'The Hunger' by Whitley Strieber
Aug. 20th, 2009 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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darkling_talesI know we don't talk about the big-name authors of modern horror much in this community, and, for my part, that's largely because I think they're rubbish. Seeing the author's name written in a blocky font twice the size of the title on a book's jacket is quite enough to make me think twice before buying it, I'm afraid to say. But every so often the occasional pleasant surprise comes my way. I had never thought of Whitley Strieber as an author who would hold any great interest for me, but I recently enjoyed The Hunger very much. Admittedly, Strieber's career trajectory does little to inspire confidence in the reader: after The Hunger, his big vampire novel, and The Wolfen, his big werewolf novel, he quite literally veered off into alien territory, becoming convinced that he himself had witnessed alien antics, and wrote several doorstop tomes challenging anyone to say otherwise. It's quite likely that I'd never have picked up The Hunger if I hadn't enjoyed Tony Scott's 80s film version so much! Fortunately, nothing in The Hunger hints at the author's future direction.
The novel starts with a gripping scene, as we find John the vampire lying in wait and then making a kill, while his lover Miriam, a much older and, we sense, more powerful vampire, does the same thing somewhere else in the city. Glutted by their feed, the satisfied pair glide down the Long Island Expressway on their way home to the virtual fortress Miriam has constructed to protect her from the dangers of New York city. But something is wrong with John. Why is he so tired? Surely the restorative 'Sleep' they must undergo every night should be enough for him? Miriam senses impending catastrophe, and struggles to avert it. Meanwhile, the workaholic scientist Sarah is beavering away in search of the key to eternal life, and appears to be on the threshold of a very important discovery indeed thanks to her experiments with rhesus macaques. It's not long before their paths all cross!
From the first chapter, Strieber impresses with his command of language, writing in a lean style that manages to be sensuous without descending into the overblown wannabe decadence that has ruined many a vampire novel from Anne Rice on down. I applaud Strieber's decision to set the action in the present day, and his use of science gives the novel a unique flavour. Personally, I usually hate it when authors crowbar Science into works of supernatural fiction - the science is usually terrible and nearly always ruins the mystique a work of fantastic fiction should possess. But The Hunger is a rare example of scientific concerns enhancing a horror novel. This is partly because Sarah's subject - the science of sleep - is in itself relatively interesting, and partly because Striebers' scientists do not operate in a void. The ambitious Sarah and her well-meaning but controlling boyfriend Tom exist in the cut-throat environment of a research hospital, and the power play between both the couple and the other scientists brings a lot to the book. (The only downside of all this is that we do have to endure quite a few descriptions of vivisection in the early stages of the novel, which almost put me off reading it entirely, even though they're not particularly gratuitous. ) But readers in search of a more old-school type of vampire needn't fear! Miriam began life in ancient Greece, and Strieber handily provides a series of vivid flashbacks to scenes from Miriam's past. We see her hunting for partners in decadent Rome, seducing John in 18th-century England, and so on. I really enjoyed these colourful (if somewhat bloody and traumatic) vignettes and they break up the rather cold, clinical depiction of modern-day New York.
I also found the author's personal take on the vampire mythos interesting. I am often irritated by the way every author of vampire fiction feels the need to tinker with traditional mythology and make up rules of their own, but Strieber's theories and additions are convincing, not to mention very chilling in places (the fate of John and his predecessors is particularly hellish.) Miriam herself is in a class of her own - John and her other lovers are all former humans that she has turned into vampires via a transfusion process - and the loneliness and confusion her state engenders makes her a more well-rounded, intriguing character than many fictional vampires, while she never gives in to the sort of grinding angst or endless moral dilemmas that some recent vampire heroes are prone to! We are never allowed to forget that she is fundamentally a predator. The other characters are far less attractive, though this is generally deliberate. I would perhaps have liked to see John better developed, as I think he dwindles too quickly into a rather pathetic (if still menacing) figure, but that's a small quibble really.
The aesthetic delights of the novel's surface are also underpinned by a capital-T theme, hinted at by the quote from Keats' Lamia on the first page. What are the relations between science, beauty and the supernatural? Should everything be studied, annotated and catalogued until the 'awful' rainbow is reduced to a dried-out specimen in a museum box? Do some creatures exist genuinely beyond the reach of science? It's a great strength of The Hunger that it doesn't just wave these questions around in a vague way, but actually attempts to answer them.All told, The Hunger provides the perfect antidote to the whiny, crushed-velvet excesses of Anne Rice or the unspeakable drippery of Twilight.
