| Author | Message | ||
     David_m (David_m) Username: David_m Registered: 07-2011 Posted From: 2.29.79.31 |
Hello again, I'm very pleased to announce that the next Twisted Tales event will explore territory belonging to both crime and horror: Twisted Tales of Serial Murder An evening exploring our dark fascination with this compulsive crime Featuring readings by award-winning, best-selling authors: Stuart MacBride: author of Birthdays for the Dead and the Logan McRae books, including his latest novel, Close to the Bone Adam Nevill: author of Apartment 16, The Ritual, and Last Days Steve Mosby: author of Still Bleeding, Black Flowers, and Dark Room Followed by a panel discussion and Q&A 6-7.30pm Friday 22nd February 2013 at Waterstones Liverpool One There will be a signing session after the event and the chance to meet the authors Tickets are FREE, but must be booked at twistedtalesevents@gmail.com The Facebook event page is here: http://www.facebook.com/events/395896613824236/?ref=ts&fref=ts Part of my doctoral research involves analyzing fictional representations of serial killers, so it will be exciting to bring this into the panel discussion after readings from three of the top authors writing on this subject in the UK. I hope some of you can join us for what promises to be a fascinating event. Best wishes, David | ||
| David_m (David_m) Username: David_m Registered: 07-2011 Posted From: 2.29.79.196 |
In the lead up to the event, I interviewed top scholar of serial killers in popular culture, David Schmid, for the Twisted Tales blog: http://twistedtalesevents.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/david-schmid-interviewed-by-dav id.html | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.26.195 |
Interesting interview, David! For what it's worth in terms of relevance, all my serial killers have been inadequate individuals whose crimes are at least partly a bid to project their exaggerated view of themselves onto the world, or to gain more control over that world. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.25.8.31 |
Being a civilised being is about compromise, fitting in, getting ourselves an accurate size on our mental maps of the world. The appeal of the serial killer is, I've always thought, the appeal of no longer having to constantly endure this demanding process, this exhausting wakeful sequence of self-monitoring and tongue-biting. It's basically saying "fuck you" to the necessarily constricting world ("necessarily" because how else can society function? With innumerable free-wheeling individuals? No way!). In short, serial killers are egocentric children having protractedly pernicious tantrums. And that, I believe, appeals to a perpetually uncivilised aspect of all our selves, a part that never learned to accept that the world has to say "no". Has to. The serial killer may be the price we pay for social organisation and for failing to nurture all in ways that makes them content to be organised. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.25.8.31 |
Here's a dark aphorism of my own devising: "Rules exist to provide dutiful men with a respectable excuse for their daily cowardice." I was watching WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN last night and was struck by the boy's mockery of and predictions about his mother's social behaviour. He seemed to loathe convention. The rules. The cowardice, as he presumably perceived it. But that's all twisted up by manipulative, self-aggrandising hatred, by nobody standing up to him and saying NO. Worthy rule-breakers do it for the greater good; they react to genuine, ignoble, even macro restrictions (rather than negligible 'local' ones), and do not feather their own pathetic egos. | ||
| David_m (David_m) Username: David_m Registered: 07-2011 Posted From: 2.29.79.196 |
I'm glad you found the interview interesting, Ramsey. Gary, in relation to the notion that the serial killer rejects the rules by which society organizes itself (a reference to Hobbes's Leviathan?), one point that is raised by Mark Seltzer in relation to the extreme individualism of serial killers in American culture: '[W]hat sort of violence is incipient in the very notion of "the common individual" in a culture that mandates at the same time that one must "Be Your Self" and "Obey Your Thirst"? And how does the very banality of this way of thinking about "self" and "society" make the experience of one's everyday openness to collective forces and mass identifications traumatic and insupportable: turn the mandate of "each for each" into the war of "all against all"?' Mark Seltzer, Serial Killers: Death and Life in America's Wound Culture (1998) In other words, are serial killers the symptom of a wider cultural problem with regards to caring for those around us? Another issue that is rarely addressed properly is that many serial killers suffer from psychotic delusions, which makes it very hard for those who do not suffer the same mental afflictions to understand their actions. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.25.8.31 |
>>>Being a civilised being is about compromise, fitting in, getting ourselves an accurate size on our mental maps of the world. >>>the experience of one's everyday openness to collective forces and mass identifications traumatic and insupportable Yes, I believe that succumbing to mass identifications is traumatic because, to a significant degree, it means death of the ego, something such people find anathema to what Ramsey describes above as "their exaggerated view of themselves". Doesn't the resistance to and contempt for ordinary people (eg, those who get along at school) arise from a perception of their weakness and inauthenticity? And could this be (deeply repressed) envy of such others' ability to form emotional connections, masquerading as a positive identity - punisher, truthsayer, wolf-not-sheep? | ||
| David_m (David_m) Username: David_m Registered: 07-2011 Posted From: 2.26.144.142 |
A quick update: we have 78 tickets booked for this so far, making it our biggest event yet. To celebrate, we've teamed up with Pan Macmillan to give away ten copies of Adam's superb novel Last Days: http://twistedtalesevents.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/competition-win-one-of-ten-copi es-of.html | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 213.106.77.123 |
Looking forward to this one, David- will see you there! | ||
| David_m (David_m) Username: David_m Registered: 07-2011 Posted From: 2.26.136.153 |
Me too, Simon- I'm really looking forward to it. We're up to 82 tickets and are pushing for 90 on the night. I uploaded my interview with Stuart MacBride earlier this morning: http://twistedtalesevents.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/stuart-macbride-interviewed-by- david.html Now I really want to read Flesh House! |