concepts that is quite badly written, Donald Wandrei's 'Colossus' for instance... Having said that, I'd rather read a bad writer with big ideas than a good writer with bad (or no) ideas... There's too much literary fiction that's very well-written but lacking in ideas. My ultimate ideal, of course, is well-written fiction full of good ideas, and thankfully it does exist. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.202.102 |
Yes, Alan Titchmarch's novels include a lot of vital info about how to organise your garden, while also exploring the complex psychological processes involved in shagging the gardener. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
I really just can't stand vampires. Give me ten minutes in the ring with Dracula and I'd punch the fucker into oblivion. He's not hard. He's a batty twat who dresses like Kim Newman. This isn't macho talk. I know I wouldn't stick a chance against a werewolf or most zombies. But Dracula is a softy who acts hard and he needs to be brought down a coffin peg or two. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.202.102 |
If you hit him hard enough, he'd be out for the Count. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
Do you think they'd get Quasimodo to ring the bell, the bell? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.172.184.21 |
Fighting a fictional character is a bit one-sided at the best of times? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.202.102 |
I only exist to fight fictional characters. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
Yes, fighting fictional characters is one-sided. They have the advantage of being in many different places at the same time. If I punch the Dracula on the shelves of my local library, it won't have any effect whatsoever on the same Dracula who exists on all the other shelves around the world. And yet it's our duty to strive even when we know we can't prevail... Dracula must be punched, for the sake of truth, justice, beauty and all other noble excuses! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.172.184.21 |
Ii is, I suppose, one-sided on the side of the fictional character - as they can be given superhuman powers at the drop of a hat. | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.176.214.196 |
As long as your friends aren't fictional. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
> ...they can be given superhuman powers at the drop of a hat Yeah, at the drop of a top hat... and the smashing of tinted blue spectacles with side-lights... and the unravelling of a moronic cravat. But seriously, doesn't Dracula get up your noses too? I find him really fucking annoying. He's smug and boring. Varney was a twat as well but at least he wasn't smug. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.202.102 |
Yeah, a right pain in the neck. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
One of the (many) things I hate about Dracula is that his photons don't seem to understand anything about angles of incidence. They'll strike a mirror (or other reflective surface) at (say) 35 degrees, but will they bounce off at 35 degrees on the other side? Will they fuck! No, because he never has a reflection. I hate that. Get your photons educated, you anaemic little shit! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.172.184.21 |
I must say I agree with Rhys about vampires. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
And how the fuck do they fly, exactly? Their bones must be hollow (easy to break with a righteous punch) and filled with hydrogen (even helium isn't light enough to levitate such a mass). There's simply no other mechanism. Sorry, I don't believe in anti-gravity. Bones filled with hydrogen... One spark and WHOOSH! Hey, it's a reconstruction of the Hindenburg disaster of May 6th 1937. "Oh, the undeadmanity! The undeadmanity!" The fuckers. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.202.102 |
You make fair and cogent points, Rhys. Someone should do something about this. Shall we organise a march? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 62.121.31.177 |
A march? Yes, let's do that. May we March in April? Vampires? No fangs! And don't let anyone assert that vampires are supposed to be "psychic projections" (or other twaddle) instead of physical beings. At no point did Stoker imagine that Dracula wasn't real. He just didn't think the consequences through. Like H.G. Wells and the Invisible Man. He's invisible but he can still see. Really. How the fuck does he do that then? His eyes are transparent. Light passes right through them without being focussed onto his optic nerves. The little transparent turd is blind you mong! Is the invisible man a psychic projection? No, he's lazy genre device. And a cunt. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.68 |
"The problem I have with most horror is that it relies on props -- vampires, psychos, ghosts, werewolves, zombies, etc -- rather than concepts..." The ones I use most are ghosts and "psychos". But I think the ghost is a very large concept with a considerable range of resonance, and I can't say I ever regarded John Horridge as a prop, or Dudley Smith or Hector Woollie either. Even the most consciously manufactured one (in The Last Voice They Hear) let me shine a clear light on the everyday treatment of children. Incidentally, Rhys, I think some of your language is getting a little out of control (or if not, so much the worse). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
The "props" are handier when it's strictly horror, because like any genre, it has specific conventions that are all catering to story, above character. But I think why "ghosts" are so crossover friendly, from horror to literature, is... well, partially, an argument from history - other luminaries have utilized ghosts to great effect, like Shakespare, Brontë, James. But that's because the whole concept of a "ghost," is capable of so much more poignance. Because with ghosts, you can penetrate from another angle, the very heart of the subject: What is Love? Which is the subject of the greatest pieces of literature, when they are at their greatest - even if seemingly tangentially, they are really addressing this question at their core, and by doing so extricate themselves from the shackling confines of "genre." | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.172.184.21 |
