The dark fantastic and its influences on art, music, and literature.

Brief Updates

Unbeknownst to me, the default settings on my web log made it impossible for anyone to contribute or comment without having signed up for an account. This is now resolved and anyone can now post anonymously. If you don't have an account, but want to post and don't care if we know who you are, then you can still post anonymously, but please include your name at the valediction of your message. Truly anonymous submissions will come across as spurious, at best.

M.E. and I are almost finished moving into our new apartment. There are still many things to set-up, unpack, and cat-proof, but the bulk of the project is finished. I am looking forward to being all unpacked and making the most use out of the abundance of space for work and play.

Today I thought I would discuss a biography that I am currently reading on the life of one of my favorite authors, Clive Barker.
The biography is titled THE DARK FANTASTIC and was written by Douglas E. Winter in 2001. First of all, I'll begin by saying that I haven't completed the book yet; I am on page 304 out of 501 pages of the body of the text, not counting the end notes, appendices, and indices. Although there are still 197 pages of new ground to cover, I feel that at this time I can accurately discuss some of the issues raised in this biography that I find particularly interesting and compelling.

As an author, Barker is often compared to the eponymous master of horror fiction, Stephen King. However, I could spend the rest of the life of this web log discussing the differences between the two. It should serve us all as sufficient, for now, to mention that the American-born King, who currently resides in Maine, is known for writing about the American experience, from an American perspective (particularly, Americans that grew up in the 1950s and 60s.) Conversely, Barker, born in Liverpool and residing in London, writes fiction that transcends cultural and geographic boundaries, and in the least tends to be much more cosmopolitan in his settings and character ethnicities. I realize that I have yet to tell you a thing about Barker the author, but I would like to say one final word of praise towards the author of the biography. As a fan of subversive cult art, particularly horror films and avant-garde music, I respect anyone who tries to explicate the reasons behind my and many others appreciation for these genres, an appreciation that goes well beyond mere entertainment and escapism.

The beginning chapters of the biography tell a little about the history of the Liverpool area and the Barker family, with accounts from Barker's parents. Winter walks the reader through Barker's childhood life and makes conjectures, some that seem broad and sweeping, as to which past experiences effected Barker and how. Time is devoted to Barker's influences such as Italian filmmaker Lucio Fulci (I have yet to investigate the widely popular Italian horror films of the 1970s, perhaps someday I'll get around to it.) The first really interesting section of the book concerns the now high-school-aged Barker and a consortium of friends that begin experimenting in the theater arts. Of course as Americans, we all know that the Brits eat, breathe, and sleep theater, and so it doesn't surprise me to find out that this author first found success putting pen to paper in the form of a playwright and making schoolmaster heads roll from his school projects and performances. In this way, Barker reminds me a bit of myself and also one of my favorite fictional characters, Max Fischer from Wes Anderson's film, RUSHMORE. All three of us find ourselves constantly compelled towards individual projects for personal growth and expression, and have at times had lackluster academic careers, finding that our real life experiences address many issues that school doesn't teach. Plus we each have backgrounds in the theater.

After finishing high school, Barker and some of his friends from the theater group attended University, mainly to please their parents, who still held aspirations for their children beyond the starving artist delineation. There, Barker experimented not only with more subversive theater, but also short films. During that time, living with his colleagues from the theater troupe, he wrote poetry, children's stories, fiction, scripts, and plays. Of this, his friend Doug Bradley recalls:

Plays were prepared and rehearsed; films were planned and made; paintings were constantly in progress; photographs were taken--and everything was created for their own entertainment. 'The end product didn't matter . . . it was the doing that was important.' (81)

Many of the early projects that were completed inevitably were failures. For every rousing success, there was the shame of a play that completely flopped, usually due to circumstance or not understanding the core audience. I am really fond of reading about many of the experimental techniques Barker and company used in various performance scenarios such as having every character hold a candle to provide the only stage lighting, or creating an over-four-hour-long script to a play that isn't meant to all be performed, only in pastiche form. Winter includes a great quote from Barker as regards the art of directing:

A director is the loneliest creature on God's earth. He knows what's good and bad in a show, or he should if he's worth his salt, and he has to carry that information around with him and keep smiling . . . The job isn't about succeeding . . . it's about learning not to fall on your sodding face. (103)

I certainly feel this way when directing a musical ensemble, putting together a recital, playing in a quintet, etc.; it is a very great thing to hear a famous director corroborate ideas that I already had--that a positive performance experience, in some way, is the most important aspect to get out of any artistic performance. We build our careers on a succession of positive performances that add up to the sum of our abilities and acquired knowledge as performing artists. I attribute a lot of this viewpoint to the guidance of my teacher at Eastman, Don Harry.

