The Story I Always Wanted Ramsey Campbell to Write

The sky was stained like a suicide's wrist. Purplish clouds seemed to throb in his vision like pulsing arteries impatient for the suicide's blade.
His Grandmother answered the door.
"I've come to help you move, Grandmother," Martin said.
"Help us move? You've come to bury us is more like it! Say what you mean, no matter how cruel. You will anyway, I suppose.
Don't think just because we're old our minds aren't right..."
Martin felt rebuffed. Surely they couldn't believe that...
Was it a balloon floating out of the darkness behind his grandmother? Surely not a face.
"Uncle George has come to help us move," she sneered. "We don't need you."
"That's right," said George, "We know how you young people are..." His ghastly balloon face scowled in disapproval.
And from the pocket of his heavy coat, Martin slowly drew the Glock.
" I've had it with your crap," he managed to snarl.
There was no need to reload. Surely, now, he would never again feel so cruelly rebuffed...

Forgive me! I missed this. If I'd read it at the time I would have saved the world more than a year's worth of my uninspired predictable rubbish. Well, at least my own view of my leavings is succinctly confirmed, and thank God I shall soon be no more than the memory of dust.

Montag, I've only read a few of the condensed parodies Ligotti wrote a while back (recently republished but beyond my purse), but I think he left living writers alone. This exchange reflects the dangers of mockery, which I think can strike a raw nerve with a lot of people.

Due to some childhood experiences I react very badly to mockery – I'm pretty easy-going about being criticised, however harshly, but if anyone starts mocking my voice (which is a bit on the high side) or my hand gestures (which are a bit on the camp side) I will hurt them, no matter how much trouble I get into for it, and much the same applies online.

Ramsey, I can only say you've done some sterling work in the last few years, including a tremendous recent story in Black Static – so no reason to worry about losing form.

So it's mockery if you don't like it, parody if you do, affectionate parody if you really REALLY like it, living writers should be left alone but Saturday Night Live is free to indulge with celebrities, often with the good-natured input of those being ribbed. Spoof, parody, satire, call it what you chose but it’s an accepted literary form, a democratic one and not necessarily mean-spirited. Politicians, actors, musicians (ask Bob Dylan) live with it. There was no 'mockery' intended in Montag's 'story'--at least I certainly don't see it.

I think Ramsey may have misinterpreted this spoof or is just having fun by adopting intentionally the same querulous tongue as the characters in the story. After all, Mr. Campbell did bring it out of the darkness into the light.
...…It ain’t disguised literary criticism. As Montag said in a message to Mr. Campbell: Campbell "does a certain kind of exasperating and senile character sooo well that you just want to shake some sense or civility into them...or maybe smoke them with a heavy revolver." Montag is a Campbell fan. I know that, ah, gentleman; He dedicated "The Ripper on Broadway" to me!
Montag hasn't posted in years. If he wants to defend himself, fine; but I think the whole thing is strange...and I lack any desire for trading arguments over an obscure post that few ever read to begin with...
Joel, no offense, but there is a thing as being too sensitive. No one is mocking any individual's physical appearance. Neither Montag nor William Harris are beings of Celestrial Beauty (although I do look pretty darn good if photographed in the right light). And are book reviewers always that gentle? The good ones? That would strike me as surprising. But, again, Montag's story isn't even an attempt at that...

I agree with Druidic's points. I would hate to think that Max Beerbohm might have refrained from writing "The Mote in the Middle Distance" (an extravagant, precise, breathtaking parody of Henry James) because James was still living at the time. And apparently James was floored by the parody; he professed admiration but couldn't sleep for a week. Reading Beerbohm's "Mote" didn't diminish my admiration for James's writings. Druidic mentions Bob Dylan. I'm one of those people whose Dylan fanaticism is beyond ridiculous, but Neil Innes' "Protest Song" still amuses me decades after I first heard it. Art that's any good will survive caricature, even though the artist may not appreciate it. I think it's one of those things, like bad reviews, that "come with the territory" for anyone who is putting his or her work out in public. Anyway, it isn't clear to me that Montag's parody was really meant to be all that destructive; he may have just meant it as a little bit of fun. It isn't clear to me, either, that Ramsey Campbell's ironic response indicated he was really hurt by it (but I won't try to speak for Mr. Campbell).

