Allow me to preface this week’s post by saying this is the last blog entry about horror fiction I will ever pen (for a grade), assuming of course our Evil Overlord doesn’t have some nefarious trick up his sleeve. After one and a half years of reading mostly horror fiction, I will now get to read books of MY choosing! This is, no offense, a happy day indeed.
And how appropriate that I go out with a post on Batman: The Killing Joke. I think somewhere in the manual for People Who Want to Become Horror Writers, there is a rule that all of us who love dark fiction must also love the Dark Knight. To be honest, I’m not much of a comic book fan, and the only other graphic novel I’ve read was also penned by Mr. Alan Moore, From Hell. (Surprise, surprise.) Therefore, it wasn’t exactly a hard sell for me to like The Killing Joke. Aside from my reverence for Moore’s work, my love for the Batman universe knows no bounds. (See large Catwoman tattoo on upper right shoulder for more proof.)
What is it about the Batman that we as horror writers and fans find so alluring? I think it’s the combination of the dark, near noir setting, and the personalities of the Batman, his adversaries and his accomplices.
Let’s begin with the Batman. Here’s a guy you can’t help but love, even if you do think he has, well, bats in his belfry. After witnessing the tragic murder of his parents, Bruce Wayne dons a cap and a mask and seeks to avenge their deaths by becoming a one man arbiter of justice. Here is a best case scenario reaction to tragedy if I ever heard one. And yet, we like Batman not just because he collars the bad guys but because his psyche is so scarred and irretrievably twisted.
Twisted, but not as twisted as the psyches of most of the villains in the Batman universe, most notably The Joker. The depiction of the Joker in The Killing Joke is so intriguing and effective because he embodies the classic psycho, dashing and mysterious in spite of his evil deeds. Further, we can all sympathize with the Joker’s plight, and as has been posited so often in this course: Where is the line between sanity and insanity, between normality and psychosis, and how closely do any of us skirt it? I think it’s safe to assume we’ve all experienced at least “one bad day” in our lives, though most of us have managed to avoid disfigurement via vat of acid. The Joker’s reaction to the string of tragedies that unfolds in this novel is understandable. No, it is more than understandable, it is human. We are all flawed creatures with villainesque tendencies we (mostly) keep under wraps. Who among us wouldn’t welcome the freedom to be the evil that touches so many of our lives?
What is inhuman, if anything in this novel can be described as such, is Commissioner Gordon’s stoicism, his unswerving dedication to the job that is the root cause of his own difficulties. And yet, for everyone unrepressed Joker in our midst, there are a hundred Gordons, desperate men finding solace in the tedium of workaholism.
Aside from being a damned good story with a cast of sympathetic characters, The Killing Joke is beautifully rendered. Brian Bolland’s illustrations perfectly capture the dark universe that is Gotham City.
I’d close with my usual statement about the books I’ve loved, that I’ll be passing this one on to my son, but on this occasion I can’t claim that. I can’t pass it on to him, he’s already stolen it from me and is deeply engrossed.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Joyride
Buckle up, guys, because we’re able to take a wild ride on the Bipolar Express. Yes, I am out of my tree, and I’m about to confound every statement I’ve made in weeks past when I say I loved Jack Ketchum’s Joyride. While it had its share of the ole torture porn and definitely lent credence to the argument that women are subjugated in horror fiction, two of the things I’ve mentioned bother me about the genre, I thoroughly enjoyed this fast paced read. I felt the “on camera” carnage – albeit limited compared to what I understand Ketchum does in most of his books – and the degradation of women was spot on, and in this case it definitely worked for me.
What I liked most about this book wasn’t so much the story – which was no less stellar – but rather the substance and the structure. (Alliteration more or less unavoidable, sorry.) Rather than making this post a book report, I’d like to talk more about what Ketchum does that I find admirable and seek to emulate.
First off, the murder spree depicted in this novel is reminiscent of the real life spree of Howard Unruh, a veteran of the second World War who had a similar list to Wayne Lock’s: a deadly version of Santa’s “Naughty or Nice” list. As someone who writes about true crime – “real” murders to be exact – I found this novel to be a textbook exercise in What to Do When You Write About Real Serial Killers. Although this is my first experience with Ketchum’s work, a little Internet research reveals that many of his books are based on actual events and in Joyride, his mastery of this genre is apparent. Ketchum seems to have a keen understanding of a truth I hold to be self evident: The world is a sick and twisted place, and the real life atrocities man visits upon his fellow man are often way more sadistic and shocking than those found in books that are entirely fictional. Reality trumps fiction, every time.
