Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts

Saturday, June 12, 2021

The Horrors of Psychological Warfare

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L.Pullman

In 1950s horror movies, the military was called out, on occasion, to eliminate monsters. Less frequently today, the armed forces sometimes carry out this duty. If you've ever wondered how combined forces would take out Godzilla or other monsters, the website We Are the Mighty has the answers.

 


Taking down Godzilla would involve mostly Air Force and Navy aircraft, with the Army playing a supportive combat role involving tanks. Mostly, though, ground forces would be used to evacuate civilians. For the answer to an even bigger question, check out Military.com's response to the query “Can the Navy Handle a War Between King and Godzilla?

 


According to the same source, zombies' threats would be twofold: surprise and superior numbers. However, the Army, this time, would have the primary role and would accomplish its objective by setting up a perimeter and channeling the zombie horde into a narrow killing zone. If, for some reason, the war turned into one of attrition, the Army would still win, since troops have ample rations that can last five years, while zombies, cut off from a ready supply of human brains, would run out of food fairly soon.

 


The Army has also teamed up with both vampires and ghosts. Alerted to the fact that the Huks, Communist rebels who'd taken up positions in the Philippines, were superstitious, U. S. Army lieutenant colonel Edward G. Lansdale employed psychological warfare against the insurgents. His troops spread the rumor that an asuang (vampire) lived in the area. Then, they ambushed the last man in a Huk patrol, punched holes in his jugular vein, and drained his body of blood, before returning the bloodless corpse to the trail. When the other rebels found his body, they were convinced that the asuang had attacked him and ran for their lives. Government forces reclaimed the area. Mission accomplished!

 

The recruitment of ghosts was also successful. Aware of the superstitious belief of local enemy forces that the souls of the unburied dead were doomed to wander forever, tapes recorded by the U. S. Army featured “Buddhist funeral music followed by a girl's cries for her father.” A ghost replies to her grief with sorrow of his own, despondent that he chose to fight a war in a far-flung field of battle rather than remain with his family. Broadcast at various times, its doubtful that the enemy was fooled by them; nevertheless, they didn't like to hear the tapes, and it took a gunship to decimate the hostile ground forces. We Are the Mighty links to the chilling tape recording!

 

Check out We Are the Mighty for stories on Bigfoot, the Yucca Man, UFOs and aliens, Area 51, and other matters both supernatural and otherworldly.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Plotting Board, Part 5

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman



In this post, I offer a few tips on plotting, many of which are implied, if not directly stated in Monsters of the Week: The Complete Critical Companion to the X-Files by Zach Handlen and Todd VanDerWerff.
 
Alternate Histories
 
 
Just as some movies, such a Hide and Seek and 1408, offer alternate endings, some novels get a lot of plot mileage by "overlaying [their] own version[s] of history over actual history," VanDerWerff observes (245).
 
Essentially, such plots offer two stories, the actual historical account of events and the fictional version. Ironically, the latter purports to show what actually happened, after the true events are challenged as spurious, perhaps as the result of a long-ongoing conspiracy by a power elite or another group with vested interests.
 
In The Taking, for example, Dean Koontz suggests that aliens are reverse-terraforming the Earth to prepare for their invasion when, in fact, Satan and his fallen angels are preparing to take over the planet. 
 
We Are (and Do) What We Believe
 
 
The more we believe in something, the easier it is to see how that belief impacts every aspect of our lives, Handlen says:
 
If you believe in God [as Dana Scully does], then everything you do and everything that happens to you is affected [sic] by God . . . . And if you're Fox Mulder--conspiracy enthusiast and fervent follower of little gray men--every calamity is just the latest iteration of a government dedicated to crushing its citizens and consolidating power in the face of a potential alien invasion . . . .
. . . While it may be comforting to believe that everything happens for a reason, and that you can understand what that reason is, it can also be unsettling. It means that nothing is without meaning, that any hiccup [sic] or snag has dark implications (251).

