Home » Posts tagged "horror genre" (Page 12)

Musings: The Same Old Arguments About H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft was a racist.

It’s not an argument we are going to have here. He was a racist, and it’s clear as it can be from his writing that he was racist, misogynistic, and anti-Semitic.

I often hear apologists say “He wasn’t any worse than anyone else at the time.”  That’s a terrible argument. Other people being racists at the same time doesn’t excuse Lovecraft– it just shows that an appalling number of people were racist.

I’ve actually seen someone compare him to Abraham Lincoln (I’m totally willing to say that Lincoln was not an angel, and he certainly held racist beliefs. But that’s one of the most bizarre comparisons I’ve ever come across). Lincoln’s racism isn’t an excuse for anyone else’s racist beliefs, either.

Also, can we please get past the idea that people who object to Lovecraft’s racism are destroying literature? Or that any literature belongs to any one person?  Lovecraftian fiction is more popular than it’s ever been, and his racism isn’t stopping a lot of people from reading and enjoying it, or even writing it.  And authors and publishers who address the problematic nature of Lovecraft’s work are producing some amazing work. Victor Lavalle’s The Ballad of Black Tom, a response to The Horror at Red Hook, received rave reviews.  Silvia Moreno-Garcia at Innsmouth Free Press, published and co-edited She Walks in Shadows, an award-winning anthology of Lovecraftian fiction.

I’m not a fan of Lovecraft at all, but I don’t think Lovecraft’s work should be banned, or shoved under the table. Just because he wrote about shadowy creatures doesn’t mean he and his work should be hidden. He existed, and regardless of what you, or I, or anyone else, think of him,  he made tremendous contributions to horror literature, and his mythos, at least, has solidly embedded itself in mainstream culture.  As individuals, we can each decide whether his problematic attitudes toward race, women, and Jews are enough to keep us from reading his work or even loving it. But they shouldn’t be forced on anyone.

But this back-and-forth on “is Lovecraft a racist” is taking the focus away from some really brilliant writers who have already recognized that he is problematic, and are facing that head-on. Let’s see how far-reaching the diversity and creativity of today’s writers of Lovecraftian fiction can take us as we acknowledge his racist past.

 

 

Posted on September 3, 2017 by , Reply

Book Review: Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow

Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror edited by Ellen Datlow
Tachyon Publications, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-1616962326
Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Nightmares is a collection of stories chosen by Ellen Datlow as the best stories of 2005-2015. It is a companion volume to Darkness, a previously published anthology of stories chosen by her as the best stories written between 1985 and 2005. Not being as widely read in contemporary short horror fiction as Datlow is, I can’t say whether I agree with her choices or not, but I can say that the stories she chose do live up to the book’s title: in one way or another, they are all nightmares.

Datlow chose stories that take a variety of approaches to instilling horror, from the understated to over-the-top: you’ll find weird fiction, cosmic horror, twisted fairy tales, disturbing family secrets, ghosts and hauntings, Gothic horrors, body horror, incestuous relationships, and more than enough blood and gore. As a reader who prefers creepy and atmospheric writing to graphic descriptions, I found this book to be emotionally, mentally, and even physically exhausting. I received it as an ebook from NetGalley and am not sure how long it actually was, but it required several days for me to read it through. However, as a sampler of well-done short fiction in the horror genre, I think it is successful. Certainly, I have found that several stories have stuck with me even though a few weeks have passed since I finished it.

Standout stories include “Shallaballah” by Mark Samuels, a surreal tale that takes a disoriented plastic surgery patient through a disturbing Punch-and-Judy inspired hospital experience; “Dead Sea Fruit” by Kaaron Warren, about a dentist with a taste for revenge who destroys a man whose kiss drives girls to starve themselves to death; “Closet Dreams” by Lisa Tuttle, the story of a girl who was trapped in a closet by her kidnapper;  “The Goosle” by Margo Lanagan, a horrific take on the Hansel and Gretel story requiring the reader to have an iron stomach; “The Shallows” by John Langan, a tale of a gardener trying to keep going after his wife has died, his son has left, and tentacled aliens have begun their invasion; and “Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No. 8)” by Caitlin Kiernan, a bloody tale of a road trip of serial murders by vicious, incestuous, necrophiliac sisters that you won’t soon forget.

For those horror readers who enjoy variety in their short fiction,  Nightmares is an excellent way to discover authors they may not have tried out before. With her choices for this collection of short fiction from the past decade, despite her disclaimer, Ellen Datlow continues to show not just her enthusiasm as a fan of the horror genre, but her excellence as an anthologist. Recommended.

