Light On Dark Water

“…and then you die”

Some time back–almost five years ago, actually, which is a little disturbing–I tried to figure out why I don't have much interest in contemporary fiction. (The post is here.) One reason is that I didn't, and don't, care much for the static gloom that seems to pervade most of it, or at least most of what I've happened to see over the past thirty years or so.

Most of the stories in the The Atlantic struck me that way. They stopped publishing fiction altogether several years ago, and have recently resumed. The May issue has two stories, one by Stephen King, which only confirm my prejudice. "Once upon a time there were these miserable people. Then they died. The end." You can read them online, here (the Stephen King one–not a horror story, by the way, at least not in the usual sense) and here. The second one rather cleverly incorporates a crossword puzzle, and it's really not such a bad story, but still, it's basically in the Stoic Resentful vein. Suffice to say that I'm not going to seek out more work by either writer. (I've never read anything by Stephen King.)

Maclin Horton

30 responses to ““…and then you die””

  1. Craig

    I haven’t read any Stephen King either. I tried once to read Carrie, I think it was, but I couldn’t get into it. I don’t read much horror. Or any, really.
    I also don’t read much contemporary fiction, although at the moment I’m reading Cormac McCarthy, and I have to say he is pretty good.

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  2. Janet

    When I started teaching English to my high school kids, I realized that almost all the short stories in the HBJ textbooks (which are used everywhere) are of that ilk. I sometimes wonder if it’s not short stories in general.
    AMDG

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  3. Craig

    Correction: it was Cujo that I tried to read. It was about a dog.

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  4. Mac

    It’s the default mode of contemporary writing, much as a particular kind of sentimentality was the default mode for conventional Victorians.
    Someone who had reasonably good taste once recommended Cujo to me, but I’m in no hurry.
    The only C McCarthy I’ve read is No Country for Old Men, and I thought it was extremely good. Arguably it fits into the contemporary mold, but I think it goes deeper. And it’s a really gripping story. Which one are you reading?

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  5. Janet

    There is a student here who, not being able to distinguish between a j and a p, calls me Miss Cujo.

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  6. Mac

    Do you snarl when he says it?

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  7. Craig

    Janet, that student can’t have read Cujo either. I didn’t get far into the book, but I got far enough to know that that dog was nothing like you.
    Mac, I’m reading the “Border Trilogy”, starting with All the Pretty Horses. I am about 3/4 through at the moment, and enjoying it. His writing definitely has a bleak quality, but it is not limp the way so much contemporary fiction seems to be, and there are hints of something less bleak underneath and behind the story.

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  8. Rob G

    Back in the 80s and 90s when I was doing a fair amount of small press writing on supernatural literature, I read a lot of King. Although he has some gems among his short fictional works, his novels are better on the whole, imo. The short stories often have a certain negativity or “sting” to them that the novels don’t. He’s by no means a great writer, but he’s a pretty good storyteller, and his writing has a certain slapdash quality that, when he’s on his game, makes him quite entertaining. He also has a surprisingly keen moral sense. He has some sort of Christian background, Methodist, I think, and echoes of this occasionally come out in his work. Although I sometimes found him a little gross, I seldom found him to be morally perverse.
    I read a moderate amount of contemporary fiction, but I tend to limit it to things that I’ve read good reviews of (from reviewers I trust) or recommendations from friends. As a result I usually steer clear of nihilistic, depressing, or “hyper-realist” fiction. Just like in film, there’s a lot of good stuff out there, but you have to hunt a little.

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  9. Janet

    Maclin, I don’t usually snarl, I just bare my teeth and run my finger around under my collar.
    Craig, Thank you–unless I read the book and find out that it’s a nice, pretty dog.
    AMDG

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  10. Mac

    About Cujo

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  11. Mac

    I’m not sure when I’ll get around to reading more McCarthy–there’s just so much I want to read.
    I know you’re right, Rob, about some good stuff being out there. But I don’t have leisure to do the winnowing. As for King, I like ghost stories, but not horror or anything that has explicit gore, because I have a really hard time getting that stuff out of my mind. I can still see in my mind a couple of images from a horror comic that scared the daylights out of me when I was six or so.

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  12. Rob G

    I hear you about horror. I don’t mind it in books so much, provided it’s not overly graphic or gory, but I don’t like it in movies, and I tend to avoid graphically gory movies in general.
    Some contemporary writers I like are W. Berry, Mark Helprin, Madison Jones, Peter Taylor, William Maxwell, and Marilynne Robinson. Also, last year’s Pulitzer winner, “Tinkers,” by Paul Harding, was pretty good. Helprin, Taylor and Maxwell are very good short story writers, although the latter two are not exactly “contemporary,” as the former died in the mid-90s and the latter in 2000.
    In a recent interview Madison Jones, who’s now in his mid-80s, has implied that he’s written his last novel.