To avail oneself of this method of plotting, simply ask what your characters believe in and have them act accordingly. (Philosophy, theology, biography, autobiography, and history might come in handy as reference sources in investigating world views.)

Bottom Line Plotting

To plot a series of interconnecting story lines that occur over a fairly long time span, create a situation, VanDerWerff suggests, that can "run along in the background and resurface when needed," as in "the idea that the X-Files [department] is just too expensive and ineffectual or irresponsible" and should be shut down (270).

 Motives for Momentum


"At its most basic level," Handlen contends, "plot is just a pretext for momentum." Characters need a reason to keep moving, to keep acting. The X-Files episode "Drive" provides a simple, but effective, motive for Walter White's momentum: "Keep moving, or you die (271).

Mulder, likewise, has a simple, but effective, motive for momentum: his 'compulsion to find the truth" forces him to act (272).

These characters' motives move the story forward. What compels your characters?

Be Your Own Critic

After writing a scene, critique it from the point of view of a critic. To do this, you need to know what critics typically criticize, but, until you've read a few hundred volumes of lit crit (the more, the merrier!), these principles could do as starters:
  • Does the scene contain all the elements of a story as a whole: protagonist; antagonist; secondary characters, if necessary; conflict; setting; action; dialogue, if necessary; motive; narrative purpose?
  • Does the scene drive the story forward?
  • Does the scene provide needed information?
  • Does the scene's protagonist act, rather than react?
  • Does the scene have its own beginning, middle, and end?
  • Does the scene end with a cliffhanger?
  • Does the scene evoke a strong, definite primary emotion? (It may or may not also evoke other, secondary emotions.)
  • Are the characters well-drawn and believable?
  • Is the pace appropriate?
  • Does the tone work?
  • Could the scene be revised to present its material in a more dramatic manner?
  • If the scene uses figures of speech, do they work? Are they subtle, rather than obvious?
  • Should the point of view be changed?
  • How might a famous author have written this scene?
  • How might a famous director shoot this scene?
  • How does this scene fit with those before and after it?
 NEXT: To be continued . . . .

 

Sunday, March 24, 2019

Sounding Board, Part 4

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman



In this post, I offer a few tips on plotting, many of which are implied, if not directly stated in Monsters of the Week: The Complete Critical Companion to the X-Files by Zach Handlen and Todd VanDerWerff.

 Role Playing


To generate plots, the writers of The X-Files sometimes have a character adopt the role of another literary figure. For example,
VanDerWerff notes that "The X-Files seems heavily influenced by the doubting apostle Thomas," (114) especially in regard to Scully, the series's skeptic who is, paradoxically, also a practicing Catholic.


In addition, in the "731" episode, Handlen explains, Mulder plays a Don-Quixote-like figure who must accept that the "answers" he finds on his "quest" differ from those he'd expected to learn. There are no aliens; his sister, therefore, was not abducted by extraterrestrial beings. Instead, "the government has been kidnapping and running tests on humans and hiding it under the cover of 'alien abductions'" (114-115).

By adopting roles played by earlier characters of other stories, which roles are thematically appropriate to the plight of their own characters, The X-Files writers not only enrich the series's storytelling through allusions, but they also acquire vehicles for advancing their narrative's own plot in a meaningful way.

"Assume" Makes an . . . .


Among the many other plot-generating devices employed by The X-Files writers is that of having a character (often Mulder) make wrong assumptions, which then produce "bad decisions," which, in turn, tend to result in potentially fatal situations (117). For example, Handlen reminds his readers, in the episode "War of the Coprophages," although Mulder and other characters believe "a bunch of bugs from outer space" have come "to earth to mess with our minds," skeptical Scully is right again; the insects "are only cockroaches," just as she'd supposed (116-118). Thanks to the false assumption of the citizens of Miller's Grove, where the roaches land (and to Mulder, of course), quite a bit of the episode's plot is generated, demonstrating the truth of the idea that false assumptions can be effective plot generators.

