You "win" the Lottery! Aka ADVERTISING FAIL
There's a short story I read called "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, which I loved. Naturally, I got curious about what else she's written, ready to get my hands on more psychological creepy stuff. So I found "The Lottery", a collection of short stories she's written. Here's what the back of the book says:
"The Lottery," one of the most terrifying stories written in the twentieth century, created a sensation when it was published in 1948. Today it is considered a classic work of short fiction, a story remarkable for its combination of subtle suspense and pitch-perfect descriptions of both the chilling and the mundane. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's life-time, unites "The Lottery" with twenty-four equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson's remarkable range--encompassing the hilarious and the horrible, the unsettling and the omnious--as well as her power as a storyteller."
The introduction by A.M. Homes heightens my excitement, with the starting sentence of "The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable." Oh boy! What are we waiting for, let's go! So I begin. "The Intoxicated" was good. So far, it's up my ally. "The Daemon Lover". It was okay. I don't get what's going on, but I can feel the dread there. "Like Mother Used to Make" is also kind of eerie, but why the heck didn't David say something by the end of it? "Trial by Combat". Strange and interesting. "The Villager" had a nice twist, but what does it have to do with psychological horror? Oh well, it's not like we can't have a little break in genre now and then. Right?
Unfortunately, after "The Witch", it all goes downhill from here.
"The Renegade." Ha. That was creepy all right. And not in a good way. I'm fine with a housewife being stoned to death, but an entire village telling a woman how to kill her dog when all she needed to do was build a goddamn fence and put bricks under it? Also, her children are disgusting, so excited about killing off their own dog. Seriously? I know kids can be little shits, but are there regular happy-family houses in your average income neighborhood with kids who are delighted about killing their own pets? I'm skeptical here, and that story just left a bad taste in my mouth. Well, one bruise won't ruin the whole apple, right?
The rest of the stories, I fail to see how they are "equally unusual" in the same way as "The Lottery" was. Sure, stuff like "After You, My Dear Alphonse" is good, but what is "creepy" or "eerie" or "unusual" about a white kid bringing his black friend to his house to visit, then telling his well-intentioned but racist mom to stfu and quit treating his black like a starving minority? Maybe it was unusual at the time it was written, but to me, I say it's modern and the guy is talking common sense. Eesh. "Charles" was about a brat and his oblivious parents, and I predicted the ending a mile away, which pissed me off. Bebe & Ray did it better in Wayside School is Falling Down. :P "Afternoon in Linen" is okay, but hey, hello? Where is the horror? Where is "The Lottery" being held?
"Flower Garden" came to me like a slap in the face. It was about how a friendship between two women, Mrs. Winning and Mrs. MacLane, rips apart due to racial discrimination. The village jeers and spreads rumors about Mrs. MacLane when she invites a black man and his mixed son to help her work on her flower garden, and Mrs. Winning too rejects her past friend. 32 pages for what? I threw the book against the wall and the floor, pissed off and miserable. JUST what I needed to read! There's a reason I avoid books with plots like this; it triggers me and it leaves me irrationally angry. If I wanted to educate myself how horribly people treated blacks and minorities in the old days, all I have to do is go outside and see how people are treating blacks and minorities now. Thank you for reminding me how it used to be so much worse, history books can tell me that. I already know how horrible humankind is, I've read about it a million times in other classic books that were written better, and you have no need to hammer it in my head a million times more. Believe me, I know.
That's why I wanted psychological horror like "The Lottery!" This is NOT the "horror" I was looking for, thank you. Might as well move all the books about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X in the same catagory as H.P. Lovecraft. I'm not expecting eldrich abominations and gore to pop up constantly in the short stories, but Jesus Christ, I want what's on the label, not the mystery meat among the beans I may or may not spit out. "The Tooth" was the sort of stuff I was looking forward to. But I can't relate to the wife freaking out in New York City in "Pillar of Salt", being a suburb girl with a family who is constantly moving and all. That, and the only way to make a lot of these short stories seem horrific is if you're an OCD germophobe. Really, I don't want to spend a page reading about how your characters are shopping and putting their groceries away and the next another page folding their clothes and choosing something to wear, and yet another page observing the crack on the windowsill and observe how the New York hotels are crumbling.
I'm not even going to bother reading "Elizabeth."
It's not that I think Jackson's a bad writer, it's more that I'm ticked off by the false advertising given by the packaging. Can someone tell me whether or not if We Have Always Lived In the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House is more of what I'm looking for? I don't want to be put off and disappointed again. :/
Which books have you read that disappointed you with their false advertising, for the worst?
