Can you beat Stephen King?

[moonbird]

Recently I read a Stephen King short story called "Chattery Teeth." Basically, it was about a pair of chattery teeth (the kind with big feet on the bottom) that is bought by a guy from a curio shop, although they no longer work. When the guy picks up a hitchhiker who pulls a knife on him and demands he hand over his car, the teeth magically come to life and bite off the hitchhiker's voice. Then they clamp down hard on his groin. At this point the owner of the teeth passes out, and when he awakes he finds the hitchhiker dead. Later he finds the chattery teeth at his doorstep.

I'm usually a fan of King's work, but this one was so awful I had to share it with you guys. I told one of my friends that no one, not even Stephen King, could make a pair of chattery teeth scary or horrifying. That got me thinking: maybe it is possible, if you have the right plot. So if you're bored, why don't you write a little story about chattery teeth and see if you can make it scary. Then post it on this thread for us all to enjoy! I'm working on one of my own, if only to be able to say I rewrote a King story better than his original. Good luck!

[Perandorrrr]

I haven't read anything from him in awhile. The story seems horrid. I don't know if you pick up Entertainment Weekly, but over the past few years he's been given the backpage along with his opinions and criticisms of pop culture -- I really found it lame. Not a fan, but I have to hand it to him, though, he and Shakespeare have their own sections at my Barnes & Noble. Could I beat him? I think so. I haven't written anything in awhile, but I've never attempted a horror tale. I'd like to one day.

[hillwalker]

anything for a laugh.....

SWAPS

I had set my heart on the Swiss Army knife but in the end had to make do with the novelty set of false teeth. The stall owner handed it over with a broad grin – having watched me throw the three metal hoops six times in a row without much luck until now.
“Mind they don’t bite you, ducks.”
As if.
Lucy Farmer and Eloise Hudson who had admired my lack of expertise from the sidelines stifled a chuckle as I accepted them and stuffed them into my anorak pocket.
“What you gonna do with them?”
“Dunno yet. Go swaps prob’ly.”
“Huh. I don’t think anybody’s gonna wanna give you much for some old pair of clockwork choppers. They’re probably made in Taiwan anyway – they’ll break soon as you use ‘em.”
“S’pose so. Shall we go and get a hot dog or a can of something?”
There was a queue but the girls got chatting to a couple of mates in the line and soon the teeth were forgotten.

“Did you enjoy the fair then?”
“Yeh, it was ok. We went on the Waltzers and the slide and then Michael Dawson fainted as soon as we came off the Ghost Train.”
“Oh. Poor thing. He’s a really sickly lad, isn’t he?”
We didn’t show much sympathy. We were in stitches actually. Michael and I were both sweet on Lucy but she could be a right little madam. As soon as she saw him turn white and crumple to the ground she yelled with laughter and left him to the mercies of some woman in a nylon leopard-skin raincoat. I ended up abandoning my pal as well and spent the rest of the afternoon with her and Ellie.

By Monday lunchtime everyone at school had heard the story. Kids kept going up to him asking if he’d seen a ghost. His reply mostly consisted of two words ‘Do one.’ He never actually specified what the ‘one’ was, but by first bell everyone had taken the hint and left him on his own by the lockers.
Everybody except yours truly.
“Whatchu looking at?”
“Nowt. I was just wondering if you were feeling better.”
“Huh. Like you care all of a sudden. You soon scarpered.”
“Aw, come on. It’s not my fault Lucy laughed at you. You know what she’s like when she’s with Ellie. They’re as bad as each other”
“So.”
“And well, it did look quite funny.”
“Right.”
“And I only went with them ‘cause that woman said she was taking you home.”
“Right. So what did you do after then?”
“Not much. Had a go on the water cannons and the darts. Then there was this hoopla and I tried to get a really neat pen-knife. But I finished up with some joke teeth instead.”
“What? Like vampire ones you stick in your gob?”
“No. These have got a key and when you wind them up they chatter like crazy. They’re quite a laugh. D’you wanna have a look?”
I dug them out of my school bag and showed him. I wound the key and set them down on the tiled floor. Soon we were both laughing like idiots as the set of teeth clacked away like something out of ‘Loony Tunes’.
“D’you want to swap them?”
“Eh?”
“Well, I can give you some more German stamps if you like. Or Terry Thorley gave me a catapult but I can’t get the hang of it properly.”
“Nah. It’s ok.”
Then I caught the gleam in his eye.
“Or if you like I could tell Lucy I’m not going to be friends with her any more.”
“What do you mean?”
Swapping a set of wind-up false teeth for Lucy Farmer. That had to be a fantastic deal. Did it not?

