THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK
Page 4 of 5 123 4 5
Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page

THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK (https://www.ligotti.net/index.php)
-   General Discussion (https://www.ligotti.net/forumdisplay.php?f=202)
-   -   Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural? (https://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=2131)

Russell Nash 10-05-2008 04:40 AM
Re: Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural?
 
Is the short story "Frolic" by T. Ligotti, a horror story? If the answer is yes, which I believe it is, then a horror story does not need to contain any supernatural elements at all. Most stories by E. A. Poe are also horror stories, and not supernatural either. So let me add this question: Why are we so attracted to the supernatural, if it cannot be proved, and almost with certainty it does not exist? I could go from beginning to end in my life and affirm without lying that I never encountered any supernatural fact that could not be explained scientifically. So why are we so attracted to it? For example, the story "What was it?" by Fritz O'Brien is an excellent story about something that we know that cannot exist. However, why is it that we still read this story again and again?

Ligeia 10-05-2008 12:02 PM
Re: Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural?
 
I believe it's the fear and curiosity of the unknown that create this attraction to anything supernatural..And some hope that is more than this cruel reality we are living..

Russell Nash 10-05-2008 07:29 PM
Re: Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural?
 
Curiosity, maybe not, because one could have "scientific curiosity" which is not supernatural.
Fear, I agree with you in some degree.
I believe that our attraction to the supernatural is more a vestige from ancient magic. For instance, bones of dragons that resulted to be bones of ancient dinosaurs, real creatures of our past, and bones of unreal or supernatural creatures. Some illiterate men still believe in evil eye. Can you believe that eyes, mostly liquid substance, have evil powers? In fact, does evil exist?
It is specially transmitted through religion. I'm trying a theory with my 4 year old son. I'm not teaching him the concept of God. Let me ask, when he is 16, would he believe in the supernatural? Or, like his father, would he try to find a scientific answer?
Finally I don't think that Good or Evil exists beyond our minds. Where are they, if not? This world is as cruel as we are.
And we also are attracted to it because life is otherwise too boring, too ordinary.

Blood Meridian 10-07-2008 02:23 PM
Re: Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural?
 
My favorite novel is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. (Hence my username.) It is sold as a western, but, it is in my opinion the greatest horror novel ever written. In fact most of what he writes I would label as horror. I also believe it is a non-supernatural evil that is present and active throughout the story. However, on a metaphorical level, the chief antagonist, known as The Judge, is an archetype of many supernatural demons and demigods and sometimes interpreted as the incarnation of Lucifer himself. There are also many things regarding the Judge's actions in the book that are not explainable by empirical measures.

I do not think we can divorce evil entirely from the realm of the supernatural. Mainly because of the very nature of language. We are dealing with fuzzy terms to begin with. For instance how small in circumference does a raindrop have to be in order to be redefined as mist? That has not been determined. Yet we all "know" the difference when we walk outside on a cloudy day between rain and mist and fog.

What then can clearly be defined as natural? What then is determined to be outside or above that sphere if we can only know it by our natural minds? Is some element of our psyche supernatural? Is there a soul? I believe there is, but I cannot prove it. It would take someone independent of that "natural" sphere to enter into it and communicate to those who are integral to that nature, and reveal what the "other" consists of. This is why I presuppose, or believe by faith, in the incarnation of Christ. It creates a basis for the supernatural by defining a realms of angels, demons, departed souls, and God himself.

One could say also that all emotions, unless we can break them down into chemical compounds, are in fact abstract and supernatural. What is the chemical formula for hate, love, fear, anger, or envy?

Just my two cents.

And I would also like to add that I am glad I found a forum for other fans of Ligotti.

yellowish haze 10-08-2008 01:23 PM
Re: Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural?
 
Blood Meridian is actually the kind of novel I was thinking about when I mentioned nonsupernatural horror fiction.
McCarthy is by some considered to be a horror writer, because a couple of his novels are truly horrifying (which imho is a very good reason).

