Readers here may recall my June 8th entry to the blog where I pleaded for writers to inject some "art" into what they do. This stirred up a lot of debate (a little more than I was expecting) and into that debate, a little late for the party, was Richard Gavin. He emailed me his thoughts on the subject and I thought they were interesting enough to post here on the blog for all to see and perhaps comment upon (should anyone feel the need). I'll save my own thoughts on what's he's said until the end, but Richard has always been one of the most thoughtful commentators on the genre, and his views, even if not shared, are always fascinating reads (something about which I'm sure you'll all agree).
So, without further ado . . .
Your Art vs. Entertainment blog entry broached an important topic, and the shared viewpoint that we hold tends to place us in the vast minority. But that does not mean our intuitions are incorrect.
It would be one thing if the authors who are scribbling phone-book-length novels about sexy lycanthropic CIA agents were getting paid seven-figures to do so, but the reality (as you know) is that ninety-five percent of authors don't earn their keep with the written word. This being the case, why slum one's talent by cranking out pap that will be out-of-print in a year or two anyway?
Quality will out, and a hallmark of quality horror literature is that it uses fear as a means to rend the scales that often grow over our eyes. Terror is the sensitizer --- albeit a harsh one --- that propels one's consciousness out of a puny reality construct. It makes us Aware; Aware of the world's myriad perils, yes, but also of its strange beauties and profound truths. There is a metaphysical spine that braces the best horror tales. Arthur Machen, for example, used some of his tales as "plays" to dramatize his mystical insights into the Hidden. I try to do the same, and I sense this same sincerity in your own work.
This isn't about a "shared reality" per se, for the paradise of one is another's purgatory. Where these truths do overlap is in the pure intentions of their conveyors, which are the writers that pen such stories. We toss our impressions of the cosmos out into the world, unsure of what reaction, if any, they will receive. When people react, it means that these impressions impacted them deeply. Horror fiction is primordial fiction. It is the trapdoor that enables both writer and reader to plumb the depths of the Unseen, to trawl up whatever experiences resonate with them, and then share those pearls with others. To many the pearls gleaned from the macabre will be viewed as nothing more than repellent, ill. But to those mutants who find their faith in the shadows, these images are sacred. They are pearls of great price.
Perhaps if authors of dark fiction regarded themselves more as spelunkers of the psyche rather than simple entertainers we would have more profound literature. But then again, maybe it is just as well that very few go beneath the surface, to borrow your title. This rare integrity and daring makes these tales all the more precious and compelling.
Here endeth the rant. ;-)
Mr Gavin's thoughts echo my own in many ways, as no doubt the readers here know. For my own fiction, even when that fiction doesn't conform to the world-view that ran so strongly throughout it earlier in my career, I always have something I'm try to do to push the genre forward in some way. There's some message I want to impart upon the world, and rather than buy a soap box and stand in the middle of the city's square I instead use fiction as my delivery agent. It feels to me a waste to spend the time necessary to craft a story properly on a story that holds no deeper meaning to me. I'd like to think that anything that doesn't have that meaning for me will have no meaning for anyone else, and the story, as good as it may be, will ultimately be forgotten. How many summer blockbuster films have we all seen where that is the case? Forgotten mere moments after the end-credits roll?
But I also must recognise, begrudgingly, that there are people who want this out of their reading and writing. For them, I suppose, the plots and characters bring a level of interest and instil a level of enjoyment that is enough for some people. For myself, I don't enjoy those stories, but that isn't to say they aren't difficult to write and to master. I suspect they can be just as hard, but at the end of the day they just feel to me as though they are missing something vital, that instilled sense of wonderment.
It frustrates me sometimes to see my peers not looking at this the way I do, perhaps because the idea of doing something "artful" seems to me to be so tied to the act of writing. When I consider those writers I enjoy most, all seem to see the form as I do (insofar as I can tell) and I don't like feeling as though anyone is selling him- or herself short.
To each his own, I suppose. As I'm constantly reminded, Charles L Grant sides with the "other side", so who am I to argue?
