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Why Read The Classics?

Well, for one thing, they’re available. The Brevard County Library System in Florida pulled the erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey from its shelves this week after determining that it didn’t meet the library system’s selection criteria. Library services director Cathy Schweinsberg said,

“Nobody asked us to take it off the shelves. But we bought some copies before we realized what it was. We looked at it, because it’s been called ‘mommy porn’ and ‘soft porn.’ We don’t collect porn.”

What I find most interesting about this is that the intrepid reporter covering the story (click here to see it) did a little browsing in the library catalog, and found a variety of well-known erotic titles, including The Complete Kama Sutra, Fanny Hill, Lolita, Tropic of Cancer, Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and Fear of Flying (if she ever leaves journalism, she could have a bright future as a readers advisory librarian). When the library director was asked why these titles, with content of a similar nature, were on the shelves, she said:

“I think because those other books were written years ago and became classics because of the quality of the writing… This is not a classic.”

(I wonder if they own Twilight?)

So if I want to check out erotica from the Brevard County Libraries, it has to be well-aged, and well-written. (I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t live in Brevard County). But this whole incident raises an interesting point. There are many who look down on the horror genre- on post 1974 horror in particular (to use Becky Siegel Spratford’s demarcation) and who wouldn’t dream of having those nasty covers, those possibly badly written books, anywhere nearby, because they’re not old enough and haven’t been canonized yet. And a lot of books ARE badly written and never will become classics. But people want them. They want that feeling. It’s not fair to dismiss the desires of your readers and users, whether those desires involve erotic Twilight fanfiction or ravening zombies.

If you happen to have a library that doesn’t have the horror fiction you are looking for, it doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. They are in disguise, lurking in the depths of the library- Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson… Jekyll and Hyde, Dorian Gray, Dracula, Victor Frankenstein. If you can’t find the latest, try out the early greats. And then harass your librarian to get you the new stuff while you read… the classics.

Posted on May 5, 2012 by , Reply

The Best and Worst of Stephen King

I think we can all agree that Stephen King is such a part of American pop culture that it’s hard to have gotten through the past forty years without experiencing at least one of his stories in book, graphic novel, television, or movie form. Even people who don’t read horror may have read Stephen King- my sister, for instance, who has complete disdain for genre fiction, loved The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It’s actually one of the few books that she and my dad, who has much different reading tastes, will both discuss enthusiastically with each other.

King is a huge draw for reluctant readers. One King-obsessed guy I knew in college had never read anything until he discovered and devoured King. The Stand is the ONLY book I know of that my best friend has read cover to cover twice (she also brought the audiobook of Nightmares and Dreamscapes with her on an endless car trip we took together one summer to the Pennsic War. King in audio is pretty awesome).

Still, I am really pretty darn impressed that someone took the time to read everything he’s ever written and rank the books in order (click here to see the rankings). I know there are people who have read all of his stuff, but I certainly can’t claim to have done so. The rankings, as rankings always are, are pretty subjective and open to debate, but my gosh! It takes perserverance to get through some of those books (ahem, IT), and for the very reason that many non-readers of horror have found a King book they like, it’s hard, I think, to find someone who will find that all of his books will be personally appealing. I think that actually makes it hard for librarians to know which of his books to recommend. If someone comes in looking for another King book, is it because they loved Lisey’s Story, or because they were scared out of their wits by The Shining? I’d love to know if Becky Siegel Spratford, the RA queen of horror, has a list of read-alikes for them, since so many of them are so different in nature.

I will admit that I haven’t read a lot of the books that made the top ten. Some I had no desire to read, others I had no access to (a lot of the King I read was stolen from my dad’s bedside table). And my favorites, with the exception of Misery, didn’t make the top ten on this particular list. Carrie is right there at the top for me. When I read it in high school (which is the best time to read it) I literally jumped out of my seat when the bell at the end of study hall rang.