I’m not sure what made me recall that critical moment from my youth in such vivid detail. The leopard-print raincoat and her bottle blonde hair-do. And the size of her arse. Probably the fly poster for the Fair as I drove past the bus shelters at the end of Curzon Drive. It was Chester Race Week and they always have the fair on the coach park opposite the Roodee for the duration of the race meeting.
The two youngest would no doubt be pestering to be taken along on Friday night. Squandering money on junk food, fizzy drinks loaded with e numbers and a cheap thrill. Though not particularly cheap.
So it was a shock when I got home and Lucy told me about the phone call.
“Somebody called Michael.”
“Asking for me?”
“That’s what he said. I told him you were still at work but he wouldn’t give me his number. It was number withheld as well.”
“Probably somebody trying to flog us dodgy kitchen units or car insurance.”
“Don’t think so. He reckoned you were mates.”
“Mates? The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“It’s Michael. Michael Dawson.”
Click.
“What? From the Port? Bebby Road Primary? Never…..”
“That’s me, cobber.”
“But, hell…. didn’t you go abroad or something? Before we finished our last year?”
“Australia. Then New Zealand. That’s where I’ve been until five months ago.”
“So. You back in England for good?”
“Unfortunately seems that way.”
I didn’t twig what he was saying. Not then.
“So how did you dig up my number?”
“Oh, did a bit of research on the internet. Came across your profile on some business and consultancy site. Figured there can’t be that many Andy Kepplers working in this part of the world.”
“True.”
“So anyway. I was wondering whether we could meet for a drink somewhere one night. Catch up.”
Michael Dawson. He’d dropped right off my radar. Sad, given how much time we had spent together between the ages of five and eleven. It seemed odd that he would phone out of the blue like that but life’s too short to turn old friends away. 40 is one of them ages where you start going through your life and wondering how it managed to slink past so suddenly.
“Well, yes. That would be great. You could even come round for a meal. I’d need to check…..”
“Oh, I couldn’t impose. Let’s just have a couple of beers. I take it you take a drink.”
“Could say that. Socially, I mean.”
“Right you are, then. When’s best?”
“How about one night next week? Tuesday or Wednesday?”

The ‘Watergate’. It’s generally quiet midweek – even in June. The American and Japanese tourists tend not to flock here until mid summer. There were only three others in the bar. A couple of office types discussing the latest range of four-by-fours and an old guy hunched in the corner nursing a Guinness and a bad complexion.
I’d said seven thirty. I wasn’t wearing a red carnation or a straw hat. Just a scuffed leather jacket and denim trousers. Forty years old but trying to look nearer twenty.
“Andy?”
It was the old guy. He waved a hand and beckoned me over.
Close up I realised he wasn’t old. Just worn down or worn out. By life perhaps. Or by something more sinister that I had yet to uncover.
“Mike?”
“Here.”
He passed me a tenner.
“Get me a refill and whatever you’re having.”
As soon as I sat alongside him he told me the whole sorry tale. Him and Una. A marriage made in heaven. The three miscarriages. The depression that finally drove his wife to drown herself in the bath. The business he set up from scratch – import and export. And the illness that had plagued him for the last three and a half years.
“Doctors reckoned it was some kind of skin cancer at first.”
I nodded sympathetically.
“Mhmm.”
“Then after the biopsy they realised it was something worse. A mutation of a flesh eating disease. It’s got a right fancy name. Hillger-Krawzjok Syndrome. Apparently it’s normally associated with severe frostbite.”
“So…. I mean, that’s not how you got it I assume.”
“Frostbite? Huh, no. Too much antipodean sunshine for frostbite. No way.”
“Erm, and they can’t do anything? I mean, how bad is it?”
“Oh, it’s terminal. But then, all life is terminal is it not? That’s how I cope with it, you know.”
“God. It must be awful for you.”
“It’s a sh1tty way to die, if that’s what you mean. You’d swear I was being eaten alive – bite by bite.”
I’d been looking at the ‘Specials’ board but thought better of it. ‘Tasty Chilli Bites’ suddenly seemed less appetising.
“God. So you’re here for how long? I mean, are you on holiday or have you moved back here….?”
“Business. I’m here on business….. but I doubt I’ll be flying back home. The doctors said two or three months at best.”
“You poor sod.”
I cursed myself for taking his call rather than for being so unwelcoming.
“So anyway, Andy. You look as if you’re doing alright for yourself. Tell me, did you and Lucy Farmer stick together?”
I told him everything. Childhood sweethearts. Studying at the same college – Economics and Psychology. Getting married as soon as we graduated. The crummy flat in Liverpool. Four years of graft and grief after Lucy fell pregnant. Kirsty eighteen now – Thomas twelve and Daisy almost six.
He looked genuinely pleased for us. I felt guilty not extending him a proper invite to our home. Even if he hadn’t told me how sick he was he did little to disguise his condition. There were scabs covering his forehead and chin and his fingers were like crimson claws.
“So what line of business are you in now, Mike?”
“Oh, I’m still buying and selling. A little horse trading. You know how it goes. Making deals.”
“You’re self-employed?”
“Freelance. Yes. I’m rather choosy whom I do business with, you see.”

