Posted on 11/10/2017 7:23:03 PM PST by simpson96
Literary fiction, the two most depressing words in the English language, leaves very little space for horror. It’s a claustrophobic, dusty attic in a mansion peopled by “serious” writers.
Sure, the holy trinity of Poe, Stoker and Lovecraft is held in high regard, but with the passage of time horror writing stopped being taken seriously. By horror I don’t mean just ghosts and witches, but all that frightens us–loss, deprivation, loneliness, mental instability, self-loathing and personal dissatisfaction.
That’s where the writing of Shirley Jackson makes a powerful case for the kind of horror that doesn’t depend on jump scares. Her last novel before an untimely death, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, plumbs the human psyche to prove that the inner workings of a character’s mind can sometimes be scarier than any ghost you’ve read about.
Widely read in America, Jackson is not as popular in other parts of the world. This could be put down to the fact that she juggled her roles as a mother of four and as a writer with some unease. She hardly gave any interviews, refused to elaborate on the meaning of her fiction, and wanted her work to speak for itself.
Another reason she may have been ignored by the literary canon is that she was instantly pegged as a horror writer. Genres exist to benefit two kinds of people–librarians and booksellers. This genre-lizing further alienated Jackson’s work and she came to be known as a writer who creeped you out and nothing more. As an Associated Press reporter put it, “She writes not with a pen but with a broomstick.” Another critic nicknamed her “Virginia Werewoolf.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Castle reveals the horrifying murder of a family that sits heavy on the survivors and perpetrator.
(Excerpt) Read more at scroll.in ...
Yeah, right “horror”. I used to buy, back in the late 70s early 80s, Horror anthologies to read when I didn’t particularly care to think. Was in a book store last year when I came across one of the same collections of all new stories, 28th edition. Wow 28 years. I thought I recalled buying year 1. Let me grab one for the bedside table. ALL of the stories in the new book were SJW PC bullshit. The haunts were abused wives, slaves, discarded poor people. Every story was basically a Chinese Gov’t Evil Landlord story. So much for “Horror”...
The left sure ruins everything it touches, doesn’t it?
I read The Lottery in high school and remembered feeling it was hokey. I was annoyed that my class had to discuss it as serious literature. We also read more serious stories like The Fall of the House of Usher and the poem The Raven, which at least qualify as high literature. As for Poe, I have great esteem for The Black Cat, another of his tales which is now being widely read in high schools.
I was talking about the re-make...I’m off looking for the 1963 version right now!
Poe was something else, too. I don’t like dark, scary stories. Part of it might have to do with my Grave’s Disease-I’m tense and anxious most of he time so it doesn’t take much to ratchet it up.
I have also never like stories in which there is no one able to stop the evil or at least bring justice; worse if the PTB are complicit (The Lottery). The Cask of Amontillado freaked me out.
When I was a kid I read The Haunting of Hill House. Scared the crap out of me. Like most written stories, they’re scarier than the movies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.