Keeping Up with the Joneses
Getting something decent to read is just so annoying when one has, over the past few centuries, seen the whole of human nature on display. Having this experience with people living, dead, undead and, best of all, in terrible pain and just about to die, as well as damned souls, various demonic manifestations and phantasms, I can confidently tell you that most literature is written for people who have no grasp on reality.
Think about it. Take your favorite romance, for example. The book ends as soon as the pretty maiden (if you actually believed she was a maiden, you just haven’t lived long enough) conquers the noble heart of the young prince, weaning him away from the ugly stepsister. Let’s be honest. The young prince will be very happy with his juvenile bride up until she starts showing signs of wear and tear herself. Then he’ll trade her in for a younger model – even if the new liason is unofficial. As Mel Brooks used to say, “it’s good to be the king.” The young woodcutter who woos the beautiful princess, of course, suffers the same fate as soon as his pot-belly shows signs of life. This, of course, is why the old queen is always portrayed as a mean hag in these tales. She’s been there, done that, and knows how it ends.
Adventure, westerns and science fiction show normal people doing things normal people wouldn’t do. And, in real life, don’t do. Not much solace there.
This process of elimination eventually leaves us only with the horror genre, in which people and creatures act in a way that comes naturally to them, with blood and guts described in the corrrect manner, and no heroes around to spoil the verisimilitude. The pervading emotion is fear, and the big motivation is self-preservation, just like in the real lives of short-lived mortals. The fact that death and violence are so pleasant to read is icing on the cake. Don’t you just love it when the virile, handsome hero gets his brains unexpectedly bashed out by a hammer-wielding maniac in a hockey mask, or the nubile young heroine is eaten by zombies - the feeling of every tooth described in agonizing detail? Horror is real things happening to real people, the more unspeakable, the better.
But there’s a problem. We need to go to the princess of Transylvania’s five-hundredth birthday gala at her place on fifth avenue, and we know that talking about Stephen King or Dean Koontz will get us shunted to the sidelines and immediately scratched off any future guest lists. Even having one of those books lying on a coffee table at home is likely to have the same effect. You just can’t afford to take the risk.
So what’s the solution? You’ve already read all the acceptable horror. You can recite the Cthulu mythos by heart. You’re sick and tired of having to run and hide The Tommyknockers in a drawer every time the doorbell rings. You need something to read which won’t endanger your social prospects, but, at the same time gives you a believable look at life, not some literary imbecility. You don’t think you could survive a repeat of the The Five People You Meet in Heaven fiasco. Ugh. You don’t want to throw up five pages into the book yet again. What to do?
I’ll let you in on a little secret. The literary snobs that abound wherever decent people get together aren’t all that different from the bored housewife reading The National Enquirer in the laundromat. They are just as morbid, and enjoy reading about murder, rape, debauchery and blood just as much as the lowest-browed mechanic. They have no trouble getting their fix, and yet are safe in the knowledge that they will not be criticized for it.
Why? Because they hide behind the pretense that their brand of titillation is justified by the artistic merit of the work they read. Just as an example, even the most jaded among the undead would find himself nodding in appproval and thinking “yes, that’s how it would have happened in real life” after reading Of Mice and Men. You might be irritated at Raskolnikov for overthinking things but would admit that his heart, as shown in the first half of Crime and Punishment, is in the right place.
And there are more extreme examples, as well. Work that, despite its classic status, satisfies even the most unsavory tastes. Sanctuary is a novel by William Faulkner. As such, you expect long, drawn-out descriptions of uninteresting things. But in this novel, there are long, drawn out descriptions of most entertaining depravity and horror. He crosses lines which, when reading a classic, you expect no one will dare.
Any of these books will meet the standards for how humans really act while allowing you to face your friends and share that knowing look. The look which says “I’m reading about all the good stuff, and no one suspects a thing.” There are other classics that do the same, of course, but I’ll let each of you discover his own road now that I’ve set you on the path. Just remember, it is very, very important to avoid Jane Austen at all costs. That way lies madness.
Until we meet again, happy hunting, and may your human blood come from the original container.
Hieronymous