By the third pint I was ready for home. Drinking mid-week is something I rarely do because I always suffer the following morning. The alarm clock – the indigestible drive to work – playing catch-up with my mail and telephone calls. It always seems infinitely more unbearable with a hangover.
“It’s Mrs Keppler, on line 3.”
Lucy? She never calls me at work.
“Luce? What’s up.”
“Andrew. It’s Michael here.”
Michael? Had Gina put the wrong call through again? Dozy cow.
“I’m sorry, Mike. Can I put you on hold? I’m actually trying to take a call from my wife…..”
“Oh yes. She’s here. With me as we speak.”
Lucy with Michael? Michael inside our house? How?
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
I could hear some metallic sound in the background. Like a clanking chain or someone rattling a handful of change.
“Is Lucy there? Can I speak to her?”
“That won’t be possible, Andrew.”
“What? What the hell’s going on.”
Then he told me. Told me about his latest business deal. Those ruddy teeth. Those ruddy wind-up teeth that he’d kept all those years, and was now convinced were the cause of his medical condition.
“I hear them, you see. As soon as I climb into bed and turn out the lights. Gnashing. Biting. Gnawing. Devouring me inch by painful inch.”
“You’re off your head. Put my wife on the line…..”
“As I have already told you. That won’t be possible.”
“If you’ve laid one finger on her…..”
“I would never do that. This is just a courtesy call you see. Strictly business etiquette, my old friend.”
It didn’t make sense.
“You remember that day? The day you swapped those teeth for Lucy?”
What did that have to do with…..?
“Well, I’ve come to reclaim her.”
“What?”
“The swap’s gone sour. You can have your stupid teeth back – and I’ll take what’s mine.”
The line went silent. I expected him to hang up but instead I could still hear a frenzied clicking. By the time I met up with the police at the house the insane clatter had ceased. The plastic teeth grinned at us as if anxious to share the joke but all was eerily silent.

H

[Jassy Melson]

Chattery Teeth was written by King in his early days of writing--in the 70s. It's not one of his better stories; in fact, it may be the worst story he's ever had published. King admits that he wrote a number of stories when he was stoned on coke. Chattery Teeth is probably one of them. King's work is very uneven. He has written some good stuff, but he's also written some trash.

[moonbird]

Way to take a stab at it, hillwalker. Honestly I think I preferred your story to King's, probably because you didn't attempt to make the teeth scary. It works a lot better as a humor story than horror.

As for the other two comments from Perandorrr and Jassy Melson, I agree with both. King's work seems to fluctuate wildly between pure genuis and pop culture trash. I've read some bad King stories, but this one was the worst by a long short, and I just had to share it with you guys. But in his defense, his recent "Under the Dome" is very good, in my opinion, as well as many others I haven't got around to reading yet. My conclusion: No one's perfect.

[LongBlade]

My conclusion: No one's perfect.

Yeah, nobody is really perfect since we weren't born yet. :flare:

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

When you're as prolific as SK, there's gonna be a good amount of crap produced along with the good stuff. It happens with most prolific authors. Add to it that SK can get anything he wants published, and you get stories like this.

It brings this to mind. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc7ZaZz4CoU)

[Big Dante]

Wow.... Well I admire you for being able to read a story called "chattery teeth" in the first place.

Hillwalker, I shall have to read your story later. A session of Les Miserbles has sapped my reading energy for the day but I'm looking forward to reading your attempt.