Forgive me, all. I wasn't being ironic but wasn't hurt either. The piece simply confirmed what I've come to conclude about my stuff, and nobody should be blamed for that (except me for writing what I write).

If I might interject, Mr. Campbell, what is one display here is simply the flip side of a writer possessing a singularly unique voice; writers with a original style of writing leave themselves open to having their 'trademark' appropriated by others because of that quality. And so parody becomes a mark of distinction, and indeed, admission to good company: Poe, M.R. James and Lovecraft are there, not mention the likes of Joyce, Stein, Chandler and Hammett, Tolkien, etc. It is the price one pays for transcending mediocrity.
(However, that said, while reading your work, when the protagonist is menaced by some self-righteous bully or moral scold, I would often wish I was able to slap some sense into the sobs - and by bringing to life such hateful characters so vividly is again a point for, not against!)
-Anyway, that's simply the two cents of a lifelong reader, a fan, and someone who was occasionally accused of being you after responding to rants on a certain website devoted to 'watching horror'. I look forward to seeing Ghosts Know available in the states, not to mention reading much more of your work in the years to come.

Glad this discussion is continuing amicably.

I only referred to my own bad reaction to mockery of my voice to illustrate the general point that parody can be more hurtful than the writer realises or intends. Adorno wrote about the use of 'hostile mimicry' as a prelude to violence in political contexts, and while that may rarely be the case in literary terms there's no doubt that parody is sometimes intended to wound – though, of course, it can rebound on the parodist: Paul Simon's parody of Bob Dylan was so cheap and infantile that it did Simon more harm than Dylan. Neil Innes is a good parodist and I expect his Dylan parody is a lot funnier than that.

Ramsey, doubting your own approach and therefore trying new angles can be very healthy for writers, but it sounds like you may be at risk of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I suspect that Leiber became very self-critical in his later years, because he seemed to avoid a lot of what had worked for him in both the early and mid-period work (and because he appeared to condemn himself personally in one late story), but the result was some astonishing and radically different tales (such as 'The Button Molder'). If self-criticism keeps you on your toes, that's good; but if it puts you off writing, that would be a serious loss.

There's absolutely nothing I disagree with in Joel's post. Good advice. I just want to add ChildofOldLeech has it right. You can't parody a bad writer. That's not even remotely possible.

Chatting about Dylan parodies . . . Paul Simon's "A Simple Desultory Philippic" is something he obviously put some time and effort (and even talent) into, but it's just silly and embarrassing. Neil Innes' "Protest Song" is just as light but better-crafted, funnier, and actually worth listening to. I doubt if Dylan was bothered by either of them. I read somewhere that the song that got under Dylan's skin was the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" (a parody of Dylan's "4th Time Around"). "Norwegian Wood" is actually the better song, I think, and maybe that was part of what irked Dylan. Another Beatles' song that parodies Dylan is "Rocky Raccoon," but that one is just stupid, in my opinion -- both musically and lyrically clueless as an attempted parody.

Dylan was annoyed by 'Norwegian Wood' because, according to him, Lennon wrote it after he had played the Beatles the unrecorded '4th Time Around' and it was a straightforward steal of the tune. It's often claimed to be a parody of the Beatles song, so I think the latter came out first. I hate to say it, but the Lennon song is better.

BELIEVE IN YRSELF!!!

I had a vague memory that Lennon himself had said "Norwegian Wood" was a parody of "4th Time Around." Searching for confirmation, I found that you're right, it was the other way around: Lennon thought that "4th Time Around" was a parody of "Norwegian Wood." Hmm . . . That definitely isn't the way I remembered it. In middle age I'm starting to distrust my memories. I probably shouldn't post about anything that isn't right in front of my face at the moment, and maybe not even then. In any case, the influences between the songs evidently ran in both directions and we agree that "Norwegian Wood" is the better song.

Gveranon, I have similar problems – my doctor says it's just stress and having too many things to remember. I think it's having too many things to forget, but let's not go there. Anyway don't worry about forgetting stuff, just make more extensive use of notebooks and memo pads!

I think there's a disconnect between Lennon's version of events and Dylan's. Whatever the truth, Dylan's recent tribute to Lennon, 'Roll On John', shows he didn't mind that much.