The Kind of Face You SLASH!!! - Day 22: We Are Ambivelant About Violence

After writing about Stephen King the other day, I figured it was only fair and reasonable to take a look at two other horror writers who came along in his wake, achieved a great deal of success, but are both still oddly considered more cult figures that best-selling authors. The thing is, they both are best-selling authors, but because, rightly or wrongly, each is considered better King: these guys are sometimes talked about as the real artists of the genre, as compared to the more populist King..
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I'm talking, of course, about Peter Straub and Clive Barker. The three writers were commonly lumped together in the old days, often by critics, and often for the purposes of denigrating King. Of course, King is inextricably linked to both men, because he's co-written two novels with Straub (The Talisman, which did neither author any favors in my view, and its sequel Black House, which I haven't read, but I've always thought it sounded kind of interesting), and when Barker's series of story collections, The Books of Blood, first hit American stores, they were emblazoned with the now rather infamous King quote: "I have seen the future of horror, and its name is Clive Barker."

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I've read a certain amount of both Straub and Barker's work, though in my younger days I was never anywhere near as devoted to them as I was to King (I didn't even think I liked Barker very much, until I got older). Straub, I always thought -- and still do, sometimes -- was a tiny bit ponderous, though I suspect that, at his best anyway, he's really just demanding patience from the reader, which, at my worst, is something I'm sorely lacking. The point is, his books don't start off guns a-blazin', and since, like King (and Barker, while I'm at it) his books have a problem with bloat, it's sometimes hard for me to work up a head of steam while reading him. And, for the record, I've never read his most famous novel, Ghost Story. I saw the film, which no doubt has delayed my reading of the book, but it's still kind of inexcusable. But, so you know, I've made my way through Shadowlands, If You Could See Me Now and The Hellfire Club, and I've run hot and cold on each of them. Shadowlands had a wonderful sense of place and character, but the ending was too big and neat, a complaint, in fact, that could apply to the other novels I've read, as well -- If You Could See Me Now ends with fireworks, betraying the quiet dread that preceded it, as well as an intriguingly flawed hero, and The Hellfire Club squandered a great villain and great premise on a standard thriller ending. However, I've also read a novella by Straub called Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff, from his collection Magic Terror, and although I didn't then, and don't now, quite know what to make of it, it is by a huge margin the best and most interesting piece by Straub I've read. And Straub himself has admitted to a particular fondness for that story. The evidence is strong that long horror novels are a dead end, and perhaps many of the people who write them know that, as well.

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Clive Barker's another story. His stuff was strange and unpredictable right from the beginning, and even though it was full of the kind of sex and violence that has become too much of a staple in the genre, in a carrot-that-wags-the-dog kind of way, you also never knew how far he would go. More importantly, when you read a story like "In the Hills, the Cities", with its feud between two villages acted out in the most berserk fashion imaginable, or "The Body Politic", with its sea of disembodied hands, you know full well that he's not clinging to the coattails of a past master. Even though I've always had issues with Barker -- those early stories weren't all winners, for instance, and his take on Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is, frankly, plain stupid -- he was always thrilling to read. The very act of reading his work, as a young kid, felt positively transgressive, in fact, "In the Hills, the Cities" and "The Skins of the Fathers" in particular. But guess what happened when I started reading his novels? Great ideas with a lot of padding. Barker himself has said of The Damnation Game, his first novel, that he thought at the time that he was writing a real page-turner, until he went back to it years later and found it kind of a slog. Well, me too! Due to the Hollywood backdrop, his later novel Coldheart Canyon, flies along much more smoothly, but is also not as successful. The right people live, and the right people die, and Barker's transgressions begin to seem more calculated.

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All of which sounds a great deal more negative than it probably should. The fact is, I truly like both these writers, and admire the hell out of them, too. Neither of them write to a market (though it could be argued that Barker has all but created his own market), and both stand apart from the crowded world of horror fiction as being eminent talents who, frankly, probably are better than Stephen King. But a frustration with their work remains.

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The Barker story I chose for today is a relatively recent one called "Haeckel's Tale" (it can be found, among other places, in volume 17 of Stephen Jones's Best New Horror series), and what I found sort of odd about it is that it's probably the most traditional horror story I've seen from Barker, at least as far as its structure is concerned, while retaining the outre' sex and violence he's known for. The story is told as a double flashback: it's narrated, ostensibly, by an aging scientist and philosopher who we know only as Theodore, who tells the story of a night in 1822 when his circle of philosopher pals got together, as they often did, to get drunk and talk politics, science, and so on. On that night, spurred by a discussion of a man named Montesquino (I must admit that at first I very nearly read that name as "Mansquito") who'd recently Hamburg -- where the story is set -- claiming to be a necromancer, or a "scientist" who supposedly could commune with, and raise, the dead. Completely dismissed by the majority of the group, including Theodore, one among them wonders if maybe they're not being too hasty. His name is Ernst Haeckel, and, after some pressure, he agrees to tell them why he thinks necromancy might be legitimate.

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"Then listen," Haeckel said. "What I'm about to tell you is absolutely true, though by the time I get to the end of it you may not welcome me into this room, because you may think I am a little crazy. More than a little, perhaps."

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And his story is quite something. Briefly, ten years ago, Haeckel was obliged to walk back to his hometown of Luneburg to visit his ailing father. This journey would take days, and at one point he was caught in a terrible rainstorm. Attempting to bed down among trees by the side of the road, he was warned away from doing so by an old man named Walter Wolfram, who tells him, "It would not be wise for you to sleep here tonight." The reason it wouldn't be wise is because the spot Haeckel has chosen is actually part of an old graveyard. Made uneasy by this fact, against his scientific nature, Haeckel agrees to accompany Wolfram to his own, where he will have a hot meal and a bed. He will also meet Wolfram's beautiful young wife, Elise; hear, in the night, Elise's baby crying (a baby he was not told about during the trio's conversations before bed); and secretly witness a curious exchange of money between Wolfram and a mysterious and off-putting Englishman named Doctor Skal. Later that night, Elise leaves the house. Where to, Haeckel doesn't know.