[Jassy Melson]

If I had room on here I would post a short essay I wrote some time back about the uneven genius of King. A brief excerpt from my essay will have to do.

The literati and the literary Brahmin class dismiss King by saying "Oh, he's just a horror writer; that doesn't count." But the thing is, King cannot be dismissed. He is the most popular and successful writer in history, and he has written some stories that are totally realistic with no touch of horror to them. Misery is an example of how good King can be when he wants to be. Chattery Teeth is an example of how bad he can be.

In his time, Dickens was the most popular and successful writer, but he also wrote some very good novels. The difference between them is that a hundred years from now, King will be forgotten, but Dickens won't. In no way can King be considered a great writer. He approaches being a good writer in some of his stories. But King has chosen the path he has taken. And he has trod that path with success.

I used to be a big fan of King, but I no longer read him. I have outgrown him. Now I read Dickens.

[moonbird]

Jassy Melson: Funny you'd say that (I'm referring to the last line of your post, I still haven't figure out how to quote things) because I've also taken a lot of interest in Dickens lately. He does seem to be a lot more stable in his writing than King.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

The difference between them is that a hundred years from now, King will be forgotten.

You have no way of knowing this. I find it doubtful.

[Jassy Melson]

Are you impyng that Stephen King will be remembered a hundred years from now?

[JCamilo]

Maybe, Lovecraft is. But anyways, he is no genius, neither the most popular (Shakespeare still) and doubtfully the most sucessful. His best books are good books, that is all. Dickens best novels are masterworks.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Are you impyng that Stephen King will be remembered a hundred years from now?

I'm saying there is no real way to know one way or another. Personally, due to his popularity alone, I tend to lean towards him being remembered a hundred years from now. Will he attain the immortality that greats like Dickens, Shakespeare, or Dante have attained? Extremely doubtful (again, no way to know), but I have little doubt that his works will still be read.


Maybe, Lovecraft is.

Are you implying that Lovecraft is not amazing?

[moonbird]

His best books are good books, that is all. Dickens best novels are masterworks.

Well said!

[JCamilo]

Are you implying that Lovecraft is not amazing?

He may amaze some, but he is not a great writer. Just a good writer with strange ideas.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

He may amaze some, but he is not a great writer. Just a good writer with strange ideas.

I disagree--I think he is a great writer. To me, nothing is creepier than a Lovecraft story. His ability to create dark, atmospheric settings is unequaled.

[JCamilo]

Except by Poe, Goethe, Borges, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Melville, Emily Bronte, Coleridge, Henry James, Akutugawa.... The list of authors who can do great dark, atmospheric settings and something else is too huge.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Except by Poe, Goethe, Borges, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Melville, Emily Bronte, Coleridge, Henry James, Akutugawa.... The list of authors who can do great dark, atmospheric settings and something else is too huge.

Meh. In your opinion.

[JCamilo]

Yes, Moby Dick is only in my opinion a more impressive monster than Chuthulu monsters, right?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Pretty much, yes. I mean, sure, Moby Dick is a more monumental work than any of Lovecraft's, but Moby Dick a better "monster"? Not to me.

Anyways, I am not saying Lovecrat is necessarily "better" than any author you listed, just that I feel he deserves to be in the same group (though, Melville presides over all in that list). You say he is merely good, I say he is great.

[JCamilo]

Just Melville? Lovecraft is not on the same status as any of those I listed. Either just horror stories or overall stories. If we broad to call all them great, we will call Stoker or Mary Shelley too. And soon, Stephen King...

And Moby Dick? Do anyone outside the genre horror actually know the monster of Lovecraft?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Sense when does popularity matter? More people knowing Moby Dick is somehow proof that he is a better MONSTER than Cthulhu? And since when does status dictate if one truly deserves to be a part of some pointless list?

I really don't care to argue about it. I think Lovecraft's great, you don't. I have stated each time that I THINK he's a great writer. This doesn't carry much weight, obviously not as much weight as your opinions. You've offered nothing but a list and said, "Look, these are better!" Very convincing.

[JCamilo]

Err...
You asked me if I implied if he is not an amazing writer. So, you cared.

And yes, a pointless list of great writers. If Lovecraft is nowhere near to them, he cannt be a great writer. If Melville is a great writer, as you agreed, and superior to Lovecraft, it is not my opinion, but yours that he does not belong to this list. That simples. Of course, you can change, and broad the definition to a maximun and include several medium writers like Lovecraft.