Contains: graphic gore and torture, cannibalism, incest, necrophilia, violent murders, disturbing sexual situations, body horror, rape


Posted on October 31, 2016 by , 2 comments

Book Review: The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley


The Loney, by Andrew Michael Hurley

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016

ISBN: 9780544746527

Available: Kindle ebook, print, Audible audiobook

The Loney, set in 1976, is told in a series of recollections for a majority of the book by our narrator, Smith. It centers on what was supposed to be a pleasant trip to a small community, followed by a pilgrimage to a shrine in northern England. Father Wilfred, the priest of the local church, has passed away suddenly, and the bishop has selected Father Bernard as his replacement. Father Wilfred often took a small number of his parishioners, including the Smith family, to the shrine, during Easter. Father Bernard proposes a trip for his first Easter at his new post, much to the chagrin of the young Miss Bunce, who suggests a new locale; but the parishoners venture to the traditional place. This is a key theme throughout the novel: the “new” wanting to, according to traditionalists, encroach on the “old”, especially when it comes to religious practices and belief.

This trip with Father Bernard is meant to be special: a time for the new priest to engage with some of his new flock, for the parishoners and other guests to visit the shrine, and for God to heal Hanny, the narrator’s disabled brother. Hanny only communicates through objects, and only Smith knows how to translate his language of things. When the boys aren’t in prayer or at meals with the group, they wander out to the coastline known simply as the Loney.

Much of the story juxtaposes the old guard with the new, especially when it comes to the endless comparisons between Father Wilfred and Father Bernard by the matriarch of the Smith family. She is so used to how things had been done for years that she can’t seem to accept that things inevitably change. She is constantly telling Bernard exactly what the previous priest did, and when, and she expects tradition to be obeyed. She’s highly unlikable, from my perspective. While it can be argued that she is just doing what she thinks she needs to protect her fellow parishioners, that she knows how things need to be handled, her self-satisfied smirks make her an unsympathetic character. She “knows” that God will heal her son, even though it hasn’t happened in years previous. She “knows” the exact time when the priest is to lead the visitors in prayer, and where he is to stand. She just knows how everything is meant to be. When the religious pilgrimage happens, and they find the shrine uncared for, she can’t believe that the caretaker would have left it in such a state. When someone mentions that there may not be a caretaker, as shrines aren’t used as much anymore, she is in complete denial. How she treats Hanny, her own son, in this scene, is particularly heartbreaking.

There are times when the narrator discusses his time under Father Wilfred’s guidance as an altar boy, and his perception regarding his mother’s want for him to enter into the clergy when he graduates. One striking feature of Father Wilfred’s personality is his strictness. Given what happens to him during his last trip to the shrine, it makes me wonder about his religiosity from the very beginning. This is also a story of a priest in his seventies who loses his religion, and it terrifies him. With that realization, he tries to save a dead man from being pulled under the waves, finding there is nothing, just nothing. I can’t help but wonder of his strictness was more for himself than his congregation. Was he doubting, and not admitting it to himself, long before that time?

The last quarter of the book switches from the events at the shrine 40 years ago, to the present day. Smith, who abandoned his religion years ago after reading Father Wilfred’s diary, is now seeing a psychiatrist and working as a museum archivist. Hanny can now speak: he has a wife, children, and a career as a priest. Then a child’s remains are discovered during a winter storm on the Loney, and Hanny goes to Smith to try to piece his memories of the past back together.

The Loney is not fast-paced and plot-driven, but is more of an atmospheric, literary horror, although suspense is threaded very well throughout the story. The wet English coastline and small community create the perfect setting for a Gothic novel. The suspicious small town inhabitants and their behavior toward the visitors lends the story the perfect amount of tension. Things meant to frighten people away from certain areas are found in the wetlands, such the silhouette of what looks like a hanging man in the dark of the wetland forest, but turns out to be something else entirely. Horror also lies in relationships between some of the characters. It can also lie in the Catholic symbolism and the relation to various happenings in the novel.

I found this to be a very well written-work. The story was incredibly engaging, and lingers with me. Perhaps that, too, is where some of the horror lies. It haunts you for some time after you finish it.

Hurley won the Costa First Novel Award for The Loney in 2015.

Recommended.

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker


Posted on October 27, 2016 by , Reply
First « 1011121314 » Last