Ghosts (and sometimes dreams and all manner of permutations of dream sickness etc) are what, these days, come most readily to me when writing Horror or Weird or other fantastical fiction. These are the 'props' I most appreciate also, these days, when reading fiction. Props that enable Lovecraftian monsters and other stock horror tropes as well as new tropes to become ignited via dreams and/or ghosts, i.e. described (proscribed?) by ghosts and/or dreams *first* for the old or new tropes to live later as real things in the mind. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 62.30.117.235 |
Here’s a topic that always gets my blood boiling. I'm amazed that anyone would be surprised to learn that Joel doesn't rate Guy N. Smith's writing, or think it was worth getting angry about. I enjoy, even love, Paul Anderson movies - Death Race, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Alien vs Predator, the whole lot of them - but I wouldn't for a moment get angry if someone else thought they were rubbish. Sometimes we like and enjoy things regardless of where they stand on the good-bad scale. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.234.214 |
You forgot Event Horizon! | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 62.30.117.235 |
Oh yes, another film I love despite it not being all that good. File it under "whole lot of them" together with Soldier. I even liked Shopping! I also meant to say that we all also have different good-bad scales, and there's little point getting angry about other people's. Mrs Theaker hates Stereolab with a passion; I have a similar hatred for Morrissey. And yet we live together happily. We're both right. Especially me. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.202.102 |
>>>We're both right. Especially me. Hahaha. That's the spirit. old chap. ;) | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
Just a quickie as I've got a casserole in the oven which will be ready soon ... Reading through all the posts which have appeared on this thread since I last visited makes me think - shouldn't we really be celebrating how DIVERSE a genre horror really is? There's horror to suit all tastes - vampires, werewolves and the like (and I *do* like quite a bit of vampire/werewolf horror when it's well done), the ghostly and supernatural, psychological horror, weird horror, giant killer rabbits, etc, etc. There's something for everyone! And of course, as individuals, we each like some bits of the genre but not others. You wouldn't really expect anything else, surely? So I reckon we should be grateful for horror being such a diverse genre. The only thing we really need to do is convert more people to its merits. And if those other people prefer one type of horror over another, that's no problem in my book.  | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 86.142.147.0 |
My dad and I were just waxing nostalgic about Kingdom of the Spiders, which he just got on DVD for Christmas. It's an old favourite we used to watch when I was a kid. And John and I have just watched (and thoroughly enjoyed) Alligator, Pirahna (1978), Frogs and Ssssss (not sure how many S's). (Although we don't recommend Alligator 2: The Mutation.) And yet I also loved the very artful and subtle and emotional (literary?) re-imagining of "Oh, Whistle". I love it all and I think there's a place for all of it. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.202.102 |
I have no problem with any kind of horror, literary or pulp, graphic or restrained, etc. I simply have a problem with badly done stuff, with stuff the author just doesn't care about. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.172.184.21 |
There is a place for all of it, of course. But, just to take a personal opportunity here for a moment, I've been misundertood it seems by my own words and intentions here and elsewhere. But, probably, I was genuinely at fault even before the misunderstanding happened. I do apologise. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 62.30.117.235 |
I think cross-posting is always a bad idea, Des. The two forums you post to often end up reading each other's posts and arguing at a distance. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.142.147.0 |
I don't think there's anything snobbish about diminishing inept writing, John. No - I would agree wholeheartedly with that - if you don't criticise what should be criticised what hope for anyone to improve? Hutson doesn't care about his books - it's hugely apparent. So why should anyone else? Oh God dare I mention this but the time that I met him Shaun Hutson came across as a bit of a terrier but he was actually very passionate about horror and his books (and Iron Maiden). And he was very upset about Slugs - the Movie. Personally I have nothing against writers succeeding and promoting the genre (hell, King's popularity kicks Hutson's ass); it's a matter of principle, concerning his cynicism about the genre. At the same time, infinitely better writers and more honourable ambassadors for horror such as Ramsey work in relative obscurity. That's simply not right. I agree entirely with that as well. But as we all know good doesn't necessarily mean popular but I do think popular is probably necessary for a genre like horror to survive. It's an interesting argument (for me anyway) but do you actually need to care about the art you create if it does what it's supposed to, even if that is entertain people at the 'lowest common denominator'? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.172.184.21 |
Steve, I agree. John, that's a bit controversial for this forum? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.202.102 |
Fair enough, mate. Maybe I judge Hutson by his occasional statements, such as "I grow more cynical with every book I write." It just angers me that he's effectively the face of British horror (or one of them, along with the superior Herbert), while our very best get largely ignored on the broader stage (Williams, Royle, Campbell, et al). | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.142.147.0 |
Des: Bless you my dear chap!  GF: Well, who knows, eh? Just as long as horror keeps kicking I guess we will as well! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.172.184.21 |
I remain perturbed at some of what's gone on today and the interpretation put on various people's actions by themselves and others - some of it my fault - but I'm now too tired to fight back. No 'Bless you my dear chap' will change that. |