And it is not my opinion. Lovecraft is just a genre writer. Outside the horror genre he as no importance or influence. His prose is sometimes heavy, today certainly outdated. He can write well, but filling a ship like the Pequod? Not a chance. Turning the white as a color of death? Anyone can reckonize he owns much to Poe and certainly didnt surpassed the other.

No major author is really under his influence either, people writing like him, he goes to some popularity but that is all. Great writers - such as those I listed - do it all. No Lovecraft is not great unless it is very easy to be great, simple because he never achived the influence or aesthetic feats of those who are trully great.

But simple as put, you asked.

[Buh4Bee]

Interesting discussion. I have recently come to the conclusion that popular does not necessarily mean an author is a good writer. I think being a good horror writer is a talent unto it's own (niche writing). To be a good writer with a talent for writing horror- than maybe that defines King. On the other hand, the short story sounds so cliche and predictable that I'm not surprised King wrote it. I think he is so popular, because the formulaic structure works for him. (Sorry, if I offended any King fans out there.)

[Jassy Melson]

It's not doubtful that King is the most popular and successful writer in history. He beats Dickens by a mile in being more successful. Dickens was enormously popular in his day, but he doesn't approach King in success. By successful I mean the number of books he's sold.

[JCamilo]

Then he sold less than Shakespeare. And Dickens may have sold more than him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_authors

[Jassy Melson]

King has sold more than Shakespeare or Dickens

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Err...
You asked me if I implied if he is not an amazing writer. So, you cared. [quote]

True.

[QUOTE=JCamilo;1008498]And yes, a pointless list of great writers. If Lovecraft is nowhere near to them, he cannt be a great writer. If Melville is a great writer, as you agreed, and superior to Lovecraft, it is not my opinion, but yours that he does not belong to this list. That simples. Of course, you can change, and broad the definition to a maximun and include several medium writers like Lovecraft.


I said Melville surpasses all authors on that list, in my opinion. So, if all of them, aside from Melville, are great (including Lovecraft :wink5:), then Melville is a transcendent, mazing, outstanding, or whichever adjective you would like.



And it is not my opinion.

How?


Outside the horror genre he as no importance or influence.

I'm guessing there's proof of this, since you state it as fact.


His prose is sometimes heavy,

Opinion.


today certainly outdated.

I have yet to read anything written a long time ago that isn't "dated."


He can write well, but filling a ship like the Pequod? Not a chance.

I never said he could. I intimated quote the opposite, actually.


No major author is really under his influence either

How could you possibly know that? What an ignorant statement.


Great writers - such as those I listed - do it all. No Lovecraft is not great unless it is very easy to be great, simple because he never achived the influence or aesthetic feats of those who are trully great.

But simple as put, you asked.

Unfortunately, I did. Well, not really. I implied, though.

[JCamilo]

Really, are you really try to take Lovecraft importance out of Horror genre? What remarkable author is under his influence? Stephen King? Neil Gaiman? Robert Howard?
Compare him not to Melville, but Poe, fundamenthal for the short stories, for the american criticism, some influence on poetry. Names like Fernando Pessoa, Machado de Assis, Eliot, Tchekhov, Dostoievisky, Dickens, Borges, Nabokov, Cortazar, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Rimbaud, Paul Valery are under his influence. So, if Poe is a great, what makes Lovecraft? Oh, ok, he transcend the great like Melville, so, you are just stretching the defintion of great. Lovecraft just does not belong to superlatives.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Really, are you really try to take Lovecraft importance out of Horror genre? What remarkable author is under his influence?

I don't know, maybe none. But, it is you who made the claims I questioned, so if the onus is on anyone, it is you to back up those claims. You claim he has had no influence on any major author, yet I am to prove that he has? You made the claim that he hasn't, not me. I merely question your omnipotence in knowing something like that.

[JCamilo]

I don't know, maybe none. But, it is you who made the claims I questioned, so if the onus is on anyone, it is you to back up those claims. You claim he has had no influence on any major author, yet I am to prove that he has? You made the claim that he hasn't, not me. I merely question your omnipotence in knowing something like that.

Virginia Woolf? Proust? Nabokov? Borges? Cortazar? Faulkner? Hemingway? Yeats? Rosa? Marquez?Fernando Pessoa?Eliot? James? Joyce? Shaw ? Kafka? Should I keep listing the major western writers of XX century? Which one have any significant (if any) influence of Lovecraft? Seriously...

