'Horror books' aka 'The genre we love to hate'

Since this will be my first post on my new blog I thought I might use my day off from the university to really get into this. But as you might have guessed already, at university, a day off very rarely is a day without work. My to-do list for the up-coming weekend is growing daily. However, I am not here to mope or anything.

What I actually wanted to write about today are books. Not just any kind, mind you, but I will get to that in a minute. I have several seminars this semester and for two of them I have to read several books. I picked those up yesterday from the library and didn’t quite have time to read the synopsis at the back just then, but now that I have I am looking forward to reading them. They are horror novels, the first being Patrick McGraths’s Spider and the second being John Fowles’ The Collector.

It seems that in both cases I will have a ‘mad monologist’ on my hands. While horror was not a genre I used to like very much, ever since I was introduced to Steven King’s works I have been undeniably drawn in. I suppose it all started one evening when I was home alone (don’t most things?). I think I was 13 and very excited because this was the first time they were gone for the whole night. Obviously I watched TV for as long as I could and while skipping through the programmes I stumbled over the movie Carrie. Needless to say it was quite late, dark outside, but I still couldn’t resist watching. Also needless to say, I was scared out of my wits by the end and grabbed my cat before going to bed. Being all alone that night was really not an option.

But then I started doing some reading about the author and started reading It, which is doubtlessly one of King’s most well-known novels. Since at more than 1000 pages it is quite a long book, it took me a while to work through it as a 13-year-old, and even though some scenes made me cringe and shiver I couldn’t stop. I suppose this is one of those cases where the ‘fascination of the abomination’ (another book I read much later and really liked: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness) took over. King’s writing style is so very compelling, and I remember several instances when my parents actually had to not-quite-but-almost force me to put the book away and go to sleep. Not that sleep came very quickly those nights, mind you.

My knowledge about Steven King as an author does actually not go very much further than knowing that he is famous, has written a lot of books and is read by people all over the world. I thought long and hard about this after having finished It. I just find it fascinating how he plays with base human fears, and the atmosphere he creates him his books is something I haven’t ever found again in quite the same fashion. He combines the idyllic with grotesque and horrific happenings, which ultimately scare you even more because you don’t expect a picture perfect place to become the setting for murder or slaughter.

While I liked It very much, my favourite Stephen King novel is The Dark Half. The plot is intricate with several layers: the protagonist author Thad Beaumont creates a pen name under which he writes edgy, gritty crime stories. His pseudonym, George Stark, is a lot more successful than he is, but Thad is not comfortable with the way Stark takes control of him during the writing process. Thad decides to quite literally burry his pseudonym and at the same time comes clean to his audience: Thad and Stark are one and the same person. However, Stark then starts manifesting himself as a flesh and blood person with no moral compass whatsoever and goes on a killing spree, taking out all the people involved in his ‘burial’. Towards the end it is revealed that, as a fetus, Thad had a twin but had absorbed him in utero. The remains were still in his skull but were removed when Thad was a child.

One can argue that Thad has multiple personality disorder or that George Stark was really only an evil spirit, but what fascinated me about this book was how King spun this mystery: for example people were killed by Stark but Thad’s fingerprints were all over the place because they share the same prints and the same DNA. As the reader, one knows that the air-tight alibis really are legit but Thad’s wife’s frustration and Thad’s confusion are so very palpable. Also, George Stark, as cruel and evil as he is, is still a very compelling character. He sees himself as a living and breathing person and in his warped mind killing to stay alive is a legitimate course of action.

It sounds absurd but I found myself almost sympathizing with him in several instances because the need to live and the wish not to die is so very human. In some instances he also seems almost childish in his reasoning. The discrepancy between an adult person who childishly maintains that ‘thinking happy thoughts’ is important fascinates and troubles the reader in equal measure. This is also part of Steven King’s ‘genius’. You feel sorry for the villains, and while you clearly know that they are violent, unstable and dangerous, the writing makes it almost impossible not to be drawn to these characters.

I can highly recommend this novel because the read is absolutely worth it. Obviously, I am a little biased, but I think most people will find it enjoyable once they start reading it. In the end, sometimes being scared is fun. It’s thrilling to push your heat-rate through the roof, because from time to time everybody needs that ‘kick’.