Two ‘horror’ novels that have inspired me are Mary Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus’ and Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula.’ Though I did not read them until after I had seen various movies based on them both. In fact I didn’t realize they were adaptations of novels until my late-teens.
I presently have collections of Mary Shelly and Bram Stoker on my Kindle. Getting compete works appeals to me as both of these writers have been reduced to their single hit – so reduced that often people don’t think they wrote anything else. Needless to say they did but nothing else captured the public eye the way their big hits did.
I have read the big hits a few times now, both recently, and also read some of their other fiction. I have to say I was both elated and disappointed. Brilliant plots, interesting characters but writing styles have changed so much I find myself slogging through the prose.
I found it hard to divest myself of the movies as well. The Frankenstein novel is structured as memory, as opposed to a action, we get telling. The language is often highflown romantic intellectually purple prose. There is no real Igor in the novel 😦 Plus the creature is rather articulate. It is the plot that holds together, where as the writing is annoying. Her other fiction, that I’ve read, continues this intellectually purple prose of the finest feelings of truest love.
Some of the same holds true for Stoker – Dracula is told as letters & journal entries – very much the style of the time. But every letter writer sounds like the same person. The grand chase scene is endless with a series of delays, snow storms etc to the final confrontation. Much of the vampire mythos is set out: garlic, wooden stakes, sleeping in coffins, & bats. Again too much telling.
Movie versions have done well by both these basic plots and getting back to the original source material to see where it all came from has been fun. Seeing how these big successes affected the lives of the writers has also been informative. Today we have the same high concept writing/ movie making where often the concept is frittered away by the telling.
What inspires me is that the fantastic can be made real with the right world-building & consistency of concept. The authors were invested the reality of their creatures even if they failed to fully develop the character. If you haven’t read either of these it is time you did 🙂
Fiends
when we were fiends
there was nothing that didn’t excite us
the sacred hunger for the better blast
the color unseen
the uncommon lunge from fire to fire
clumsily lurching from profane to evil
ugly became true beauty
the more confrontational the surface
the deeper the meaning had to be
we would laugh giggle sneer
at those lunching on luncheon meats
not realizing we were the fiends
who made mockery of striving
up some corporate ladder
we would sweep past that boundary
we were going to create substance
that would last longer than the Beatles
have more cruelty than war
drink more blood than Dracula
we were the righteous vanguard
to take fiends into the next level
we would stay up all night
smoking toking stroking
our eyes marbles in sand
rolling our way through
begrudging sunrise light
to diners thick with fusty cozy fish smell
for crack of morning eggs
swimming in blessed grease
swearing we were bound
heart to heart in our struggle
against this culture that wanted
to deny fiends proper place at any table
we tripped off to university
jumping courses in midterm
anthropology to comparative religions
seeking a way to alter
the substrata of this messed up
over commercialized culture
fiends forced to deal with
the mundane march of shoes to job
we wore the sheen of clock time
kept our fiendishness to ourselves
letting it out in mosh pits
letters to the editor rages open stages
to keep the brain dancing
while we saw others melt into safety
we sit just out of the afternoon sun
don’t want skin cancer
no one wants aging fiends with lesions
waiting for our green tea to steep
looking with longing at sweets
at sweet young things
everyone is younger than yesterday
striving to be fiend of the moment
pierced bleached mohawked
wearing the sneer we invented
looking at us with the disdain
we copyrighted so long ago
even if they don’t recognize it
in their sacred lunge for the new
we are still fiends
October scary poetry every Wednesday & Thursday
November 15: Hot Damn! It’s a Queer Slam – 8p.m. – Buddies In Bad Time Theatre, Toronto
http://www.queerslam.com
every Tuesday
June – Capturing Fire 2019 – Washington D.C. 
capfireslam.org
Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee in Washington at 2018’s capfireslam.org – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
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