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Confronting Wolfram about the scenes he has witnessed -- which also include seeing a desperate and wild-looking Elise staring out the window while rubbing her crotch -- he learns that Elise's first husband died, and that Doctor Skal is a necromancer. Believing this "science" to be pure fraud, intended, by the perpetrator, to not only separate women from their money, but often from their clothes and, let's say, dignity, Haeckel races after Elise, imagining himself rescuing her for the depraved Doctor Skal. What he eventually finds belongs to the category "things that can't be unseen".

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It occurs to me that anyone reading this summary might come to a pretty accurate assumption about what Haeckel sees, but that's okay. As I said, this is, in its own way, a very traditional horror story, pulling its structure from the classic works of writers like M. R. James. I've never been entirely clear what the originators of this kind of second-hand narrative felt was the benefit of this structure, but, for whatever reason, it's absolute catnip to me. I think one thing it achieves is a plain telling of the story, and the horrors that lie within, while maintaining a distance by regarding everything at the level of a rumor. And the distance doesn't relate to intimacy with the characters -- Haeckel's emotions are palpable, as are Wolfram and Elise's -- but rather to reality. Again, what happens in these stories, at least the modern versions, is often made more or less explicit, but not only is it being told to you after the fact -- it's being told to you by someone who wasn't even there in the first place. He just heard it from a guy. It's like an urban legend, in that sense, and, as such, allows the mystery to remain, despite the fact that we've "seen" everything. Of course, the way such stories manage this is to basically cheat, but if it works, it works, and Barker's story works.

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Is "Haeckel's Tale" all that original? No, which is the other odd thing about it. Barker's been dining out almost exclusively on his truly formidable imagination for decades. After something like "In the Hills, the Cities" -- which I view as his signature story, despite the fact that the films Hellraiser and Candyman are based on his fiction, -- he was almost obligated to. But "Haeckel's Tale", however graphic, in a very modern way, its final pages, is very intentionally part of a form, and a tradition. His creative mind doesn't get much of a peak in, and yet he's able to find in tradition the fundamental effectiveness of the genre, and the story, ultimately, just sails.

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Meanwhile, the story I read by Peter Straub is...what is it again? It's called "A Short Guide to the City" (it can be found in his collection Houses Without Doors) and I'll be straight with you -- there's not a whole lot I can say about it. There is no story, as such, and while there are people in it, there are no characters. "A Short Guide to the City" is what the title says it is: a guide through an American city, albeit an unnamed one, that seems to be written with the intent to lure tourists, while achieving the opposite effect. This description makes it sound a little like a gimmick, but it's far from that.

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We are introduced to this city by being told about the "viaduct killer", a serial murderer who is plaguing the town:

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The viaduct killer, named for the location where his victims' bodies have been discovered, is still at large. There have been six victims to date, found by children, people exercising their dogs, lovers, or -- in one instance -- by policemen. The bodies lay sprawled, their throats slashed, partially sheltered by one or another of the massive concrete supports at the top of the slope beneath the great bridge. We assume that the viaduct killer is a resident of the city, a voter, a renter or property owner, a product of the city's excellent public school system, perhaps even a parent of children who even now attend one of its seven elementary schools, three public high schools, two parochial schools, or single nondenominational private school.

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From there, we are, indeed, guided through the city, where we learn about the different districts and enclaves, subcultures and historic buildings, as well as all their strange rites and legends. Broadly realistic in much of his description of the city, occasionally -- and increasingly, as the story goes along -- Straub will add a bit of information that is pure dark fantasy, though not, technically impossible. Such as the stories about the rich citizens owning private zoos, or the bohemian "memorists" who live in the ghetto, who memorize the work of all the artists in the area, regardless of the medium, in order to preserve the work. This is in lieu of painting on canvas, or writing on paper.

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There is much that is darker about this city, about how violence permeates it, and how its citizens deal with that violence ("The ghetto's relationship to violence is unknown"). Some handle it badly, and throughout our guide, whoever he or she may be, will pause in their tour to tell us whether or not the viaduct killer is believed to hail from a particular part of town. And then there is the bridge, the great unfinished bridge, which serves as the city's symbol of violence, due to its relation to the idea of this "interrupted or left undone". The citizens regards the "Broken Span", as some call the bridge, with a great deal of trepidation; meanwhile, the bridge seems to have exacted a psychological toll on those gaze upon it:
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In the days before access to the un-bridge was walled off by an electrified fence, two or three citizens each year elected to commit their suicides by leaping from the end of the span; and one must resort to a certain legical violence when referring to it.

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"Elected to commit their suicides"...what a wonderful, horrible, strange little turn of phrase that is. Overall, "A Short Guide to the City" is very reminiscent of the fiction of one of my favorite writers, Steven Millhauser, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Martin Dressler is about a man who builds elaborate hotels, and large chunks of the the book are given over to intricate, awed, but clinical descriptions of these amazing buildings. Many of Millhauser's stories, in fact, simply describe entirely imagined towns and societies, often with a tinge of unease. Straub, who has expressed a great admiration for Millhauser in the past, has written his own version of such a story: a narrative without people and whose true story is hidden. And while violence permeates "A Short Guide to the City", it is kept "off-screen", as it were, and is only one source of the horror. The other source, we learn, can be found in the act of waiting. You can read the story to find out what I mean by that, but I think we can all agree that this should be regarded as unusual.