And M&M, you claimed he is amazing. A great writer. Do you really find any major critic, major book that show Lovecraft influence to be that broad? Tolkien, Lovecraft, Agatha Christie, Asimov, are all good genre writers. They excell in their genre, but for this they do not became great, they are pop, cult, etc. But not great, those level of guys who go beyond genre.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Okay, okay. I concede. You've got me beat. I bow down to you, sir!

Lovecraft is still the ****ing man, though.

[moonbird]

Interesting conversations are continuing to form here. To add my own opinion regarding Lovecraft into the mix, although I have never read any of his works I have found that horror is a very difficult genre to write, and requires a great deal of imagination. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a horror story referred to as a "literary masterpiece," but that doesn't mean that there are no talented horror authors; perhaps it is the horror genre itself that cannot compete with the great works of Shakespeare and Dickens. Either way, as many have stated before me, greatness cannot be judged purely by popularity, but just because something is popular does not mean it's just pop trash. King is apparently doing something right to make him so popular.

[Jassy Melson]

I would almost (but not quite) assert that James's Turn of the Screw, Bierce's An Occurence At Owl Creek Bridge and The Moonlit Road and Blackwood's The Willows are works of literature. I can think of no others. Horror, next to mystery, may be the most difficult genre to write in, but a few writers have excelled in it. I don't think horror will ever be accepted into the mainstream, but maybe that's a good thing.

[JCamilo]

The history of man who have his soul taken by the devil and his fight to recover it - Faust (at least 2 great works, Thomas Mann and Goethe)
Te history of a man which obssession for vegence take him to a desperate route and his own death - Moby Dick
The history a ghost who haunts his son to make him crazy - Hamlet.
The history of a man which own mind is a psycho - Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde
The history of a a city destroyed by a crazy god and his followers - Bacchae
The history of a ghostlike sailor who is haunted - The Rhyme of Ancient Mariener
The history of a guy who returns to a city to find his father, the city is ghostlike and the memoirs are mixed with the past - Pedro Paramo
The history of a guy who find himself transformed in a vermin and is attacked by his own Family - The metamorphosis

and we had a fine thread sometime ago about what is horror and not and Mortal listed quite a few masterworks, even with the restricted idea of horror we find in libraries.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

The history of man who have his soul taken by the devil and his fight to recover it - Faust (at least 2 great works, Thomas Mann and Goethe)
Te history of a man which obssession for vegence take him to a desperate route and his own death - Moby Dick
The history a ghost who haunts his son to make him crazy - Hamlet.
The history of a man which own mind is a psycho - Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde
The history of a a city destroyed by a crazy god and his followers - Bacchae
The history of a ghostlike sailor who is haunted - The Rhyme of Ancient Mariener
The history of a guy who returns to a city to find his father, the city is ghostlike and the memoirs are mixed with the past - Pedro Paramo
The history of a guy who find himself transformed in a vermin and is attacked by his own Family - The metamorphosis

and we had a fine thread sometime ago about what is horror and not and Mortal listed quite a few masterworks, even with the restricted idea of horror we find in libraries.

Could someone link that thread? The search function is always screwy for me. I'd be interested to read it, because only a few of those seem to be true horror stories. They all have elements of horror, but Moby Dick? Hamlet? Just not horror, to me.


I would almost (but not quite) assert that James's Turn of the Screw, Bierce's An Occurence At Owl Creek Bridge and The Moonlit Road and Blackwood's The Willows are works of literature. I can think of no others. Horror, next to mystery, may be the most difficult genre to write in, but a few writers have excelled in it. I don't think horror will ever be accepted into the mainstream, but maybe that's a good thing.

What "mainstream" are you referring to? One of the worlds best selling writers (King) writes primarily horror, along with a plethora of high-selling horror authors.

[JCamilo]

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58556

As the genre, like all those genre, who are more fictional than real, depends how you deal with them. Children literature, horror, science fiction, fantasy, self-help are good labels to organize the selling and libraries. They are horror because the marketing says so. But the truth is that great works (and great writers) go beyond genres. Martin Amis, I think complained about it recently, about not being able to write targetting public (but it sounded particulary nasty because they were talking about children literature).