Either-or Premise

As VanDerWerff notes, The X-Files plays with two alternative explanations as to the causes of the series's strange events: (1) "The government did bad things, and now it's trying to keep them covered up" (Scully's point of view) and (2) "yes, aliens . . . have been visiting our world and, yes, they intend to colonize it" (Mulder's perspective) (124). This either-or premise maintains the series's fantastic character ("fantastic" in Tzvetan Todorov's sense of the word), its mystery, and its suspense, while offering a dual approach to plotting.

Memory Sucks


One way of advancing the plot while examining the human condition is to offer a definition of what it means to be a human being and then, after eliminating this identifying quality, character, or state, explore whether the character from whom the essence of humanity has been stripped is still a person, still a human being. If, VanDerWerff asks, "we are our memories," and those "memories are sucked out," do we still exist as human beings or, as X-Files writer Darin Morgan puts it, "If someone has the ability to manipulate your memory--all your memory--then, what are you, if, say, your happiest memory or your most depressing memory are [sic] all fiction?" (133-135). 

Of course, other writers might posit other characteristics or abilities as essential to human existence as such: intelligence, compassion, the ability to effect cause, religious belief, etc. However, the story would still follow the same avenue: by eliminating this characteristic or ability (or whatever else is considered essential to human existence), it would explore whether the character who lost it remains human at all, and if not, why not. By exploring what it means to be human, writers can generate plots. This approach is most suited, perhaps, to stories of fantasy, but it could inform almost any genre.

We Are What We Choose to Be

Another way to investigate the human condition is to ask not what makes people human, but whether a person is who he or she is because of the way that he or she chooses to live or because of how other people treat him or her.


The "Small Potatoes" episode of The X-Files tests this question, VanDerWerff suggests, by having a shape-shifter become other people--but he always reverts back to his own identity, resigned to being himself. He is who he is because he has adopted the persona (that of a "loser"), based on everyone else's view of him, rather than asserting his own identity through the choices he makes (193-195).

This way of developing plots has the benefit of allowing writers to investigate such heady matters as those which are more ordinarily examined within the sphere of philosophy or psychology,  thereby enriching the more mundane affairs of the typical X-Files story.

In an interesting footnote, as it were, to this question, Handlen suggests that, in fiction, autonomy is represented as an effect of doing; in doing, a character forces others to react to what he or she has done. Mulder, he says, is a doer; therefore, he is autonomous. Scully, on the other hand, more often follows a path set for her by Mulder or someone else; she is more likely to be reactive than active, and she is, therefore, only partially autonomous (224).

NEXT: More of the same! 


Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Newspaper Plotting

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Many writers have developed plots for their stories, long or short, from newspaper accounts of actual events. A quick way to accomplish this procedure is to change, add, or delete a word or a phrase to make a mundane incident appear bizarre or sinister. Here are a few examples from the “State-By-State” column in the Tuesday, October 16, 2018, issue of the national newspaper USA Today. First, the actual news item is quoted, directly, and then the altered version is presented, the changes are indicated in bold font.

Alabama[,] Birmingham: Sheriff's deputies in Jefferson County are now armed with body cameras.

Alabama[,] Birmingham: Sheriff's deputies in Jefferson County are now armed with weaponized body extensions.

(What, exactly, are “weaponized body extensions”? Whatever you want them to be; have fun deciding.)


Alaska[,] Homer: After decades of serving independent movie selections, Barb's Video and DVD is closing its doors this month.

Alaska[,] Homer: After decades of showing snuff films, Thanatos Palace Video and DVD is closing its doors this month.

(For legal purposes, in fiction it is often advisable to change the names of actual persons and businesses; some writers also change the names of actual cities..)


Iowa[,] Des Moines: State law enforcement officials are warning of a scam in which callers pretend to be state police and demand payment.

Iowa[,] Des Moines: State law enforcement officials are warning of a scam in which callers pretend to be hit men and demand payment to call off the contracts on potential “target's” lives.