Moving on to structure, I really liked the way the point of view switches in the novel. In a longer novel, it might not work as well, but given the brevity of this work it was a great storytelling device. I’m doing this in my own thesis novel and have been a little concerned whether it’s going to be effective, but seeing how Ketchum accomplishes this is both comforting and inspiring. Just as we’ve often been counseled to note the weaknesses in other author’s books so we don’t make the same mistakes in our own work, it’s also important to note the strengths so we can utilize similar techniques as we write.
Back to brevity, I think one of the reasons I so enjoyed Joyride was it’s a quick enough read that you stay on the edge of your seat the whole time. There’s plenty of mayhem but it’s an abbreviated enough form that I never felt Ketchum was bashing me over the head with the gory details, although there were some of those as well. I had no issue getting and remaining invested in the story, and at no point did my interest falter.
In closing, I want to address the fact that this author isn’t shy about depicting graphic violence towards women. Ordinarily that’s a “button” – that John Dixon first mentioned and Jenn Loring mentioned again in her post about this book – for me as well, but I didn’t feel this particular novel went overboard with it. What Ketchum’s own feelings are about women, and how misogynistic or not his general illustration of them is I can’t really speak to since I’ve only read Joyride. I’ll likely pick up a few more of his novels in the future to determine if this is truly a hallmark of his work.
What I liked most about this book wasn’t so much the story – which was no less stellar – but rather the substance and the structure. (Alliteration more or less unavoidable, sorry.) Rather than making this post a book report, I’d like to talk more about what Ketchum does that I find admirable and seek to emulate.
First off, the murder spree depicted in this novel is reminiscent of the real life spree of Howard Unruh, a veteran of the second World War who had a similar list to Wayne Lock’s: a deadly version of Santa’s “Naughty or Nice” list. As someone who writes about true crime – “real” murders to be exact – I found this novel to be a textbook exercise in What to Do When You Write About Real Serial Killers. Although this is my first experience with Ketchum’s work, a little Internet research reveals that many of his books are based on actual events and in Joyride, his mastery of this genre is apparent. Ketchum seems to have a keen understanding of a truth I hold to be self evident: The world is a sick and twisted place, and the real life atrocities man visits upon his fellow man are often way more sadistic and shocking than those found in books that are entirely fictional. Reality trumps fiction, every time.
Moving on to structure, I really liked the way the point of view switches in the novel. In a longer novel, it might not work as well, but given the brevity of this work it was a great storytelling device. I’m doing this in my own thesis novel and have been a little concerned whether it’s going to be effective, but seeing how Ketchum accomplishes this is both comforting and inspiring. Just as we’ve often been counseled to note the weaknesses in other author’s books so we don’t make the same mistakes in our own work, it’s also important to note the strengths so we can utilize similar techniques as we write.
Back to brevity, I think one of the reasons I so enjoyed Joyride was it’s a quick enough read that you stay on the edge of your seat the whole time. There’s plenty of mayhem but it’s an abbreviated enough form that I never felt Ketchum was bashing me over the head with the gory details, although there were some of those as well. I had no issue getting and remaining invested in the story, and at no point did my interest falter.
In closing, I want to address the fact that this author isn’t shy about depicting graphic violence towards women. Ordinarily that’s a “button” – that John Dixon first mentioned and Jenn Loring mentioned again in her post about this book – for me as well, but I didn’t feel this particular novel went overboard with it. What Ketchum’s own feelings are about women, and how misogynistic or not his general illustration of them is I can’t really speak to since I’ve only read Joyride. I’ll likely pick up a few more of his novels in the future to determine if this is truly a hallmark of his work.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Sculptor
All things happen for a reason, and I believe I screwed up/switched up the readings/viewings on the syllabus for a reason, too. No one wants to read two weeks in a row of my outright bashing yet another novel in the genre I claim to love, and I think if I’d written this post a week ago, many of you would be left wondering: “Carla, do you even like to read BOOKS, period?”
The answer, in the case of The Sculptor, is a resounding “no”, not if this what the genre has come to. In fact, I question whether I even want to continue writing in it, if this is what sells.
