Horror Literature through History

by Matt Cardin

  “Xélucha”: A Dark and Decadent Parable

  Shiel’s “Xélucha” (1896), published first in Shapes in the Fire: Being a Mid-Winter-Night’s Entertainment in Two Parts and an Interlude, uses abstruse vocabulary and a mythic depiction of London to build a dark and decadent parable about the powers of female sexuality.

  The story’s events are from the diary of Mérimée, an aged roué once known as a “Destroyer of Women,” who is now dead. As Mérimée roams the streets of London, he recollects his dead friend Cosmo’s pursuit of the feminine ideal, Xélucha. He encounters a woman—apparently a prostitute—and accompanies her to her house, which is lavishly furnished, though with a few discordant details. There, after an intense discussion of life and philosophy, of creation, intellect, and will, Mérimée recognizes the woman and declares that she is Xélucha, though she insists that Xélucha died of cholera at Antioch ten years previously. Mérimée rushes to embrace her but is rendered unconscious, and when he awakens, it is by himself, in a room of the utmost poverty.

  Shiel’s language is deliberately abstruse, allusive, dense, wild, and even playful. This matches the setting, for it is a London as conceived by Robert Louis Stevenson and presented in the New Arabian Nights (1882), a city cosmopolitan and urbane yet ancient and decadent, where the world’s mysterious travelers cross paths and share adventures. The narrative likewise owes much to Edgar Allan Poe, and indeed may be seen as a retelling of “Ligeia” (1838), a statement of feminine will and its survival and eventual triumph, even after death. In addition, as Shiel’s subtitle indicates, “Xélucha” is but a part of an entertainment; it is in fact the first of the three shapes, all involving aspects of femininity and the female.

  Richard Bleiler

  Shiel liked to tell the story of how his father once took him to the uninhabited islet of Redonda and crowned him king, thus entitling him to create the mythical literary kingdom of Redonda in England, bestowing theoretical titles on many of his friends. That institution still exists, although it is possible that Shiel borrowed and adapted the anecdote, along with the plot of his novel The Lord of the Sea (1900), from Camille Debans’s Les Malheurs de John Bull (1884; translated as The Misfortunes of John Bull), whose hero assumes the kingship of the uninhabited island of Pola and similarly distributes titles to his associates.

  Shiel’s early literary endeavors were heavily influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and the French writers who had adapted Poe’s work as key exemplars for the late nineteenth-century Decadent movement. Prince Zaleski (1895) features a detective whose lifestyle and posturing are based on Poe’s detective Auguste Dupin, but extrapolated to extremes of bizarrerie in the spirit of Decadent style and lifestyle. Shapes in the Fire (1897), similarly issued by Yellow Book publisher John Lane, performs the same function for several of Poe’s other subjects, with an unparalleled flamboyance; alongside five stories and a narrative poem it provides a literary manifesto, “Premier and Maker,” in the form of a dialogue between an alter ego of Shiel and a prime minister identifiable as Lord Rosebery. The cream of Shiel’s short fiction is contained in the collection, including “Xélucha,” in which the eponymous “splendid harlot” returns from the grave in the guise of a Piccadilly whore, and “Vaila,” a vivid transfiguration of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The stories in The Pale Ape and Other Pulses (1911) are watered down by concessions to convention, but Here Comes the Lady (1928) contains transfigurations of Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” and “A Descent into the Maëlstrom” in “The Primate of the Rose” and “Dark Lot of One Saul.”

  Shiel’s only full-length Decadent fantasy, The Purple Cloud (1901), is a transfiguration of the biblical book of Job, in which the population of the Earth is destroyed, except for Adam Jeffson, who spends seventeen years as emperor of the empty Earth, assailed more sharply than any potentate of old by the classic Decadent afflictions of impuissance, ennui, and spleen (weakness, listlessness, and bad temper), before he is obliged to move on by the discovery of a female born as the world died and raised in ignorance of its plight. Stephen King has cited The Purple Cloud as one of the inspirations for his apocalyptic novel The Stand, and Eugene Thacker has identified it as arguably “the text that establishes the blueprint” for the type of modern story in which fogs or mists are portrayed “as gothic, malevolent forces, often that serve as cover for ghosts, monsters, or unknown miasmas,” with examples of texts that follow this blueprint including James Herbert’s The Fog (1975), Stephen King’s The Mist (1980), and director John Carpenter’s movie The Fog (1980) (Thacker 2011, 83, 84).