I'm quite keen to read The Wolfen now to see if it's as good. I'm not usually as keen on werewolf stories, but you never know. Have any of you read The Hunger or any of Strieber's other books? I'd be interested to hear any recommendations and/or warnings!
The novel starts with a gripping scene, as we find John the vampire lying in wait and then making a kill, while his lover Miriam, a much older and, we sense, more powerful vampire, does the same thing somewhere else in the city. Glutted by their feed, the satisfied pair glide down the Long Island Expressway on their way home to the virtual fortress Miriam has constructed to protect her from the dangers of New York city. But something is wrong with John. Why is he so tired? Surely the restorative 'Sleep' they must undergo every night should be enough for him? Miriam senses impending catastrophe, and struggles to avert it. Meanwhile, the workaholic scientist Sarah is beavering away in search of the key to eternal life, and appears to be on the threshold of a very important discovery indeed thanks to her experiments with rhesus macaques. It's not long before their paths all cross!
From the first chapter, Strieber impresses with his command of language, writing in a lean style that manages to be sensuous without descending into the overblown wannabe decadence that has ruined many a vampire novel from Anne Rice on down. I applaud Strieber's decision to set the action in the present day, and his use of science gives the novel a unique flavour. Personally, I usually hate it when authors crowbar Science into works of supernatural fiction - the science is usually terrible and nearly always ruins the mystique a work of fantastic fiction should possess. But The Hunger is a rare example of scientific concerns enhancing a horror novel. This is partly because Sarah's subject - the science of sleep - is in itself relatively interesting, and partly because Striebers' scientists do not operate in a void. The ambitious Sarah and her well-meaning but controlling boyfriend Tom exist in the cut-throat environment of a research hospital, and the power play between both the couple and the other scientists brings a lot to the book. (The only downside of all this is that we do have to endure quite a few descriptions of vivisection in the early stages of the novel, which almost put me off reading it entirely, even though they're not particularly gratuitous. ) But readers in search of a more old-school type of vampire needn't fear! Miriam began life in ancient Greece, and Strieber handily provides a series of vivid flashbacks to scenes from Miriam's past. We see her hunting for partners in decadent Rome, seducing John in 18th-century England, and so on. I really enjoyed these colourful (if somewhat bloody and traumatic) vignettes and they break up the rather cold, clinical depiction of modern-day New York.
I also found the author's personal take on the vampire mythos interesting. I am often irritated by the way every author of vampire fiction feels the need to tinker with traditional mythology and make up rules of their own, but Strieber's theories and additions are convincing, not to mention very chilling in places (the fate of John and his predecessors is particularly hellish.) Miriam herself is in a class of her own - John and her other lovers are all former humans that she has turned into vampires via a transfusion process - and the loneliness and confusion her state engenders makes her a more well-rounded, intriguing character than many fictional vampires, while she never gives in to the sort of grinding angst or endless moral dilemmas that some recent vampire heroes are prone to! We are never allowed to forget that she is fundamentally a predator. The other characters are far less attractive, though this is generally deliberate. I would perhaps have liked to see John better developed, as I think he dwindles too quickly into a rather pathetic (if still menacing) figure, but that's a small quibble really.
The aesthetic delights of the novel's surface are also underpinned by a capital-T theme, hinted at by the quote from Keats' Lamia on the first page. What are the relations between science, beauty and the supernatural? Should everything be studied, annotated and catalogued until the 'awful' rainbow is reduced to a dried-out specimen in a museum box? Do some creatures exist genuinely beyond the reach of science? It's a great strength of The Hunger that it doesn't just wave these questions around in a vague way, but actually attempts to answer them.All told, The Hunger provides the perfect antidote to the whiny, crushed-velvet excesses of Anne Rice or the unspeakable drippery of Twilight.
I'm quite keen to read The Wolfen now to see if it's as good. I'm not usually as keen on werewolf stories, but you never know. Have any of you read The Hunger or any of Strieber's other books? I'd be interested to hear any recommendations and/or warnings!