This is what Fiona Webster says about McCarthy:

Quote:
If you're a horror fan, and you're not reading Cormac McCarthy, you're missing out. Why? Because McCarthy's Blood Meridian is up there as just about the best horror novel (not book: novel) of all time, and his Child of God is also very good. Now, horror stories are a different matter. Indeed, I agree with David G. Hartwell in his introduction to The Dark Descent, that the short story is the main artistic medium for horror, and that the horror novel is, at best, an experimental and usually flawed form. But if you're willing to venture outside the genre itself, and go into mainstream/literary fiction, you'll find that Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is successful not only as profoundly disturbing horror fiction, but also as a completely realized novel.
I plan to write more in this space about Cormac McCarthy, but for right now, let me tease your interest with a sample quotation from Blood Meridian. This is from a scene of people found murdered in a church, in an arid town in northern Mexico:
There were no pews in the church and the stone floor was heaped with the scalped and naked and partly eaten bodies of some forty souls who'd barricaded themselves in this house of God against the heathen . . . The murdered lay in a great pool of their communal blood. It had set up into a sort of pudding crossed everywhere with the tracks of wolves or dogs and along the edges it had dried and cracked into a burgundy ceramic. Blood lay in dark tongues on the floor and blood grouted the flagstones and ran in the vestiblue where the stones were cupped from the feet of the faithful and their fathers before them and it had threaded its way down the steps and dripped from the stones among the dark red tracks of the scavengers.
Source: FW: Why You Should Read Cormac McCarthy

hopfrog 12-19-2008 12:20 AM
Re: Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by yellowish haze (Post 13140)
Dear Ligottians,

After some heated discussions on another forum over the definition of “horror in literature” I decided to come here to ask you, as my friends and devoted horror fiction fans, the following question:

Can a work of literature be regarded as horror even though it doesn’t contain any overt supernatural manifestations?

If yes, can we say that nonsupernatural horror forms part of the horror genre?

I am looking forward to discussing this subject.

My dear Slawek:--
This is an excellent subject for discussion. I have not yet read the other responses, but I will shortly. There are indeed categories of horror. To call a tale "supernatrual" means that its subject must defy "nature" -- and there it gets tricky. Is "The Colour out of Space" a tale of "supernatural" horror, or one of "cosmic" horror; and are the two separate entities? Although my fiction is influenc'd by Lovecraft's, I have stated that it is different in that my own work is in-your-face supernatural; whereas Lovecraft's is not. Where is the supernatural in "The Shadow over Innsmouth" or "The Call of Cthulhu"? If the premise of these tales is that the Deep Ones and ye Lord of R'lyeh are actually creatures that exist in strange reality, then these weird tales cannot be consider'd supernatural; whereas "The Dunwich Horror" can, because Yog-Sothoth is a creature conjur'd forth by dark magick. He is not an alien from outer space as we find in the cosmic tales, but rather a supernatural thing that exists outside of reality and is therefore supernatural.
Ramsey Campbell's novels are moft certainly horror; but few of them, I insist, are supernatural.
& nigh I am anxious to read whut ye others have said on this moft interesting subject.
---Wilum

yrs,
Slawek
Oy gevalt, I have put ye bulk of my comments before your name & thus they are in ye shaded area with yr own comments. Now you know why I have chosen my signature, which refers only to myself. Perhaps someday, in the dim haunted future, I shall learn how to stagger through this eldritch electric realm. --HOPFROG

hopfrog 12-19-2008 12:43 AM
Re: Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadsPLP (Post 13200)
Quote:
Originally Posted by bendk (Post 13184)
I do not believe that the supernatural is a necessary element of a horror story. As you mentioned, Psycho is a perfect example. I remember listening to Ramsey Campbell make the distinction between weird fiction and horror fiction. He cited Dunsany as someone who wrote weird fiction but not horror fiction, and Thomas Harris, at the other extreme, who writes horror fiction with no weird or supernatural elements.
Many thanks for the quotes.

In spite of me possibly sounding like I've been inspired by formalism, I would like to add that there should be made a distinction between supernatural horror fiction and supernatural fiction.