Nevada[,] Reno: The 1872 Reno Mercantile and Masonic Lodge, downtown's oldest building, has been found to be too unstable to save.

Nevada[,] Reno: The 1872 Reno Dry Goods Store and Satanic Lodge, downtown's oldest building, has been found to be too mentally unstable to save.

A mad, possibly demon-possessed personified building: now that's a twist!

Ohio[,[ Columbus: An exhibition of veterans' art will showcase works by former military service members from across the state.

Ohio[,[ Columbus: An exhibition of veterans' art will showcase photographs of combat fatalities caused by former military service members from across the state.

Pennsylvania[,] Pittsburgh: Authorities say a pizza deliveryman was shot and killed during a daytime robbery.

Pennsylvania[,] Pittsburgh: Authorities say a pizza deliveryman was shot, killed, and eaten during a daytime delivery to a family of cannibals.*


Rhode Island[,] Providence: Senator Jack Reed is helping to kick off a new apprenticeship program for people who want to build submarines.

Rhode Island[,] Providence: Senator Jim Kinkaid is helping to kick off a new apprenticeship program for people who want to build sanctuary cities for aliens (i. e., extraterrestrials).

An alternative:

Rhode Island[,] Providence: Senator Jim Kinkaid is helping to kick off a new apprenticeship program for people who want to build holding compounds for zombies.

(The beauty of this item is that the people—or creatures—to be housed in the new buildings can be pretty much anything, natural or supernatural. In one of the X-Men movies, a plastic room, suspended in midair, was built to confine Magneto.)

Washington[,] Cougar: Forecasters say strong winds are expected to blow volcanic ash on Mount St. Helens to nearby communities.

Washington[,] Cougar: Forecasters say strong winds are expected to blow mutagenic agents from a remote genetic engineering lab into certain unidentified communities.

Some of the reports in the column need no modification; they're already bizarre or sinister.

Arizona[,] Phoenix: A man, 59, is accused of killing his girlfriend and putting her body in a gun safe he welded shut and buried in the desert.

Massachusetts[,] Peabody: A house where a victim of the Salem witch trials once lived is on the market for $600,000.

Tennessee[,] Bristol: A man police say was run over with a lawn mower while trying to kill his son with a chain saw [sic] had his leg amputated.


A couple of items could be revised to include Bigfoot:

Idaho[,] Boise: An Idaho Fish and game Commission member is under fire after he shared photos of himself posing with baboons he killed while hunting in Africa.

Idaho[,] Boise: An Idaho Fish and game Commission member is under fire after he shared photos of himself posing with Bigfoot creatures he killed while hunting.

New Hampshire[,] Manchester: A New Hampshire Fish and Game official says a biologist shot and killed two bear cubs because they were causing a safety issue.

New Hampshire[,] Manchester: A New Hampshire Fish and Game official says a biologist shot and killed two Bigfoot cubs because they were causing a safety issue.

Once a possible plot has been obtained in this manner, t would need to be developed. A context would have to be created to account for the bizarre or sinister incident. Who caused it and why? What consequences ensued? Who was hurt or killed, how, and why? How was the incident brought to its end, by whom, and why? These are only some of the many questions that a writer would have to answer before the plot was ready to convert into a full-scale short story, novel, or screenplay.

But, hey, USA Today gave us a start!




Tuesday, May 29, 2018

H. P. Lovecraft: An Overview of His Work

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman


Leslie S. Klinger, in editing The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, provides an account of the development of the so-called “CthulhuMythos,” citing some of the specific short stories and the single novel by Lovecraft that furnished the hints, bits, and pieces that would become the basis of what another writer, August Derleth, transformed into Lovecraft's supposed mythology. This essay is based on Klinger's analysis and his insights into this topic, as set forward in the “Introduction” of his annotation of Lovecraft's work. Unless stated otherwise, the direct quotations are of Klinger. (Words in bold blue font are defined or discussed in more detail at the end of this essay.)

