Dot in the Sky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dotinthesky) wrote2004-06-27 03:16 pm
dotinthesky) wrote2004-06-27 03:16 pm
Sunday, so sad to see you leave me
Agatha Christie wrote mystery novels with paper-thin characters. My journal is a mystery too, written by a paper-thin character. All diaries are mysterious, but none as much as mine – it’s a mystery to whom and why I write here. A brazilian phantom roams the land of badly put together sentences, rejecting and collecting friends who shall never meet in the flesh. In this land of diaries and words, a land like a giant garden, trees grow amongst the weeds. I’m in Queen’s Park, sitting underneath similar trees (I wish I knew what type they were – the world is full of names we have never been told or taught.) I’m in the shades. Kevin is in front of me, about 20 paces, sitting in the sun. He wears a bright blue zip-up jacket and sunglasses. He’s reading a book on Bosch, the 15th century master of the grotesque. It’s very typical of Kevin to be reading something like that.
I was sitting on the shaded side of the bench. I have now moved to where the sun is shining. The shadows of leaves play against my legs. I can hear the leaves above my head rustling, the occasional car driving by, children talking and the excited voices of a group of teenagers playing football on the other side of the park.
I wonder about the solitary people walking through the park. Where are they going? Why are they alone?
A woman sits down on my bench. She has shoulder-length brown hair and she looks to be in her early 40s. She wears a black cardigan, glasses and an aqua-marine skirt. She is eating two ice-creams at the same time while flipping through a newspaper.
The sun comes and goes, thanks to a myriad of clouds drifting in the sky from the west to the east. I have a novel resting against my left leg: The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll. I found it in the library’s horror section. Kevin and I searched for horror novels a few weekends ago. We went to second hand stores in Notting Hill, and the main stores downtown. Some stores don’t carry horror novels anymore. They are now called “chillers”, and they aren’t really horror but stories about serial killers. Crime and murder are popular if committed by human beings. Nobody cares anymore about werewolves, vampires and zombies. The ghouls have been pushed into the kiddie section and given a beating by Harry Potter and his bully friends.
We found some classic horror novels in the second hand stores. They had grim covers and promised tales of gore and disaster. They were worth their 20 pence just for the covers alone. They were mostly written in the 70s and early 80s. Stories about the american president trapped inside a nuclear bunk – the only survivor of a world holocaust. Or I Am Legend, the story of the last human being in a world of vampires. If I wrote a horror novel, who would read it? Would I have to aim it at a “chiller” crowd?
My little creative bubble has burst.
I was sitting on the shaded side of the bench. I have now moved to where the sun is shining. The shadows of leaves play against my legs. I can hear the leaves above my head rustling, the occasional car driving by, children talking and the excited voices of a group of teenagers playing football on the other side of the park.
I wonder about the solitary people walking through the park. Where are they going? Why are they alone?
A woman sits down on my bench. She has shoulder-length brown hair and she looks to be in her early 40s. She wears a black cardigan, glasses and an aqua-marine skirt. She is eating two ice-creams at the same time while flipping through a newspaper.
The sun comes and goes, thanks to a myriad of clouds drifting in the sky from the west to the east. I have a novel resting against my left leg: The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll. I found it in the library’s horror section. Kevin and I searched for horror novels a few weekends ago. We went to second hand stores in Notting Hill, and the main stores downtown. Some stores don’t carry horror novels anymore. They are now called “chillers”, and they aren’t really horror but stories about serial killers. Crime and murder are popular if committed by human beings. Nobody cares anymore about werewolves, vampires and zombies. The ghouls have been pushed into the kiddie section and given a beating by Harry Potter and his bully friends.
We found some classic horror novels in the second hand stores. They had grim covers and promised tales of gore and disaster. They were worth their 20 pence just for the covers alone. They were mostly written in the 70s and early 80s. Stories about the american president trapped inside a nuclear bunk – the only survivor of a world holocaust. Or I Am Legend, the story of the last human being in a world of vampires. If I wrote a horror novel, who would read it? Would I have to aim it at a “chiller” crowd?
My little creative bubble has burst.
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Straub's one of my favourite authors. I think his only flaw is that he took influence from Stephen King (an infinitely lesser author)...
Some of his later stuff is worthwhile too (did you ever read "Koko" (slightly overlong (again the King influence) but very powerful) or "Houses Without Doors" (one worth reading twice to fully take in)?) but I think he exploded the wealth of his potential into "Ghost Story" and everything afterwards has just been trying to grasp that peak again.
Richard Laymon was totally the same as Koontz and King - same formula, different setting every time. Rice has always been pretty uninteresting for me. Poppy Z Brite is/was a great writer, but never got beyond being formulaic ("Lost Souls" is great, but everything hence that I've read has been only a slight variation on it).
I take it you've read Lovecraft?
Have you read any of Joe R Lansdale's "horror" stuff, like "The Drive-In"? Very lighthearted, but it springs to mind as good...
Michael Marshall Smith, although not technically "horror" has done something deeply chilling, supernaturally-tinged stuff - I'd highly recommend his book of short stories, "What You Make It", if you've not already read it... the first story alone kept me awake all night after I read it - very disturbing/grotesque stuff.
I used to read a ton of genre stuff when I was younger (Ramsey Campbell, John Farris, Guy N Smith, Shaun Hutson et al) but I've read some of their stuff more recently and found it's really puerile and not at all satisfying as an adult... :/
I have to admit I enjoy a bit of Dennis Wheatley, although it's a guilty pleasure... "The Haunting of Toby Jugg" (if you excuse how badly it's dated) is *VERY* creepy indeed and beautifully written.
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