(no subject)
So I'm reading Haunted by Chuck Palanhiuk. My friend the Bookman gave it to me last year as an advanced-readers' copy. It's been sitting on my shelf all this time, I somehow had an aversion to reading it, despite my adoration of Fight Club (only seen the flic version, but am planning to read the book soon!). But after hearing Chuck P. interviewed on mpr/npr sometime recently, I was inspired to pick it up and dive in.
*as an aside, my instructor is going on about "No one uses cscope! It's been around forever and it's the most amazing and simple thing, but no one uses it can you believe it?" and looking to spend the next 15 minutes being astonished by the sheer incredulity of it all and not moving on until he's convinced that we're also properly astonished by it*
So Haunted has been a fun and squeamish ride, 2/3 of the way thru as I am so far. I like how very non-chalant CP is about the horrid and depraved things that happen in the book. Some horror/grotesquerie-type writers seem to make such a fanfare when they're talking about something Shocking or Terrible or Oh-My-God-Can-You-Believe-It, but CP totally dead-pans the depravity and grotesquerie, where he could be talking about a perfectly average or unremarkable occurence like cleaning the bathroom, which makes it somehow all the more horrid. Which I both like and am disturbed by. Or maybe I'm disturbed because I like it. Or like it because it's so disturbing. Some of all three I think.
It seems to me a lot of horror (whether flics or books) takes the cheap and easy route of relying so much on that fanfare or buildup element to enact the horror effect. CP does the equivalent of tossing a severed head in your lap as though it were nothing more than a nerf football then looking at you like "what - is there a problem?". So there you are with a severed head in your lap and rather than having had all this prior buildup that has orchestrated your inner screechy-hysterics responses into a final orgasm of convulsing heebie-jeebies that you knew full well was coming, you instead have to suddenly decide all on your own, with no prior manipulations or horror-flic soundtrack, how to feel about the severed head in your lap. and the horror comes when you discover you don't feel nearly so terrified/horrified about what you're looking at as you think/know you should.
or something like that. ;)
*as an aside, my instructor is going on about "No one uses cscope! It's been around forever and it's the most amazing and simple thing, but no one uses it can you believe it?" and looking to spend the next 15 minutes being astonished by the sheer incredulity of it all and not moving on until he's convinced that we're also properly astonished by it*
So Haunted has been a fun and squeamish ride, 2/3 of the way thru as I am so far. I like how very non-chalant CP is about the horrid and depraved things that happen in the book. Some horror/grotesquerie-type writers seem to make such a fanfare when they're talking about something Shocking or Terrible or Oh-My-God-Can-You-Believe-It, but CP totally dead-pans the depravity and grotesquerie, where he could be talking about a perfectly average or unremarkable occurence like cleaning the bathroom, which makes it somehow all the more horrid. Which I both like and am disturbed by. Or maybe I'm disturbed because I like it. Or like it because it's so disturbing. Some of all three I think.
It seems to me a lot of horror (whether flics or books) takes the cheap and easy route of relying so much on that fanfare or buildup element to enact the horror effect. CP does the equivalent of tossing a severed head in your lap as though it were nothing more than a nerf football then looking at you like "what - is there a problem?". So there you are with a severed head in your lap and rather than having had all this prior buildup that has orchestrated your inner screechy-hysterics responses into a final orgasm of convulsing heebie-jeebies that you knew full well was coming, you instead have to suddenly decide all on your own, with no prior manipulations or horror-flic soundtrack, how to feel about the severed head in your lap. and the horror comes when you discover you don't feel nearly so terrified/horrified about what you're looking at as you think/know you should.
or something like that. ;)