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  13. Mac

    Of those you name, I’ve only read a couple of Berry’s novels. I think I read a short story or two by Peter Taylor some years ago but I’m not sure. Berry is extremely good. Hannah Coulter is a novel that has stayed with me in much more detail than is usual for me with a novel. Except that when I try to remember the name of it my memory always presents me with Ellen Foster first–just now I had to look it up. I’ve read much praise of all the others and really ought to give them a try.
    Someone was praising Toni Morrison’s Beloved to me a little while ago. Anybody ever read it?

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  14. resident film & theology expert

    My teacher Louise Cowan admires ‘Beloved’. Years ago, I got my book club to read it. None of us enjoyed it very much.

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  15. Mac

    I’m not in a big rush to try it. Was it Toni Morrison who pronounced Bill Clinton the first black president? Maybe I’m confusing her with someone else. I hope so because that was a seriously stupid thing to say.

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  16. resident film & theology expert

    I don’t know about that. During the last presidential contest, I remarked to a Kenyan friend that Clinton was more black than Obama. Agreeing with me, he said that Obama could not dance. Then we both started giggling at how hopelessly politically incorrect this conversation was. He did win a bet with me that Obama would become President. My reason for saying that about Clinton at that moment was that I’d just seen the ‘live’ Rolling Stones film, and he’s there at a Stones concert and dancing and evidently enjoying himself, in contrast to Mrs. Clinton, who is wearing a two piece skirt and jacket suit and a pearl necklace.

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  17. Mac

    In a semi-joking way, ok, but as I recall this it was very serious and pompous. I am unfortunately at work (yes, breaking the commandment, but not with full consent of the will, as I am sort of being forced) and can’t take the time to read them, but googling “clinton first black president” turns up a host of references.

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  18. resident film & theology expert

    Yes we were joking. I can’t imagine being serious about such a thing.

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  19. Mac

    Imagine.
    Her point is not entirely clear. She seems to be saying he really resembles black men (using stereotypes that would have been suicide coming from a white conservative), and that (therefore) he is being treated like one.
    Poor Hillary. I suppose it’s hard to win if you’re a woman in that situation: suit & pearls, you’re the stiff white lady; jeans and dancing, you lack dignity.

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  20. Janet

    I wish I hadn’t just eaten when I read that.
    AMDG

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  21. resident film & theology expert

    She could be a good novelist despite having silly political ideas. Last week I went to stay with friends on the east coast. We sent to see Judy Collins. It was good songs interspersed with silly political remarks.

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  22. Mac

    Certainly. I’d have to throw away some good books and lot of good music if I were going to judge artists by their political sense, or lack thereof. I think I’ve mentioned here before that it took me a while to get over the idea that artists had some special insight into political matters. Performing artists are the worst. The guy who was recommending Beloved to me has pretty good literary judgment. As does Louise Cowan, obviously.
    I would have found Morrison’s remarks less annoying if she hadn’t used the word “trope.”

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  23. Paul

    M.R.James is good horror. If it counts as horror. If it doesn’t, I can’t imagine what would.

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  24. Mac

    I’ve only read a couple of M.R. James stories, and I would classify them as ghost rather than horror. Can’t remember now for sure which stories they were, because they were in anthologies. I think one was “Casting the Runes.” They didn’t have explicit gore, which I think of as the essential thing about horror. Either way, I thought they were very good.

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  25. Rob G

    Among fans of supernatural fiction there is a style which is sometimes called “quiet horror.” M.R. James is a good example of this (Lovecraft and S. King are not). The stories can be quite terrifying, but they neither shout at you or gross you out.

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  26. Janet

    I think the juxtaposition of the last few comments with the title of the post is rather amusing.
    AMDG

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  27. Mac

    Indeed it is.
    I’ve recently had sort of a yen to read Lovecraft again–the last time I was in my mid-20s. I wonder if that’s a bad sign.

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  28. Paul

    I read four volumes of Lovecraft’s stories as a teenager, one after another, and then again, and thought they were fantastic (in every sense), but when I tried reading him again five or six years ago, I gave up after starting and not finishing two or three stories. The suspension of disbelief just wouldn’t happen. I’ve recently been rereading M.R. James, and don’t find him as scary as I did 20 years ago, but at least he could write.

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  29. Paul

    (Which is just to say: if you do reread Lovecraft, do so with low expectations.)

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  30. Mac

    Looking back, I don’t understand why I read HPL at all at that time (mid-’70s or so). There was a set of mass-market paperbacks of his work that had nightmarish covers that gave me the creeps, so why did I read them? I suppose it was some sort of morbid wonder-how-bad-this-is fascination.
    There was a sort of retrospective, I think a review of the American Library volume, in The New Criterion a couple of years ago in which some passages appeared that definitely supported your view. The review was fairly negative, if I remember correctly.

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