As someone who myself submits to artistic projects for the sake of diversion (such as musical composition,) it is comforting to find out that Barker's first literary fiction, the critically acclaimed (as well as personal favorite of mine) BOOKS OF BLOOD (1984) were written as a diversion during the early stages of his involvement as playwright and director for a London-based theater company. Before you scoff at the title, let me briefly tell you about the book; BOOKS OF BLOOD, Volumes one through six, are a collection of short fiction. Each story is unique and not necessarily horror, moving back-and-forth from serious, dark fantasy to satire and wistful humor, they represent an exercise in creative writing and variation. Winter hits the nail on the head when he discusses the reason for my defensive stance in discussing horror fiction:

The 'horror' novel had come to look, and read, like the literary equivalent of canned soup . . . Most 'horror' novels of the 80s offered a message as conservative as their morality: Conform. Behave. Just say no. 'Horror' had become another palliative for the masses--a literature of happy endings, and incessantly didactic fiction with minor moral lessons, most of them reactionary and laced with bigotry. Just as MTV offered a sophomoric subjugation of rebellious rock-and-roll to the almighty dollar, the black-covered paperback had become a tidy commercial construct, a creature of form rather than substance, for the most part as hollow of content as the mindless marketplace was willing to accept. (152)

This, to me, explains how I can love Stephen King, Clive Barker, etc. alongside great authors such as Vonnegut, Fitzgerald, Salinger, Hemingway, Joyce, etc. It also explains why I can watch the EVIL DEAD films 500 plus times, but I won't watch the FRIDAY THE 13TH films. I think that if you were to read King or Barker, you too would find plenty of artistic, painterly ideas, experimentation in expression, and intellectual concepts for juxtaposition and meditation beyond that which can be easily categorized and sold for mass consumption. For even the title, BOOKS OF BLOOD, contains a double meaning, as Barker states in the prologue to the collection, "Each of us is a book of blood, whenever we're opened, we're red." I realize that this quote is not too deep, but it does exhibit a playfulness and comfort with language that I find refreshing in a 'horror' author and necessary in an author of fiction; an author is someone who can merge and synthesize diverse writing styles to communicate ideas and expressions, and I aspire to that model of expertise in my own professional life.

I think at this point I've written too much for this entry, and I've grown weary of writing. Anyway, the rest of the biography continues in the same way, describing Barker's various other projects, including two other favorite works of mine: CABAL and TALES OF THE HELL-BOUND HEART. Before I sign off, I would like to include a few more quotes from the books that I enjoy:

{This explains why I don't like most PG-13 horror/suspense movies:}

Horror fiction without violence doesn't do a great deal for me. I think that death and wounding need to be in the air. You've got the reader on this ghost train ride, and there's got to be something vile at the end of it, or else why aren't you on the rollercoaster instead? And I like to be able to deliver the violence. There's never going to be any evasion. Whether it be sexual subject matter, whether it be violence, I'm going to show it as best as I can. (167)

{On the value of subversion:}

. . . fantastic fiction offers the writer exceptional possibilities . . . and I strongly believe a piece of work (be it play, book, poem) should be judged by how enthusiastically it seizes the opportunity to do what it can do uniquely. The literature of the fantastic--and the movies and the paintings--can reproduce, at its best, the texture of experience more closely that any "naturalistic" work, because it can embrace the complexity of the world we live in. (191)

{Final thoughts to ponder:}

I've always been interested in how we pursue pleasure, and how soon the pleasurable road turns into a cul-de-sac. Then we have to turn around and look elsewhere. It's the law of diminishing returns. (197)

JM