  Few of Shiel’s other novels contain substantial elements of horror, although The Last Miracle (1906) and Dr Krasinski’s Secret (1929) feature the imprisonment and torture of innocents by seeming villains possessed of allegedly respectable ideals. In 1975 Arkham House published a collection of the thirteen stories that Shiel considered his best, Xélucha and Others, some three decades after the book had first been announced. This was followed by a second Arkham House collection, Prince Zaleski and Cummings King Monk, in 1977.

  Brian Stableford

  See also: Arkham House; Dark Fantasy.

  Further Reading

  Bleiler, E. F. 1999. “Shiel, M. P. (1865–1947).” In Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day, 2nd ed., edited by Richard Bleiler, 697–704. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

  Morse, A. Reynolds, ed. 1983. Shiel in Diverse Hands: A Collection of Essays on M. P. Shiel. Morse Foundation.

  Stableford, Brian. 1995. “The Politics of Evolution: Philosophical Themes in the Speculative Fiction of M. P. Shiel.” In Algebraic Fantasies and Realistic Romances: More Masters of Science Fiction, 73–98. The Milford Series: Popular Writers of Today 54. San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press.

  Thacker, Eugene. 2011. In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy Vol. 1. Winchester, UK: Zero Books.

  THE SHINING

  The Shining (1977) is a horror novel by American author Stephen King. It is King’s third published novel, following Carrie (1974) and ’Salem’s Lot (1975). Its success established King’s prominence in the horror genre and introduced motifs that recur throughout his body of work, such as childhood trauma, uncanny psychic abilities, and anxiety regarding creative freedom.

  The novel depicts the plight of the Torrance family during their overwinter stay as caretakers in Colorado’s isolated Overlook Hotel. The Torrances—Jack, Wendy, and five-year-old Danny—experience horrors both human and supernatural as they unearth the hotel’s monstrous history. Danny’s latent psychic power (the eponymous “Shining”) provides fuel for the hotel’s evil, while his father begins to unravel mentally under the pressure of isolation, alcoholism, and writer’s block. Eventually the secure family dynamic degenerates as Jack is driven into a murderous rage directed at his family, whom he sees as a barrier to his own happiness and literary success.

  As with so many of King’s novels, it is possible to trace autobiographical links between author and protagonist. In the case of The Shining, King concedes the association, admitting that the novel addresses his own ambivalent feelings toward his young family at the start of his writing career. In an interview with Playboy, King spoke of feeling “pressure” and “experiencing a range of nasty emotions from resentment to anger to occasional outright hate, even surges of mental violence that, thank God, I was able to suppress” (Norden 1988, 32). Pressure and suppression are key themes in The Shining, where the ever-building pressure within the hotel boiler serves as an external metaphor for the violence rising within Jack.

  The novel’s psychological subtext is overt. The Shining offers a Freudian triangle in microcosm, where the struggle between son and father is cast against the blank canvas of the hotel and its snowy surroundings. So central is Sigmund Freud to the plot of The Shining that, when Steven Bruhm makes the point that the contemporary Gothic is distinguished by its self-conscious application of psychoanalytic theory, he
uses this novel as the definitive example (see Bruhm 2002, 263–268).

  Though The Shining is a foundational text of modern horror fiction, it is perhaps more widely known in its cinematic adaptation. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, the 1980 film is regarded as a classic of horror cinema, though King himself famously dislikes Kubrick’s interpretation. The most famous scene, in which a deranged Jack Nicholson demolishes a bathroom door with an axe, regularly tops lists of “scariest scenes of all time.” The film itself has occasioned much scholarly debate. The 2012 documentary film Room 237 presents several elaborate analyses of the film, ranging from a reading of it as a commentary on the Native American genocide to “proof” that Kubrick was involved in the moon-landing hoax.