Derleth, not Lovecraft, is responsible for the idea that Lovecraft meant “to create a permanent or unchanging pantheon.” Actually, as stated, Lovecraft preferred his work to represent an “'open source' universe” that others interested in his work could visit. At most, Lovecraft referred only to an “Arkham cycle,” without identifying which of his stories comprised this group of tales. However, Derleth imagined that he saw, in Lovecraft's fiction, “a fixed framework,” based on the idea that earth had once been home to an ancient alien race who were prepared to repossess it. Lovecraft's supposed “Mythos” is really a creation of Derleth, who invented it in the stories that he, Derleth, wrote as addenda to Lovecraft's canon.

For Lovecraft, the universe is indifferent to human existence and to human aspirations. Rather than offering his readers reassurance as to their place in the cosmos, Lovecraft's fiction suggests that it is up to each individual to make his or her own way in the universe. Critics have labeled Lovecraft's position “cosmicism.”

Klinger identifies these narratives (all of which are short stories except for the novel At the Mountains of Madness) as providing the hints, bits, and pieces of what Derleth claims is Lovecraft's “Cthulhu Mythos.”


Dagon” is “the earliest [of Lovecraft's stories] to contain any elements of . . . the Cthulhu Mythos”: “truly ancient beings, experiences and sensations that cannot be processed by human brains, and a deep sense of doom.” 

Nyarlathotep” introduces a “persona” who reappears “in future versions of the Cthulhu Mythos.” 

The Nameless City” introduces Lovecraft's mythology, such as it is, describing “an elder race and a civilization predating humans” and making references to the mysterious Necronomicon, though not by name). 

TheHound” specifically names Alhazred's Necronomicon.

In “The Festival,” Lovecraft “revisits the true horror of 'Dagon'—the narrator's discovery that there are things still present on this planet that began before human history.” 

TheCall of Cthulhu” offers Lovecraft's “first comprehensive view of his cosmicism as it [“The Call of Cthulhu”] expands on 'Dagon.'” 

Buildingon 'The Call of Cthulhu,'” “The Dunwich Horror” provides an extended excerpt from the Necronomicon.” 

TheWhisperer in the Darkness” gives an account, in some detail, of the origin and history of the Outer Ones, the alien race mentioned in Lovecraft's earlier story, “Beyond the Wall of Sleep.” 

Atthe Mountains of Madness, Lovecraft's only novel, mentions several themes and elements related to the Arkham cycle and to the Cthulhu Mythos, including the Shining Trapezohedron, Arkham's Miskatonic University, artifacts of a pre-human civilization (the “Elder Things”), and shoggoths (biologically engineered slaves who may have been the ancestors of all life on Earth). (This note is not based on TheAnnotated H. P. Lovecraft). 

TheShadow over Innsmouth” is set in the New England village that is home to the alien race known as the Deep Ones.

In “The Dreams in the Witch House,” Lovecraft mentions the Old Ones and “tries to imagine the fourth dimension.” 

The Thing on the Doorstep” recounts personality transference through “dark magic invoking Lovecraft's Cthulhian deities.”

The end of “The Shadow Out of Time” confirms humanity's “relatively minor role on the cosmic scale.”

In addition to providing “the history of an ancient cult,” “TheHunter of the Dark” adds “an element of cosmicism” while hinting that “an extraterrestrial stone [called] the Shining Trapezohedron” may be “a window on all time and space.”





Cthulhu Mythos: “Term coined by August Derleth, biographer and editor of H. P. Lovecraft, writer of supernatural fiction. The term denotes the mythology invented by Lovecraft for a group of horror stories. According to Derleth, Lovecraft once told him, 'All my stories, unconnected as they may be, are based on the fundamental lore or legend that this world was inhabited at one time by another race who, in practicing black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on the outside, ever ready to take possession of this earth again' (“Cthulhu Mythos” in Encyclopedia.com). Note: Leslie states that Derleth invented this quotation; Lovecraft himself never made this statement. 

