some modern Oxford gothic tales
Sep. 15th, 2008 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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darkling_talesLJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dfordoom)
I’ve finally come to the end of The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales - I’d put it aside quite a while back with half a dozen stories to go, not having too much interest in the more modern tales. And it appears I was right to be suspicious of the recent stories. Mostly what they succeed in doing is to point up the decline of the gothic tale.
Alejandra Pizarnik’s The Bloody Countess is another version of the life of Erzebet Bathory, and is little more than a catalogue of gruesome tortures.
The Gospel According to Mark by Jorge Luis Borges is much more successful with a genuine creepiness.
Secret Observations on the Goat-Girl by Joyce Carol Oates confirms my belief that she’s the most overrated of all modern writers.
Patrick McGrath’s Blood Disease is clever and ironic, but cleverness and irony don’t really sit well with the gothic, and it’s ultimately a rather sterile exercise. Linking malaria, pernicious anaemia and vampirism is interesting I guess.
Isabel Allende’s If You Touched My Heart is a tale of two imprisonments, and it’s moderately effective.
dfordoom)I’ve finally come to the end of The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales - I’d put it aside quite a while back with half a dozen stories to go, not having too much interest in the more modern tales. And it appears I was right to be suspicious of the recent stories. Mostly what they succeed in doing is to point up the decline of the gothic tale.
Alejandra Pizarnik’s The Bloody Countess is another version of the life of Erzebet Bathory, and is little more than a catalogue of gruesome tortures.
The Gospel According to Mark by Jorge Luis Borges is much more successful with a genuine creepiness.
Secret Observations on the Goat-Girl by Joyce Carol Oates confirms my belief that she’s the most overrated of all modern writers.
Patrick McGrath’s Blood Disease is clever and ironic, but cleverness and irony don’t really sit well with the gothic, and it’s ultimately a rather sterile exercise. Linking malaria, pernicious anaemia and vampirism is interesting I guess.
Isabel Allende’s If You Touched My Heart is a tale of two imprisonments, and it’s moderately effective.
