Will the real genre writers please stand up

So I was already on a roll with short-story collections and the gaudy colours on the cover caught my eye enough to consider the McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories. I scoffed at this volume when it first came out, the inclusion of mainstream deadweights like Margaret Atwood and Peter Straub did not jive with my precious idea of McSweeney’s, ie. the of fresh new voices of my generation etc;. However I remember really liking the first volume of Michael Chabon’s genre busting experiment, which in retrospect featured such unknown talents as Michael Chricton and Elmore Leonard. And this new one contained a David Mitchell short story in it. Boo-yah!

Chabon’s preface emphasized the precious factor; praising those literary lions who daringly draw on the tropes of genre in their work, and yet lack the courage to call it straight up sci-fi, mystery or fantasy or what have you. The stories themselves however are a good cross-section of writers and I would say making this story a great sampler for those interested in great genre writing looking to find a new favourite author.

For instance I had never read China Mieville but found his contribution Reports of Certain Events in
London a curious quasi autobiographical story of wild-streets that rip out of the moarings of their cities to roam through space and time enough to make me consider reading more of his work. There’s a genuinely creepy story called “7C” about the unraveling mind of an astronomer written by Jason Roberts. Roddy Doyle turns in an effectively spooky minimalist ghost story as well. The contributions by the two biggest names in horror writing included here, Stephen King and Peter Straub both tell self-reflexive tales about authors haunted by their own creations. And Mitchell’s tale is a neo-noir mystery set in contemporary Hawaii about a search for cursed Japanese dagger kept me turning the pages—but lacked the emotional heft of his novels.

What to say more than that? Would the real genre writers please stand up? Or… where can I get my hands on some good Mieville? Is there a point in still writing these kinds of short stories when horror films can deliver the jolts much more effectively? I guess the best amongst these, like 7C, were ones that put you write in the mind of a character; a point of view that was limited. A damaged mind is all the more interesting when it comes into contact with the actual supernatural. Witness the Korean horror flick A Tale of Two Sisters. I think the best of these stories all did a bit of that. Otherwise, maybe it’s best to get your blood spatter on the screen.

Don’t Read While Eating II

After finishing Geek Love I was still all juiced up for another
visceral read. And then a copy of Haunted came into the shop. I had read Chuck’s non-fiction and liked it quite a lot. I also had been to see his reading for the tour of Haunted, mostly to hear him read Guts, the story which by his count has made 73 people faint on his tour. No one dropped while we were there, even with the smell of meat hanging from the teriyaki beef scented air-fresheners that Chuck gave to the crowd.

Just to get you up to speed, Haunted is a short-story collection, horror stories told by a group of people who have answered the call to join a writer’s retreat for three-months. Things turn squishy for them when the abandoned theater they took for a retreat becomes their prison. Beside this frame narrative, each would-be writer has a tale to tell as well as a brief poetic sketch that captures their essence.

Now, this is all a good set-up. A self-consciously referential allusion to a chalet-party in the 19^th century, where Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and others stayed up in the winter nights telling each other ghost-stories; and in doing so authored monsters like the original Dracula and Frankenstein. Chuck sets himself a tall task in trying to have his creations rise to those mythic heights. In the stories that emerge we do get a grasp of some amazing concepts for 21^st century horror, all firmly grounded in the real. Pornography. Masturbation. New Age Therapy. Homelessness. Contagion. Transgendered Women. Celebrity Abortions. He gets his finger on the marks that divide social lines, the hinges on which they swing. And in them, stakes out original quease inducing stories.

But ah… well… the frame simply doesn’t work. Chuck has always been a stylist, his staccato rhythms, and willingness to take his concepts to the absolute limit has always worked for me. But this prose can be alienating as well. And it’s hard to carry on reading for just about 400 pages when you don’t care about any of the characters. You are alienated from them from the start by their outlandish physical descriptions and bizarre monikers. Agent Tattletale. Reverend Godless. Lady Baglady. No one is more than their name. And yeah, okay, it worked for Chaucer, with his unnamed pilgrims, tagged by their profession The Knight, The Miller, The Reeve. But Chaucer doesn’t make his pilgrims cut off their toes. And pull off their fingernails.

What I’m trying to take from this is, if you’re going to try and have your characters mutilate themselves, at least make us give a shit about them first. See Dunn, below. That being said, there were some genuinely grueling tales, well-told. But more than half-way through I was just waiting for someone to turn on the lights.

Palate Cleansing

Ah, now that I got that taste out of my mouth, time to move onto something new.

How ’bout a little something refreshing after all that grotesque carnival of letters? Like a sorbet, to refresh my mind for the next meaty tome?

Hmmn, what’s this we have here. Chuck Palahniuk. That should do it.