Arkham Cycle: Although Lovecraft never identified the stories he referred to collectively as the “Arkham cycle,” Leslie states that the 22 Lovecraft stories that he, Leslie, includes in The Annotated H. P. Lovecraftcomprise the group that Lovecraft described as the “Arkham cycle”: “Dagon,” “The Statement of Randolph Carter,” “Beyond the Wall of Sleep,” “Nyarlathotep,” “The Picture in the House,” “Herbert West: Reanimator,” “The Nameless City,” “The Hound,” “The Festival,” “The Unnamable,” “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Silver Key,” “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” “The Colour Out of Space,” “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Whisperer in Darkness,” “At the Mountains of Madness,” “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” “The Dreams in the Witch House,” “The Thing on the Doorstep,” “The Shadow Out of Time,” “The Haunter of the Dark.” 

Cosmicism: “Cosmicism sees the human race and all its 'civilization' as senseless against the backdrop of Deep Time . . . . Cosmicism says that beyond the 'reality' defined by our five-senses, human norms are not normal . . . . [Cosmicism views] the Universe is a cold, uncaring place,” i. e., as indifferent to humanity and its affairs. 

Necronomicon: Invented by Lovecraft, the Necronomicon does not exist except in the pages of his fiction. In his work, the Necronomicon is “a tome filled with secrets and rituals that can drive a reader to the brink of insanity. . . . Lovecraft mentions the book in 18 of his stories, more than any other mystical book (real or otherwise) that he references. Many fans of the mythos think of the 'Necronomicon' [sic] as the Bible of Lovecraft's pantheon. . . . the author of the book was the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, who perished in A.D. 738 after being eaten by one or more invisible monsters. . . . Alhazred mostly wrote about a race of extraterrestrial creatures with cosmic powers. He calls them the Old Ones,” one of whom was Yog-Sothoth; a distant relative of theirs is Cthulhu.” In short, “the book is a fictional history about our world and the creatures that eons ago ruled the Earth and other realms.” 

Outer Ones: The Outer Ones are a group of Cthulhu Mythos deities invented by August Derlerth. They are ruled by Azathoth. 

Deep Ones: “The Deep Ones are a race of intelligent ocean-dwelling creatures, approximately human-shaped but with a fishy, froggy appearance. They regularly mate with humans along the coast, creating societies of hybrids.”



Cthulhian deities: The Cthulhuian deities are comprised of the Outer Gods, the Great Old Ones, the Great Ones, and the Elder Gods. 

Shining Trapezohedron: A stone able to summon a dreaded being from deepest time and space. Once ensconced in a temple, it was thrown, in “The Hunter in theDark,” into the Narragansett Bay. The Trapezohedron is also featured in Lovecraft's “The Whisperer in Darkness,” his novel Atthe Mountains of Madness, and his tale “The Outsider.”

Friday, July 23, 2010

Moving Chess Pieces "Under the Dome"

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman




Much of the next section of King’s novel is dedicated to moving his chess pieces into place in preparation for the coming showdown between the forces of good and the forces of evil. In a series of usually brief scenes, he sets up the action to come.

The friends of Barbie gather at the Congo Church for their planned meeting. As they pray, the pastor, Piper Libby, who is “no longer sure just who” (or even whom) she is “talking to when” she herself prays, surveys the faithful, who make up the village that King so often finds it takes to thwart the threat that has raised its ugly head in his novel; all are present but Colonel Barbara and physician’s assistant Rusty Everett:

