Talking In Obscurity, "The Hellbound Heart," by Clive Barker

 

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This is a special episode of Talking In Obscurity. James Reinhardt, who has written reviews before on WIO, joins Steven and me in discussing Clive Barker's "The Hellbound Heart." This is the story that inspired the movie "Hellraiser."

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Author's Website: http://www.clivebarker.info/

"The Exorcist" by William Peter Blatty--Fiction Review

Time for some more horror of the supernatural bent, my dear Obscurists. Make sure to read this review late at night and in a dark room because we’re talking about “The Exorcist” by William Peter Blatty.

***The Non-Spoiler part of this review***

What I love about this book:

I’m a sucker for any horror story, and “The Exorcist” is one of those arch horror stories that stick in people’s minds. This novel has a threatening atmosphere that just keeps ratcheting higher and higher. The fact that this is all happening to an innocent little girl makes it all the scarier, especially when the body horror starts.

Despite being a book about religious terror and demon possession, it feels grounded in reality—mostly. The characters’ concerns and doubts are all authentic, which is nice. If everyone was too quick to jump to “must be demons in that little girl,” it would cheapen the story. 

The consequences are real and tragic in this story. Despite this being a story of faith vs. a demonic presence, Blatty never resorts to deus ex machina.

What I don’t love about this book:

It presents things like telekinesis and telepathy as being known and real phenomena. I get that it’s fiction, so why not? But the thing is, since the rest of the story tries to make itself feel grounded in reality, it goes out of its way actually, but when it comes to the more fantastical elements, its messaging is very “well, maybe?” But no, not maybe, people don’t move things with their minds. That’s a clever magic trick.

Shifting gears dramatically on this point, I’m also annoyed by Father Karras’s reticence about accepting that Regan is possessed by a demon. Blatty overcommits to this idea that Karras can be just as skeptical as any scientist, which, yeah, sure, I appreciated at first. But there comes the point when the evidence is so overwhelming that it becomes ridiculous to still be holding out on the idea that there has to be a rational explanation for what is happening. I don’t disbelieve in magic and whatnot in my day-to-day life because I want to; I’ve just never been convinced to the contrary with what I would consider verifiable, repeatable, testable evidence. It’s always someone telling me their anecdotal story, which the furthest I will accept with that is that person believes in what they’re saying. But if a girl’s head goes all the way around, then she does clearly other magical shit right in front of me, then yeah, I’d change my mind.

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***The Spoiler part of this review***

***Ye be warned to turn back now***

The quick and dirty synopsis:

The novel opens with a short vignette of an old priest, Father Merrin, The Exorcist, returning to the United States from an archeological dig in Iraq. Before he concluded his business, he had discovered a small statue of a demon known as Pazuzu. 

Micro Mention "The Dunwich Horror"

As a Lovecraft fan, I can tell you that "The Dunwich Horror" is one of H.P. Lovecraft's best stories. It features two of his all-time greatest monsters—if not as famous as some—and they come straight from a nightmare.

"The Dunwich Horror," in my opinion, maybe the last grand hoorah of his early literary stylings. Still, it's firmly rooted in Lovecraft's more occult phase of horror writing than what would become is later style with more cosmic horror-focused stories that bridge over into science fiction. 

In this story, there is still a heavy focus on magic, evil wizards, and cults. Whereas later stories like "At the Mountains of Madness," my favorite—you can read my full review here—and "The Whisperer in Darkness" both have terrifying, incomprehensible monsters, but they aren't magically summoned. We'd describe them as aliens, but that's a matter of debate since Lovecraft throws out there that the Elder Things may have created us as some cosmic joke.

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Micro Mention "The Amulet"

Michael McDowell is one of those authors that I just stumbled upon one day, and I can’t thank Valancourt Books enough for breathing a second life into his books. For me, he’s the master of Southern Gothic Horror, and “The Amulet” doesn’t disappoint.

Admittedly, "The Amulet" has a stronger setup and start than finish, but it's still a fantastic horror story. McDowell captures the time and place of when and where the story is set perfectly. He also has a tremendous gift for character voice as well.

If you'd like to read my full review of this novel, you can find it here.