  Such obsessive devotion to Kubrick’s film often overshadows the impact that King’s novel had on horror fiction. As the most influential haunted house story since Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959), The Shining helped launch a new era of horror. Such is the power of The Shining that when King returned to Danny Torrance nearly four decades later in the sequel, Doctor Sleep (2013), he did so with trepidation, admitting that “nothing can live up to the memory of a good scare” (King 2013, 484).

  Neil McRobert

  See also: The Haunted House or Castle; The Haunting of Hill House; Psychological Horror; Unreliable Narrator.

  Further Reading

  Bruhm, Steven. 2002. “The Contemporary Gothic: Why We Need It.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Gothic, edited by Jerrold Hogle, 259–276. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

  Indick, Ben P. 1982. “King and the Literary Tradition of Horror and the Supernatural.” In Fear Itself, edited by Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller, 153–167. San Francisco: Underwood-Miller. Rpt. in Children’s Literature Review, vol. 194, 2015, edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale.

  King, Stephen. 2013. Doctor Sleep. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

  Luckhurst, Roger. 2013. The Shining. London: British Film Institute.

  Norden, Eric. 1988. “Interview with Stephen King.” In Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with Stephen King, edited by Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller, 24–56. New York: McGraw-Hill.

  SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS

  The Shirley Jackson Awards were created to acknowledge excellence in the literary genres of the dark fantastic, horror, and psychological suspense. Named after the late Shirley Jackson, the Shirley Jackson Awards also acknowledge the lasting impact that Jackson has had on modern writers of numerous genres. The Shirley Jackson Awards thus honor the contributions of Jackson while simultaneously recognizing those works that best carry on her legacy in fiction.

  First presented in 2007 with approval from the Jackson family and delivered every year at Readercon (a science fiction convention established in the 1980s by Bob Colby and Eric Van) in Burlington, Massachusetts, the Shirley Jackson Awards are given for six categories: novel, novella, novelette, short fiction, single-author collection, and edited anthology. The awards are voted on by a five-person jury that consists of academics, critics, editors, and writers. An advisory board offers input and recommendations to the jurors, but does not have voting power. There is also a board of directors made up of the jurors from the 2007 awards and the administrator. The awards maintain a website and social media presence for publicity purposes. Previous recipients of the awards include Alison Littlewood, Greer Gilman, Jeffrey Ford, Elizabeth Hand, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Yoko Ogawa, Lucius Shepard, Gemma Files, Steve Duffy, Lynda E. Rucker, Kelly Link, Simon Strantzas, and Laird Barron.

  Despite their relatively young age, the Shirley Jackson Awards have nonetheless served an important role in the field of horror literature by honoring talented authors of genre-specific fiction who might otherwise be overlooked. The awards have received praise from publishers, commentators, and academics alike, with many noting the significance the awards have had on the genres they acknowledge. Likewise, the awards have helped raise awareness of Jackson’s own literary accomplishments, most notably “The Lottery” (1948), The Haunting of Hill House (1959), and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), which did not receive much attention outside of horror circles for many years after her death, until the transition to the twenty-first century. Although the awards are not the sole indicator of an increased awareness of Jackson’s literature in recent years, they are certainly an important one that has helped secure her position as a major figure in American literature. With an impressive list of recipients and nominees every year, along with a rise of appreciation for Jackson’s work, the Shirley Jackson Awards have provided an important outlet for the horror fiction community and are likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

  Joel T. Terranova

  See also: Barron, Laird; Bram Stoker Award; Dark Fantasy; Gaiman, Neil; Hand, Elizabeth; The Haunting of Hill House; Jackson, Shirley; King, Stephen; Link, Kelly; Psychological Horror; World Fantasy Award.

  Further Reading

  Miller, Laura. 2010. “Is Shirley Jackson a Great American Writer?” Salon, July 14. http://www.salon.com/2010/07/14/shirley_jackson.

  The Shirley Jackson Awards. Accessed December 1, 2016. http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org.

