Horrors

I grew up convinced that I was a scaredy cat, or at the very least, so completely disinterested in violence and horror that I thought I couldn't handle them. Horror movies, in particular, held a very clear revulsion for me, to the point of dismissal without examination of course.

It was in the 90s, when Anne Rice's work became such a marketing juggernaut even among some of my friends, that I first began to have an inkling I might have more tolerance than I would have imagined. I remember so distinctly the time TEO said to me that she was scared by one of Rice's books. The concept was genuinely surprising, even alien, to me.

I got that Rice wrote about monsters, sure. But it was WRITING, for one thing. Just pages in one's hand. I was no more afraid of the words of violence than I was emotionally engaged by the passages where the characters got sexy, or angry--or afraid in their own right.

I grew up in one of the Cities of Poe; but he's never ever scared me. His lyricism, and the culture's romanticism of "gothic" horror, are too engaging in other ways for me to really feel much "boo" even when one gets into the ghastly descriptions of death.

I figured out, apparently, I have a strong stomach for *conjured* images of fear. Maybe because I'm a writer myself; or perhaps I am just made of sterner stuff than I'd realized.

In film, I have certainly been able to consume some awfully visceral stuff. But I refuse to consume it more than once. "Natural Born Killers", "Pulp Fiction", "Sin City" - I've seen and even enjoyed these films, and some even more violent and hard (see also, "Blood and Sand" - yowch), but their relentless effect means once is enough. I will never watch these films again, and never have. Sin City in particular I found to be an astoundingly great movie I warned at least one friend - guess who ... - just not to see at all, but with fulsome praise for how good it really was.

Violence in film maintains a powerful effect upon me, a distinct and physical response I do not ever want to feel blunted. I accept the validity of violence in art and creative works (for a great piece exemplifying this, watch "A History of Violence" by Cronenberg - what an excellent production, wow), but don't want to ever accustom myself to its extremest expressions. I may never buy the DVDs of "Blood and Sand" for this reason, much as I enjoyed it.


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All this gets me thinking about the violence I have myself produced. My old barbarian is NOT a nice fellow, and at times perpetrates acts of quite shocking brutality. I wrote that, I did it.

Typical of my symptoms as a writer, of my inability to connect myself in certain ways to my own work, I find that I don't feel any more fear or recoil reading my own battle scenes or executions than I did reading Anne Rice's scenes of monsters killing puny humans. I am deeply emotional about my work, and I respond to its stimuli very acutely. But the violence doesn't get to me at all. It was necessary stuff, it had to be written, I was the one who had to write it.

All I can do with it now is warn my friends and family THEY DON'T HAVE TO READ IT.

If I am made of sterner stuff than I thought when I was younger: my writing is pretty strong medicine itself. One doesn't have to take it, and I'm not offering spoonfuls of sugar. I offer just this: freedom from having to consume it. There are several people I love, who've been so immensely supportive of me in the work I have done, whom I have told in no uncertain terms; this probably isn't for you. You don't have to go there just because we are family, or friends, or what have you. I've certainly told a number of folks to keep their kids from reading this, too. I wouldn't have my nieces, even the elder one, worrying about Aunt Diane's novel for some time to come, frankly. Those are NOT written to the standard this blog is. They're uncensored, as it were, and not appropriate for all.

I'm proud of what I've done. But nothing in the work demands the attention of those who accidentaly (or even by choice!) happen to share my life in one way or another. My accomplishment isn't gauged by how many people I can make pass out, or stand the hairs up on the backs of their necks.

(It actually may have me unintentionally snubbing people. I'm so stuck on "you really, seriously don't HAVE to read my book" that I haven't offered it to anyone, even those who might like it. With those who have asked me, I have joyously been happy to share bits or even drafts of the work as it has progressed. But I haven't poked at anyone to pester them to "lookit! lookit!")


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Anyway, so horror and violence. Interesting things to study one's own reactions to. And relationships with.