"The Lottery," one of the most terrifying stories written in the twentieth century, created a sensation when it was published in 1948. Today it is considered a classic work of short fiction, a story remarkable for its combination of subtle suspense and pitch-perfect descriptions of both the chilling and the mundane. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's life-time, unites "The Lottery" with twenty-four equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson's remarkable range--encompassing the hilarious and the horrible, the unsettling and the omnious--as well as her power as a storyteller."
The introduction by A.M. Homes heightens my excitement, with the starting sentence of "The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable." Oh boy! What are we waiting for, let's go! So I begin. "The Intoxicated" was good. So far, it's up my ally. "The Daemon Lover". It was okay. I don't get what's going on, but I can feel the dread there. "Like Mother Used to Make" is also kind of eerie, but why the heck didn't David say something by the end of it? "Trial by Combat". Strange and interesting. "The Villager" had a nice twist, but what does it have to do with psychological horror? Oh well, it's not like we can't have a little break in genre now and then. Right?
Unfortunately, after "The Witch", it all goes downhill from here.
"The Renegade." Ha. That was creepy all right. And not in a good way. I'm fine with a housewife being stoned to death, but an entire village telling a woman how to kill her dog when all she needed to do was build a goddamn fence and put bricks under it? Also, her children are disgusting, so excited about killing off their own dog. Seriously? I know kids can be little shits, but are there regular happy-family houses in your average income neighborhood with kids who are delighted about killing their own pets? I'm skeptical here, and that story just left a bad taste in my mouth. Well, one bruise won't ruin the whole apple, right?
The rest of the stories, I fail to see how they are "equally unusual" in the same way as "The Lottery" was. Sure, stuff like "After You, My Dear Alphonse" is good, but what is "creepy" or "eerie" or "unusual" about a white kid bringing his black friend to his house to visit, then telling his well-intentioned but racist mom to stfu and quit treating his black like a starving minority? Maybe it was unusual at the time it was written, but to me, I say it's modern and the guy is talking common sense. Eesh. "Charles" was about a brat and his oblivious parents, and I predicted the ending a mile away, which pissed me off. Bebe & Ray did it better in Wayside School is Falling Down. :P "Afternoon in Linen" is okay, but hey, hello? Where is the horror? Where is "The Lottery" being held?
"Flower Garden" came to me like a slap in the face. It was about how a friendship between two women, Mrs. Winning and Mrs. MacLane, rips apart due to racial discrimination. The village jeers and spreads rumors about Mrs. MacLane when she invites a black man and his mixed son to help her work on her flower garden, and Mrs. Winning too rejects her past friend. 32 pages for what? I threw the book against the wall and the floor, pissed off and miserable. JUST what I needed to read! There's a reason I avoid books with plots like this; it triggers me and it leaves me irrationally angry. If I wanted to educate myself how horribly people treated blacks and minorities in the old days, all I have to do is go outside and see how people are treating blacks and minorities now. Thank you for reminding me how it used to be so much worse, history books can tell me that. I already know how horrible humankind is, I've read about it a million times in other classic books that were written better, and you have no need to hammer it in my head a million times more. Believe me, I know.
That's why I wanted psychological horror like "The Lottery!" This is NOT the "horror" I was looking for, thank you. Might as well move all the books about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X in the same catagory as H.P. Lovecraft. I'm not expecting eldrich abominations and gore to pop up constantly in the short stories, but Jesus Christ, I want what's on the label, not the mystery meat among the beans I may or may not spit out. "The Tooth" was the sort of stuff I was looking forward to. But I can't relate to the wife freaking out in New York City in "Pillar of Salt", being a suburb girl with a family who is constantly moving and all. That, and the only way to make a lot of these short stories seem horrific is if you're an OCD germophobe. Really, I don't want to spend a page reading about how your characters are shopping and putting their groceries away and the next another page folding their clothes and choosing something to wear, and yet another page observing the crack on the windowsill and observe how the New York hotels are crumbling.
I'm not even going to bother reading "Elizabeth."
It's not that I think Jackson's a bad writer, it's more that I'm ticked off by the false advertising given by the packaging. Can someone tell me whether or not if We Have Always Lived In the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House is more of what I'm looking for? I don't want to be put off and disappointed again. :/
Which books have you read that disappointed you with their false advertising, for the worst?