 

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Micro Mention "Welcome to Night Vale"

“Welcome to Night Vale” is a novel set in a creepy fictional town originally introduced from a podcast with the same name. It was a slow burn for me initially, but Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor won me over in the end, and now I’m listening to the podcast.

As a novel, there is a lot to overcome the presumption that you've listened to the podcast. Once you get past that, though, it's a delightfully quirky story. It's a "horror" story in the sense that while a lot of the imagery is technically scary, it never really lets go of its quirky humor to ever become truly frightening. 

Night Vale as a setting is probably the most interesting bit of the novel because it's a relentlessly weird place, and no one talks about it. Everyone just shrugs it off, which is uncanny and a bit creepy in itself, but still, it's more interesting than terrible.

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Micro Mention "A Dirty Job"

I would be lying if I claimed that this book didn't make me laugh. It did, however, also make me cringe quite a few times. The humor is firmly of its decade when the book was published and highlights how things have changed.

By the end of it, I'm pretty sure I heard the term beta male more times than any one person should have to in one lifetime. Maybe that's an awfully beta male thing of me thing to say, but I can't help but roll my eyes when people talk about alpha males, and the sentiment is apparently equally true of beta too.

Overall, I found the concept of this novel to be fun, Charlie Asher has to balance his new life of being an agent of death—as in the grim reaper—with being a single father. It's a funny setup, and the humor screams of the 2000s.

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Author's Website: https://www.chrismoore.com/

"The Amulet," by Michael McDowell--Fiction Review

One month down, Obscurists, and for today’s review, I thought we’d revisit Michael McDowell and take a look at his debut novel, “The Amulet,” a cross somewhere between occult horror and southern gothic, leaning more toward the occult.

***The Non-Spoiler part of this review*** 

What I love about this book:

I love a good commercial horror story, which this is, and was all McDowell had said he aspired to be as a writer when he was alive. I’ve said this before, but I’m a big believer in fiction for fiction’s sake. And while I think the art side of writing is important too, it feels like sometimes we can get into spirals of who can out sophisticate each other. I’d feel remiss not to point out that sophisticate or sophisticated are words related to the word sophist, which when you boil it down basically means clever-sounding idiot. The more you know, as brought to you by this clever-sounding idiot.

In the first two-thirds of the book, the core story is tightly told about a cursed object that Sarah Howell is trying to retrieve to prevent it from causing any more death and destruction. I admire the simplicity, directness, and how easily understood the plot is from the beginning through the middle. The amulet is cursed. It drives anyone who wears it to murder, and then an untimely accident kills the bearer. Then after someone else inevitably picks it up, it moves on.

The scenes with Sarah’s husband—a victim of a horrible accident that has left him in a vegetative state—and his mother—possibly a witch—are some of my favorite scenes in this book. This isn’t so much a spoiler but the inciting action of the story because it’s Sarah’s mother-in-law who introduces the amulet in this narrative in the first place. So it was interesting for me when Sarah would confront her to see how much she knew about this cursed piece of jewelry.

What I don’t love about this book:

The plot is fast-paced, but toward the end, it felt like McDowell was just looking to write more and more outlandish death scenes with little contribution to the plot. I know I’m boring, but I like it when a story adheres to the rules and modes of action it establishes early on. If the plot in “The Amulet” is a car McDowell is driving, then towards the end, it feels like he turns to us in the audience to say, “rules are for losers,” only to then drive us off a cliff. So—I didn’t like the end, which is a bummer for me because endings are my favorite parts of stories.

Additionally, if you think the end will answer any questions or tie up some loose plot threads, I hate to break it to you, but no. This is fine if the story’s point is for you to question the reality constructed in the story, or there will be a sequel building off those loose ends, but again, no such luck here.

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***The Spoiler part of this review*** 

***Ye be warned to turn back now*** 

The quick and dirty synopsis:

In the prologue, we meet Dean Howell, recently drafted into the army to fight in Vietnam, but before he’s deployed, his job is to test rifles at Fort Rucca. It’s especially galling to him because he feels he was supposed to get a job at the factory that manufactures the rifles. After all, they come from his hometown of Pine Cone. A job at the factory would have exempted him from the draft. He never has to worry about getting shot in Vietnam because one of the rifles he was testing explodes in his face, horribly injuring him and leaving him in a vegetative state.