Start off with our killer, a cookie cutter character if ever I encountered one, and these elaborate murder scenes that are frankly torture porn. Throw in one of the silliest signatures – making his victims into representations of Michelangelo’s work – I’ve ever heard of and you end up with a book that is the psycho killer genre equivalent of The DaVinci Code. (I realize the aforementioned was a huge bestseller, and we should all be so lucky as to be Dan Brown, but it’s still not a compliment, just in case you need clarification.) Don’t even get me started on the romance and relationship between the big strong man and the puny little library mouse of a woman – whose life is, naturally, in danger – that he finds strangely alluring.
It’s almost hard for me to pinpoint exactly what I disliked most of this book. Some of my fellow classmates have mentioned in their entries that they found the dialogue clunky and the repetition of the same jarring, and I agree wholeheartedly. However, since we should presumably all be thinking about our writing style when we read others, I have to admit repetitious dialogue is a trick I frequently employ in my own work. I apologize now to my former readers, am currently editing most instances of this trick out of my own book, and promise to never ever do it again in the future. It does take you out of the story and serves no real purpose other than to bash the reader in the head with info they already had.
But let’s get away from style and get back to substance. I’ll admit this killer was extremely creepy, and these murder scenes lingered in my head long after I closed the book, and that is indicative of a successful horror novel. It did scare me. The thought of becoming the Sculptor’s prey gave me chills. But I think it was more the graphic nature of these scenes, and not the personality ascribed to the killer by the author, that I found frightening.
I’ve got a confession to make. I’m not a huge fan of the torture porn that’s so prevalent in the horror genre. Movies like Saw and books like The Sculptor bother me, and not necessarily in a thought provoking way, and I think it’s because so much of the action is “on camera”. Very little is left to the imagination, and the killers in these works don’t really seem to be serving a higher purpose. Maybe they do really have a “higher purpose” and I just don’t get it. I guess you could say I’m old school. I don’t want my vampires to sparkle, but I do like my serial killers to be romantic figures. The Sculptor was not.
This is not a book I’ll revisit, but I will say it made me think about the genre in general and my own writing, so I’m glad I had the chance to read it.
The answer, in the case of The Sculptor, is a resounding “no”, not if this what the genre has come to. In fact, I question whether I even want to continue writing in it, if this is what sells.
Start off with our killer, a cookie cutter character if ever I encountered one, and these elaborate murder scenes that are frankly torture porn. Throw in one of the silliest signatures – making his victims into representations of Michelangelo’s work – I’ve ever heard of and you end up with a book that is the psycho killer genre equivalent of The DaVinci Code. (I realize the aforementioned was a huge bestseller, and we should all be so lucky as to be Dan Brown, but it’s still not a compliment, just in case you need clarification.) Don’t even get me started on the romance and relationship between the big strong man and the puny little library mouse of a woman – whose life is, naturally, in danger – that he finds strangely alluring.
It’s almost hard for me to pinpoint exactly what I disliked most of this book. Some of my fellow classmates have mentioned in their entries that they found the dialogue clunky and the repetition of the same jarring, and I agree wholeheartedly. However, since we should presumably all be thinking about our writing style when we read others, I have to admit repetitious dialogue is a trick I frequently employ in my own work. I apologize now to my former readers, am currently editing most instances of this trick out of my own book, and promise to never ever do it again in the future. It does take you out of the story and serves no real purpose other than to bash the reader in the head with info they already had.
But let’s get away from style and get back to substance. I’ll admit this killer was extremely creepy, and these murder scenes lingered in my head long after I closed the book, and that is indicative of a successful horror novel. It did scare me. The thought of becoming the Sculptor’s prey gave me chills. But I think it was more the graphic nature of these scenes, and not the personality ascribed to the killer by the author, that I found frightening.
I’ve got a confession to make. I’m not a huge fan of the torture porn that’s so prevalent in the horror genre. Movies like Saw and books like The Sculptor bother me, and not necessarily in a thought provoking way, and I think it’s because so much of the action is “on camera”. Very little is left to the imagination, and the killers in these works don’t really seem to be serving a higher purpose. Maybe they do really have a “higher purpose” and I just don’t get it. I guess you could say I’m old school. I don’t want my vampires to sparkle, but I do like my serial killers to be romantic figures. The Sculptor was not.
This is not a book I’ll revisit, but I will say it made me think about the genre in general and my own writing, so I’m glad I had the chance to read it.
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