You will find hundred defintions of, lets say, Science Fiction (have seen one that included Gone with the wind). Mostly because those defition tries to include all science fiction writers. So, Wells wrote about alien invasions. Alien invasion is science fiction (even if we settle it as accidental aliens in a coment falling in a viking camping in the VIII century). Philip K.Dick about alternative realities, therefore, alternative reality is science fiction. But if you just slice down the works, the aliens are nothing but Cthulus, or Faeries - any non-human who is in contact from another reality with us.
Stephen King himself wrote about an animal who attacks a guy (Cujo) and called it horror. There is a genre of horror movies and books with animals behaving beyond their normal. And aren't them all Moby Dick? And Melville even creates an eeire atmosphere, suggesting something not natural in the book.
And Shinning is the book about a man who goes insane due to "ghosts" talking in his mind and end killing (or trying to kill his family). Wasnt Hamlet the same? And Hamlet setting is omnious, depressive, dark. (Not that horror must be like this, Macken Jade Mininatures is not, James wrote some funny ghost stories, Dorian Gray is all witty, Jekyll and Hide jornalistic, Washington Irving tales humorous, Lovecraft solemn, Hoffman and Andersen even a bit childish)..

[Drkshadow03]

Mortalterror's list can be found here (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=994908&postcount=7).

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As for the Lovecraft = great/good argument:

I think an argument could be made that Lovecraft influenced Borges--a major XX century writer. I would also argue Lovecraft influenced Alan Moore, a major XX century graphic novelist. Nevertheless, I would agree most of his influence is within the genre of horror. But heck, I would personally take being a central influence to an entire genre (Tolkien) than just an influential writer that inspired a few other influential writers.

Really, though, my biggest quibble with Jcamillo's argument is that he is placing influence as a central criteria for the talent of an artist. Sure, Michelangelo is an artist who influenced countless other artist's styles and paintings, but when I take a look at:

http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/i/michelangelo-creation-adam-.jpg


. . . my first thought isn't all the other artists he influenced and that's how I should judge his work. My first thought is to look at the work itself. Michelangelo isn't primarily great because he influenced so many other artists, but he's great because his work is great in its own right (without any reference to who he may or may not have influenced).

Getting back to Lovecraft, while I disagree that Jcamillo's tendency to focus on a writer's influence is a good approach to judging the merit of a writer's work, I do ultimately agree with his assessment that Lovecraft is a good writer, but not a great one. Basically I would place Lovecraft as a second-tier Canonical figure, similar to Dumas' place. He just isn't as good or important as a Faulkner, Hemingway, Joyce, Shakespeare, Dickens, whomever.

What evidence do I have to support this contention? Eh, like anything in literature a kind of gut feeling. While I enjoy Lovecraft's conscious archaic style and I think there is even an originality to it, it lacks the sheer memorability and beauty of say something by Shakespeare. When I say memorability, Lovecraft's writing is interesting as a totality in its anachronistic feel, but Shakespeare is someone who writes single lines or monologues that linger in your mind and have a fame in their own right (To be or not to be . . .; A tale spoken by an idiot, all sound and fury, signifying nothing; etc.,) as well as working as a totality. But it really boils down to: while I enjoy Lovecraft and think he's a writer worth reading, did Lovecraft produce anything capable of standing up to Hamlet, Macbeth, The Sound and the Fury, Ulysses, A Farewell to Arms, The Fairy Queene, Moby Dick?

As far as the question of who is more well known as a monster Moby Dick or Cthulhu? Once again, I think JCamillo is wrong in his assumption that only horror buffs will know who Cthulhu is. Cthulhu has found its way into popular culture beyond specifically horror paraphernalia. For example, South Park recently featured Cthulhu (http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/360449/cthulhu).

Long before I had any clue who Lovecraft was I was listening to Metallica (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt_ZE_ib9Wk) sing about Cthulhu.

[JCamilo]

Just a note: Influence is not what determiny quality of an artist. I did not said it. But it is an evidence of his quality. Great artists will have greater influence. Great artworks also. Mostly because the so called immortality of art, is more the revival of those artists in other works.

And I said Lovecraft is popular. I mentioned he has influence on pop (Metallica, South Park are here, Alan Moore, you can add, Roleplaying games, Neil Gaiman, etc) and cult productions. Of the "genre" authors, he is probally the King of Horror. Just like Agatha Christie is the Queen or detective stories. They are worth to be read? Of course, they are very fun, they have good ideas (I like Lovecraft joke with Blake' Tyger for example, his poetry is not all that bad), good momments, characters. But if you say Great is where guys like Melville and Borges are, then Lovecraft is not there.