Little boxes...chop, chop, chop...
And yet most straight fantasy fiction contains elements of dark supernatural horror.

hopfrog 12-19-2008 12:48 AM
Re: Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by paeng (Post 13187)
Certainly, but it may require varying views of "horror." For example, one can find the idea that life isn't horrific horrific and thus be frightened by works like Conrad's (mentioned earlier) or even Hardy's Jude the Obscure. Sometimes, even a work that may be considered supernatural may offer the same view. For example, what one may find frightening in a work like Kafka's Metamorphosis isn't the fear of turning into an insect but the fear that it will never happen.
This is a fascinating concept. I love tales in which the narrator "embraces" the horror, i.e. ye ending of "Shadow over Innsmouth."

hopfrog 12-19-2008 01:15 AM
Re: Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ligeia (Post 13168)
And if you ask some of them they will probably tell you that "horror" isn't literature at all..

What i mean is that sometimes critics, even readers, have the tendency to separate "horror" literature from "serious" literature. For them, is sacrilegious to say that "The Trial" belongs to the horror genre where everyone is writing supernatural bull####! So that distinction is critical to them. They need it to answer the question "What are you reading now?" (Serious stuff not stories with ghosts and monsters!)

Do i make any sense???:p
Perfect sense. As readers and writers of weird fiction, we are often mocked for our interest in the genre. When H. Warner Munn (who, in his youth, used to drive Lovecraft to various New England sites in his car) once took me to a gathering of poets (Munn had just publish'd a book-length poem honoring Joan of Arc), one woman actually came up to me and asked, "Why do you write fantasy? Is it that you're trying to escape reality?" Her question contained her own answer, her own certainty that her view was the only view. Nothing I could have answered would have persuaded her from her prejudice. There occurs, in some of my stories, the image of some dead soul with their face in a pool of vomit -- and this is not some supernatural escape from reality but rather a memory of the cruel and chilly reality that has been my experience of love. So a pox on yem wankers who dismiss us as mental/emotional children.

hopfrog 12-19-2008 01:27 AM
Re: Can horror in literature be nonsupernatural?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Coleman (Post 13165)
Yellowish Haze,

I define nature as "everything".

I've been confused about the common definition of supernatural for a while. I wasn't sure whether people usually meant something like 'something beyond nature', or 'an extraordinary occurrence within nature', when speaking of the supernatural.

I consulted a few of the online dictionaries, and they seem to agree that the common definition of the supernatural is close to 'something beyond nature'. From Thefreedictionary.com: "1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world."

It occurred to me that the word preternatural might be more appropriate in many cases where the word supernatural is used. Thefreedictionary seems to agree in one of the definitions listed for preternatural: "2. Surpassing the normal or usual; extraordinary". The other definitions listed find it more or less synonymous with supernatural.

Since I define nature as everything, I don't believe in the supernatural if it is defined as 'beyond nature'. Or, I think the supernatural is impossible according to my definition. If something exists, it is a part of nature.

This conclusion depends on my own definition of nature. If someone else defines nature differently, then I can see how they would consider the supernatural quite possible. It seems to come down to a matter of personal preference.

That doesn't answer your question(s) though.

I guess I would say that, yes, a work of literature can be regarded as horror even though it doesn’t contain any overt supernatural manifestations.

I think a case can be made for 'the sense of the supernatural' in horror literature, though.

I think Ligotti mentioned this in an early draft of CATHR, using the example of a car accident.

I know that death is a natural event. I know that car accidents happen. "These things happen". But when it happens, as the car is skidding out of control over black ice, I think "this can't be happening". Death asserts itself in spite of me.

This is supernatural horror for me. The thought "this can't be happening", and the simultaneous realization that it is, in fact, happening.
"Supernatural horror" is dark phantasy that depicts scenes outside of reality. I often write tales of what I call "the impossible narrative," first-person narrative tales told by a person who dies at the end of the story. This is pure phantasy, for such a tale could never be "told".


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 12:13 PM.
Page 4 of 5 123 4 5
Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8
Copyright ©2000 - 2021, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.