  “A SHORT TRIP HOME”

  “A Short Trip Home” is a ghost story by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, written in October 1927 and first published in The Saturday Evening Post on December 17 of that year. Its plot concerns the rescue of Ellen Baker, a young female student at home for Christmas vacation who has been seduced by an incubus—dead man Joe Varland, who in life had been a petty swindler of women traveling alone by train. At the story’s climax, narrator Eddie Stinson defeats Varland’s ghost by professing his love for Ellen, freeing her from Varland’s malign supernatural influence.

  Recalling Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, whose ambiguous ending it both evokes and simplifies, the story reads as a Gothic allegory dramatizing sexual corruption and the redemption of innocence through love. Whereas James treated these themes with characteristic obscurity, Fitzgerald’s story presents them in terms of a fairy tale–like triumph of good over evil. Varland’s phantom incubus, like the would-be sex-ghosts of Turn of the Screw, “possesses” his innocent victim, making Ellen complicit in her own moral destruction. By this means, Fitzgerald’s story develops a symbolic equation between supernatural threat, corrupt adult (implicitly male) sexuality, working-class criminality, and death.

  The way the rhetoric of romance (“bewitchment,” falling “under the spell” of the beloved [Fitzgerald 2003, 372, 376]), which characterizes Stinson’s feelings for Ellen, lapses perversely into signs of sexual/supernatural predation/seduction in the story’s symbolic register is one of the story’s more disturbing elements, since it suggests that redemptive love and corrupting sexuality are part of the same ill-defined continuum. The story’s ambiguous evocation of “home,” which is not a place of safety, but a place of danger, associated both with Ellen’s seduction and with the ghost’s criminality, is similarly unsettling. Stinson’s heroic rescue of his demonically “possessed” beloved from Varland’s incubus has the quality of a successful exorcism, but it also suggests that the story may have been a wish-fulfillment for Fitzgerald, who was coping with his wife Zelda Fitzgerald’s increasingly worsening schizophrenia throughout the period of the story’s composition.

  Fitzgerald regarded this critically neglected tale highly enough to include it in his fourth collection of short fiction, Taps at Reveille (1935), a companion volume to his novel Tender Is the Night (1934), which, published at the height of the Great Depression, was a commercial and critical failure. “A Short Trip Home” is noteworthy for being Fitzgerald’s first foray into the ghost story genre, and also because Fitzgerald repurposed the story’s description of Varland’s ghost to describe another street hustler in Tender Is the Night. Although Fitzgerald typically sets his fiction in a realistic social world, his writing is also widely marked by forays into surrealism, romance, and fantasy, notable not
only in this story but also in works such as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (1922; loosely adapted to film in 2008) and “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” (1922).

  Brian Johnson

  See also: Incubi and Succubi; Possession and Exorcism; The Turn of the Screw.

  Further Reading

  Buell, L. 1982. “The Significance of Fantasy in Fitzgerald’s Fiction.” In The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: New Approaches in Criticism, edited by Jackson R. Bryer, 23–38. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

  Fitzgerald, F. Scott. 2003. The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection. Edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Scribner.

  Petry, A. H. 1989. Fitzgerald’s Craft of Short Fiction: The Collected Stories 1920–1935. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press.

  “SILENT SNOW, SECRET SNOW”

  Written by the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, novelist, and short story writer Conrad Aiken, “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” was first published in Virginia Quarterly Review in 1932 and later collected in The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken in 1960. Perhaps Aiken’s best-known story, it is a recognized classic that stands as one of the most widely read works of American short fiction from the twentieth century.

  “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” focuses on twelve-year-old Paul Hasleman, an intelligent boy who is gradually and semi-deliberately becoming estranged from everybody and cut off from his world. He envisions snows that cover everything and muffle all noises, obscuring footfalls of postmen; ultimately, the snows communicate with him, sending him messages only he can perceive. Paul’s distracted behavior causes concerns for his parents, and they summon a doctor, who can find nothing physically wrong with him, but the snows are telling him what to do, and he retreats to his room. When his mother knocks on his door, he yells for her to go away, that he hates her. This said, his world fills completely with the snow that only he can perceive.