Passionate discussion and debate, isn’t that what it’s all about? When a tweet popped up this afternoon as regards a topic close to my heart – horror literature – I couldn’t resist being pulled in to read a blog post or two from some fellow book reviewers’ sites. What follows is my own, arguably vague Monday-afternoon rambling about those things lurking toward the back pages of books.
It’s a question of endings, you see? The issue raised in the post by Speculative Scotsman’s Niall Alexander, in reply to Nathaniel Katz’s recent review of The Ritual was effectively one of potential dissatisfaction with the endings of certain horror novels, and raised a question of options used in the culminations of various dread fiction.
Alexander made that point as regards Dan Simmon’s mostly excellent arctic-based historical horror novel The Terror: “in the final summation, even it fell flat. But how could it have ended any other way? I’ve read The Terror twice, and I haven’t the faintest foggiest.” The ending of that book definitely left me a little cold too, as you can check from my review of it here.
Niall asked in his posting:
“So how do you like yours? Your horror, I mean. Simple, or subtle? Long, or short? Explained down to the last loose end, or left utterly inexplicable?”
I want to narrow this scope a little and ask the following: are horror novels at their most effective when they conclude with definite answers to raised questions/issues/plot points? Or are they better when they offer a vague, surreal twist into the ether, leaving as many questions unanswered in their wake?
Let’s take another genre to draw comparison with, say crime/mystery for simplicity. When Christie’s Poirot executes his little grey cells to the detriment of some usually British, or occasionally pan-European, criminal element, there is always a party who did it and who he finds, and upon whom justice is usually served by the book’s end.
Now, in the horror novel, given a reader’s proclivity to suspend or disengage belief mechanisms often in what can be a big way, the facility on offer to the author to take liberties with a reader’s patience or believability ability (or potentially naiveté) is unbridled. Yes – in other genres too, but we’ll keep it horror for now. That’s our thing, right?
So this got me to thinking of which genre books – mostly that I’ve read in more recent months – that I’ve read do this, go vague, or surreal, or deus-ex with their plotlines to the point that there’s no firm conclusion of anything. Rather an unsatisfactory dribble.
The Terror is an excellent candidate, certainly. This historically accurate horror novel stands up alongside Patrick O’Brian for strong narrative and encyclopaedic descriptions of naval life. It’s a strong novel indeed, and the paranoid, terrifying atmosphere that the author builds throughout the book for the stranded crew mates of the ship seems to be almost insulted by what is a most jarringly surreal ending, and one I found really spoiled an otherwise strong book. But there are those who found that to be fine – I even see certain merits to it, but it’s not great in contrast to the book.
So is that a hint – to answer the question raised by Niall – as to discovering how I prefer my horror books to end. I guess as long as the ending is consistent and in keeping with the style of the book in question, I don’t really have a huge issue with the ending.
So let’s take a more conventionally paced book, say James Herbert’s The Magic Cottage. A young couple move to cottage in forest, ghosts are there, also an evil cult wants to take it over. Nice atmospheric, scary in parts, ending concluded in a straightforward manner, which whilst not to be spoiled here is clear to say of a binary matter (i.e. there’s no wondering what happened). Likewise, Matheson’s Hell House, Shelley’s Frankenstein; these leave us in no doubt as to what’s what.
Let’s say, for purpose of this post, that those books have binary (on/off, one or zero) endings. Comparatively The Terror would be a surreal, vague ending. Likewise, Robert Aickman’s career could be said to specialise in this type of literature, but again in his case that was more befitting an complete work as opposed to just the conclusion of any particular piece.
Now, some might argue the beauty of a piece lies in language, damned be any requirement for neat ending, and I won’t argue with that: it has validity certainly (see Aickman again). Anything is in the eye of the beholder, right. But let’s put the linguistic merits of a work aside for a moment to focus on the story telling conclusion wrap-up.
It could be argued too that there are books which reverse this polarity – slowing fusing the surreal fragments (sometimes intermittent in frequency) created into a binary style conclusion. I would argue certain works by Conrad Williams and Gary McMahon excel in executing such tricky tasks, and with style.
There’re also books that conclude both with a bit of binary and the surreal style hybrid. Technically, one might say, much of Lovecraft’s work is rooted in that kind of despair mechanic. I’d also point the reader toward Tom Fletcher’s recent works The Thing on the Shore and The Leaping – these are both great examples of what I felt were strong endings rooted in a sense of the surreal and mysterious – but not to the point that I felt gutted he’d copped out by having prose that runs away with the fairies. Recently read books that hint toward slightly toward the vague, but in only a gentle manner, include King’s Cell, for example. Despite certain flaws I felt Gina Ranalli’s haunted house book House of Fallen Trees blended the surreal and binary throughout, and ended accordingly, much to its benefit.
But does it matter how the book ends, as long as it’s in keeping with the overall story? Likely not. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. I think that the issue we’re ultimately looking at, whether an ending be binary, or surreal, is that it’s good. Bad endings are obvious, but possibly it’s easier for an author to be lazy by instigating the surreal option than give everything neat ends, should they feel the need.
I know – that’s a cop-out answer: I can’t really offer anything else, there aren’t any fixed points really, and it’s a matter of taste ultimately (and yes, as mentioned I don’t’ care about the ending style, as long as it’s consistent to the feel of the book, or it works). But it’s certainly fun to discuss these things. I’d definitely suggest horror writers to take into consideration that their readers are certainly wise to their being knocked about as regards when endings take what might be perceived as being a sloppy turn. If it’s not fitting in that case, please do change it.