As Borges, he wrote a single short story that was a Cthulhu myth. And he said he wrote because he always felt Lovecraft was someone who always tried to copy Poe and failed. This is hardly any significative influece (specially considering the ammount of minor writers Borges loved to mention and more, to re-work their ideas to his own.)

Just to add, I am not against genre writers, quite otherwise. This started when it was questioned if King would or not be recalled in years to come. And I said : Why not, Lovecraft is. King is certainly the central horror writer of last decades, just like Lovecraft was. So, why not? While I think Lovecraft is better, the difference is not sooooo huge.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Yeah, I'll agree. Lovecraft does not belong to the "great" group if that group contains authors that have been mentioned. Still, I consider Lovecraft great, just not one of the Greats. I don't know. Probably putting a bit too much importance on adjectives. That, and I was trying to hold on to a futile argument. :)

[Jassy Melson]

For the most part, horror stories are not in the mainstream. What I mean by mainstream are stories taught in college or stories that are part of "the canon." Please don't ask me what the canon is. If you are at all familiar with the great works of literature then you are familiar with the canon. If you still have no idea what the canon is, take some college literature courses. You will learn what the canon is right quick.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I know about the debatable and ambiguous canon. You're right, though. I just usually associate mainstream with whatever is big in popular culture.

[JCamilo]

The canon ignore genres.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Surely, there must be a few genre pieces in the canon? What about Shelley's Frankenstein and Stoker's Dracula (at least for horror)?

[JCamilo]

What is the genre of Frank? Science fiction or horror,
anyways , the canon ignore genres. Works who enter there can be from any genre, even becaause is millenar and those genres have a few centuries only.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Oh, okay. I thought you meant genre fiction didn't get into the canon.

And, I'd say, personally, I'd consider Frankenstein 60% Horror, 40% sci-fi, lol.

[Jassy Melson]

My opinion is Frankenstein is science fiction, Dracula is horror. Horror deals with the supernatural. There may be elements of horror in Frankenstein but looking at it objectively, it is science fiction.

[themiddleprince]

due to his popularity alone, I tend to lean towards him being remembered a hundred years from now

In 1965 (he actually died in December of that year) W. Somerset Maugham was feted as, variously, "The most famous living Englishman" and "the most famous writer in the world". Oh the blank faces I see now when I cite Somerset Maugham as my favourite writer.

I actually think JK Rowling could easily be a "who?" in 20 years time.

[moonbird]

I actually think JK Rowling could easily be a "who?" in 20 years time.

Well said. I think I'll add another thought piggybacking on that: Who's to say Shakespeare won't be forgotten in a century or two? Seems unikely now, but with things shifting more and more toward TV and movies with the incoming generations, I think it's perfectly possible for the great writers to be remembered, if at all, by the movies based upon their works, and not their actual works. And of course, movies are rarely as good as the stories they're based on.

[Drkshadow03]

My opinion is Frankenstein is science fiction, Dracula is horror. Horror deals with the supernatural. There may be elements of horror in Frankenstein but looking at it objectively, it is science fiction.

Nah horror is actually more of a mood if anything. Hence any content from the supernatural to a psychotic killer to monstrous aliens roaming about a spaceship depending on how it's done can be horror.

[themiddleprince]

Who's to say Shakespeare won't be forgotten in a century or two?

Shakespeare was famous (in London and his home town) in his day, but it was over a hundred years after his death that he got a memorial in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey. He was basically rediscovered when a revitalised theatre industry needed material that fitted all sorts of political and cultural criteria at the time.

As you rightly say, he can submerge again, particularly under the mass of material now available.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

In 1965 (he actually died in December of that year) W. Somerset Maugham was feted as, variously, "The most famous living Englishman" and "the most famous writer in the world". Oh the blank faces I see now when I cite Somerset Maugham as my favourite writer.

I actually think JK Rowling could easily be a "who?" in 20 years time.

I don't think King will be popular in a hundred years, but I still think he'll be read, just like Rowling in 20. The idea that he will no longer be remembered at all, by anyone is what seems unlikely.

[themiddleprince]

I don't think King will be popular in a hundred years, but I still think he'll be read, just like Rowling in 20. The idea that he will no longer be remembered at all, by anyone is what seems unlikely.

There'll certainly always be some small dedicated group of readers (such as Lovecraft readers still seem to insist they are!).

[JCamilo]

Borges, someone which knowledge and understanding of literature was not ridiculous suggested that Shakespeare, Voltaire, etc will be forgotten and only religious and philosophical texts remembered, because they are the true great ideas.