Old school gothic stories.
I'm going to talk a bit here about old school gothic stories. This is a preface to the beginning of my new horror documentation. The thing is; I hate gothic stories. I hate the way they are written. I hate the language they use.
The stories are supposed to be all creepy and then they just don't pay off. The stories oftentimes deal with ghosts, which aren't my favorite subject. For some reason, I can suspend disbelief for just about anything, werewolves, vampire, zombis, but ghosts I just can't do it.
I also don't like the old school stories because they are or feel so hokey. The ideas of alchemey and witchcraft just don't amaze me. The old science ideas that come up in this literature seems so unreal to me, that it causes me trouble. I even try to read the stories as a product of their time. I still can't get into them.
The last thing that bothers me about these kinds of stories, is they are so often written in letter form and break down the fourth wall. They address the reader and play with them. I don't like this in books. It annoys me to no end, for the gentle reader to be addressed so much. I generally dislike in all literature that it is found in, but it seems more prevelant in 1700's and early 1800's literature. Give me a break.
But anyway. I've made my rant against old gothic literature. Now I must read some. (Actually, I've already read a particular story, I'm just waiting until next week to do my discussion of it. Needless to say, I'm going to have some issues with it."
Goodbye old gentle reader.
Comments
Try to read past the style and absorb the 'deep structure'. It isn't easy. One way that might make these more palpable to you is to try to write a story using the Gothic voice...you start to appreciate the manipulation of language once you see how hard it is to compose that way. But you're right that the storytelling feels old-fashioned and rigid.
Posted by: Mike Arnzen | July 25, 2009 04:48 PM