So, King. What are your top picks? Do you agree with the author of the rankings list?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by , Reply

Defining Horror Fiction: You Can Do Anything You Can Sing

I just wrote about Booklist taking the opportunity to spotlight horror fiction this month. As part of their spotlight they also had a piece by Joyce Saricks, author of the Readers Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction, called “Reconsidering the Horror Genre“. I have heard so many negative and dismissive comments about the horror genre from librarians of my acquaintance that it was a fun surprise to find a librarian writing about horror who actually likes it and thinks about it. The only other prominent librarian I can think of who does so is Becky Siegel Spratford (note: we also have fantastic librarian reviewers).

I tend to agree with Saricks that straight horror fiction has really suffered with all the genre blending that goes on today- it’s why we find ourselves here at MonsterLibrarian.com reviewing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, thrillers, dark fantasy, science fiction… As I’ve written in the past, mainstream publishers (and the Wall Street Journal) will go to some lengths to avoid slapping the genre label of “horror” on a book (Mulholland Press, a new imprint from Little, Brown, seems to be an exception).

But I’m not sure that I agree with Saricks’ definition of horror fiction. She writes that what makes a book true horror is that “the nature of the menace cannot be explained rationally”. As soon as an explanation of what’s going on comes into play, she says, the book doesn’t qualify as horror anymore. A lot of zombie books posit a virus or scientific reason for the zombie plague- does that mean they’re not horror? I think there are a lot of authors out there who identify themselves as horror writers who would disagree.

Saricks writes that “the key to horror is the pleasure we take in experiencing fear generated by the unknown”. If a novel is predictable, does that mean it’s not horror? Because there is a lot of predictability in genre fiction of any kind, and if you’ve read enough of it, it’s not hard to tell what comes next. It’s actually been pointed out to me recently that sometimes it’s the “train wreck” nature of the plot that is the most horrifying- you see what’s coming, but there’s no way to stop it.

She continues by saying that horror fiction is defined in part by a foreboding atmosphere, that it deliberately keeps readers guessing, lost in the dark. I agree that atmosphere and setting can be important in horror fiction, and sometimes what you can’t see, what’s in the fog, makes for a truly terrifying tale (in fact, it’s a tradition of the Monster Librarian to watch the movie The Fog every Halloween), but the setting doesn’t have to be misty and dark. It can be a shopping mall, someplace bright and cheery with lots of unsuspecting innocents, or a girly slumber party. In fact, places and events that seem normal and even happy can make for some serious scares once evil is on the loose.

She wraps it up by saying that horror fiction should leave endings unresolved. I have to disagree with this as well. Some horror (and some fiction, generally) needs an unresolved ending, but sometimes it’s better to wrap it up, and sometimes the real horror of the story, the part that sticks with you, has nothing at all to do with the ending (that’s the case for me with Alexandra Sokoloff’s The Price I’ve been permanently spooked by that book).

This will seem like a digression, but I promise it’s related. When I took a class on Opera and Musical Comedy in college, the absurd and disturbing characters, events, and relationships that take place in opera made me shake my head in disbelief. My professor put it in perspective for me. He said, “In opera, you can do anything you can sing”. It’s the music, the raw emotion, the drama, the humanity and inhumanity that make opera a transcendent art form that has to be experienced live. Whether you understand the words is unimportant- the story carries you on the sheer power of life lived larger-than-life (trust me, The Tragedy of Carmen is just as powerful when the supertitles fail, ahem, Indianapolis Opera).

And this is also the truth of horror fiction. In horror fiction, a writer can do anything he or she can imagine, but it has to bring to the forefront that raw emotion, and bring the human experience of fear and dread and love and conflict alive.

Do you agree with Saricks? Do you agree with me, or think I’m nuts? Could be both, I guess. Have I convinced you to support your local opera company?

What do you think are the defining characteristics of horror fiction?

Posted on August 25, 2011 by , Reply
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