Monday, July 16, 2018

"The Cone": Style, Sentence by Sentence

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman


As I mentioned in “H. G. Wells: The Art of 'The Cone,'” Wells is a master of style. He makes every word count toward the creation of the final effect he designs his stories to create. Style, as Jonathan Swift defines it, is “proper words in their proper places.” Mark Twain, like other writers, agrees that “the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” AlfredHitchcock says something similar concerning images, the lexicon of film. It is not any single image that matters, he says, but the way in which they are assembled to evoke thought and feeling. On the importance of style, a science fiction writer, a satirist, a humorist, and a master of suspense agree, as does any serious writer or producer. Style is not a small thing; it is everything, for it shapes and invigorates everything: character, including dialogue, action, plot, setting, theme.
With a single phrase or sentence, Wells often accomplishes several narrative or rhetorical purposes at once in his exemplary short story, “The Cone,” as he does in his other tales. The story is a true tour de force, the literary equivalent of expressionistic and surreal paintings, but, as I discuss this aspect of the story in “H. G. Wells: The Art of 'The Cone,'” there's no need to repeat it here. Instead, I will concentrate on the effects, literary and rhetorical, he achieves by several phrases and sentences in “The Cone.”
At the outset of the story, his omniscient narrator comments, “They [Mrs Horrocks and the artist Raut] sat at the open window, trying to fancy the air was fresher there.” This sentence accomplishes three things:
  1. It suggests that the air is not “fresher” near the open window, because it is not “fresh” anywhere.
  2. The fact that they are “trying to fancy” fresh air near the window means that they are not succeeding. The open window admits no fresh air; like their attempt to imagine fresher air, the open window is a mere prop and, therefore, a failure.
  3. The illicit couple's attempt to “fancy the air was fresher” characterizes them. In the face of a reality they find unpleasant, they imagine their circumstances are different. They seek to impose their own preferences upon the world, adjusting what is to what is suitable to them. In this, the sentence's use of “attempt” suggests, they also fail.
Wells gets much out of other phrases, too. In the story's fifth paragraph, his narrator describes an approaching train: “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight black oblongs—eight trucks—passed” not only shows the passing of the cars, but also makes readers count them as they go past: “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight black oblongs—eight trucks.” The counting helps to make the paragraph active, but it also reinforces the number of cars in the train. The ironworks, we think, is a busy, productive place. In the same sentence, the narrator adds that the cars “were suddenly extinguished one by one in the throat of the tunnel,” causing readers to imagine each car being “extinguished” as it enters the tunnel's “throat.” This description includes one of the many personifications Wells uses to bring his ironworks to life as an active, vengeful, and menacing entity.
For Raut, the ironworks represents “Gehenna,” meaning “a place of burning, torment, or misery,” or, “(in Judaism and the New Testament, Hell).” The ironworks is impertinent, daring to belch “fire and dust into the face of heaven.” Raut's words suggest that the ironworks is an affront to God Himself, an impious, wicked hell the very existence of which is an insult to heaven. “Fire and dust,” the insults, as it were, which the hellish ironworks belch “into the face of heaven,” are later juxtaposed to the Biblical phrase “pillars of cloud” and “pillars of fire” in which God appears to Moses and the Israelites as He guides them across the desert after their escape from pharaoh: “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.” (Exodus 13:21). The substitution of “fire” for the more eloquent phrase “pillars of fire” and of sullying “dust” for the more elegant expression “a pillar of a cloud” degrades the poetic language of the Bible, substituting crass terminology for its elevated diction. While Raut accuses the ironworks of insulting God, it is he, through his paraphrases of scripture, who actually does so.
In two clever sentences, Wells creates a sort of reverse-personification. His omniscient narrator describes blast furnaces, which stand “heavy and threatening, full of an incessant turmoil of flames and seething molten iron,” as if they are hearts full of passion and rage; Horrocks himself, as their manager, is the mind, or soul, that controls these savage breasts. His “seething” passions and the “incessant turmoil of [the] flames” of his rage are the vengeful hearts that will burn Raut alive. 
 

Throughout descriptions of the ironworks, Wells's omniscent narrator uses phrases suggestive of violence, blood, death, and hell to depict the ironworks, the scene of Raut's eventual demise: “ghostly stunted beehive shapes,” “a ringing concussion and a rhythmic series of impacts,” “fitful flames,” “hammer beat heavily,” “palpating red stuff,” “blood-red reflections,” “succession of ghosts,” “blood-red vapour as red and hot as sun,” “white as death,” “fire writhing in the pit,” “sulphurous vapor,” “boil the blood,” and “hot suffocating flame.”
References to Gehenna, “the pit,” “pillars of cloud by day,” “pillars of fire by night,” “sin,” “sulphorous vapor” and “God” give the story a Biblical, if not an expressly Christian, context, as does Horrocks's horror at what he has done when “his sanity returned to him,” following his apparent crime of passion and he observes the effect of his vengeance, the sobbing, “inhuman, monstrous creature” that had been Raut. However, this context is undercut by Raut's reference to Jove and the omniscient narrator's allusion to “half-naked Titans.” Not only does the adulterous behavior of Raut and Mrs. Horrocks and Horrocks's seeking of vengeance against Raut suggest that religion is, for them, merely conventional, rather than sincere and devout, but Raut's use of the expression “by Jove,” like the omniscient narrator's employment of the phrase “half-naked Titans,” also implies that none of the characters is religious. Whether Horrocks' own plea to God at the end of the story is genuine or merely an expression of his horror at the sight of what he has done is open to question.
Through his conscious and deliberate selections of words and constructions of phrases throughout “The Cone,” Wells creates and maintains a style that is not only appropriate to his tale, but one which complements it at every turn, creating ironic contradictions; movement and pace; a religious context; complex characterization through allusions and personification; a sense of violence, blood, death, and hell; doubt concerning the characters' true devotion to the religious faith that is implied by the story's allusions to religious themes and theological concepts; and, overall, the unity of effect that produces a seemingly inevitable resolution of the story's central conflict. Wells' style delivers a great deal, largely thanks to his deliberate use of language—“proper words in their proper places”—a and to his own inimitable artistic genius.
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Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.

It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.

What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”

Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.

As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.

Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionary contends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:

Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.

Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.

According to Todorov:

The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).

Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.

And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.

My Cup of Blood

Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.

Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:

Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.

Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.

Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.

Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).

Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.

A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).

Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.

Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.

Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.

A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.

A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.

Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.

Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.


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