. . . two recently fired lady cops, a retired supermarket manager, a newspaperwoman who no longer had a newspaper, a librarian, the owner of the local restaurant, a Dome-widow who couldn’t stop spinning the wedding ring on her finger, the local department store tycoon, and three uncharacteristically solemn-faced kids sitting scrunched together on the sofa (807).
Twelve are present and to others are absent, making those who will spearhead the attack on evil, represented by Big Jim Rennie, Chief Randolph, and their cronies in one camp and Phil (“The Chef”) Bushey and Andy Sanders in another (and possibly the extraterrestrials or whoever created the dome in a third). The small party recalls such traditional storylines as Moses against Pharaoh, David against Goliath, or Samson against the Philistines. Except for the combat skills and military knowledge of Barbie and the police experience of the two former police officers, the underdogs don’t seem to have much going for them except their love of their community, a love of freedom, a belief and trust in God, and a willingness to fight for their values and faith. They seem hopelessly outmatched by the resourceful, efficient, and determined criminal Big Jim Rennie and who- or whatever invented the dome. The reader is interested in seeing how (not so much whether) the small band of citizens will succeed.

The fellowship fills one another in on the situation as they are able to piece it together, and former deputy Jackie Wettington offers a possible cause for the aberrant behavior of Big Jim and Junior, suggesting that they share “the same wild strain of behavior--something genetic--coming out under pressure” (808). As they discuss their plans, an intimacy develops among the conspirators, and they ask one another to call them by their first names. A feeling of solidarity emerges among them that is as strong, if not stronger, the reader suspects, as the solidarity among Jim Rennie’s supporters. After springing Barbie and Rusty from jail, the conspirators decide to use the abandoned McCoy residence atop Black Ridge, where the dome generator is, as their safe house so they can protect the generator from Big Jim, should he try to gain access to the device. Joe McClatchey recommends that they find a way to return the Geiger counter to the town hall’s bomb shelter so that, should Big Jim and his men attempt to attack the McCoy place, they will be frightened away by the Geiger counter’s warning, ignorant of the fact that the radiation at the Black Ridge site is “just a belt” through which they “could drive right through. . . without any protection at all and not get hurt” (813)

Julia’s dog Horace, left with Andrea Grinnell, again hears the voice of the dead Brenda Perkins, urging the Corgi to take the incriminating file concerning Big Jim’s illegal activities to Andrea. The selectman recalls the newspaperwoman’s earlier visit and opens the envelope so that “most of Big Jim Rennie’s secrets” fall “out into her lap” (816).

King surprises the reader by Andrea’s choice not to reveal to Julia that Horace found the file of evidence that Brenda’s husband, Police Chief Howard (“Duke”) Perkins had been compiling against Big Jim. Instead, Andrea loads a pistol, intending to murder her fellow selectman as soon as she gets the chance to do so.

Junior, having awakened in his hospital room is so sick that even he is aware of it, despite the fact that he is not suffering from one of his many, frequent headaches:

There was a suspicious weakness all down the left side of his body, and sometimes spit slipped from that side of his mouth. If he wiped it away with his left hand, sometimes he felt skin against skin and sometimes he couldn’t. In addition to this, there was a dark keyhole shape, quite large, floating in the left side of his vision. As if something had torn inside that eyeball. He supposed it had (824).
Junior hallucinates, and he is not always able to recognize these breaks with reality, As a result, he comes to believe that his father, Big Jim, has conspired with Thurston Marshall to poison him. Paranoid, Junior thinks only Alice and Aidan Appleton are trustworthy; everyone else is out to get him. He plans to kill Barbie and his father before kidnapping and becoming the caretaker for the Appleton children. Once he becomes their surrogate father, Junior believes, God will extend his lifetime, preventing his death from “thallium poisoning” (826). Better yet, he decides, he will take the children to the McCain pantry, in which he’d stored the bodies of Angie McCain, Dodee Sanders, and Lester Coggins.

Awakened by pain caused by the injuries she’d sustained during the food fight at the Food Town supermarket, Henrietta Clavard, released from the hospital to finish recuperating at home, hears the lamentations of her neighbor’s dog, Buddy. She is joined in her investigation of the incident by Douglas Twitchell, who is passing by, and they discover Henrietta’s neighbors (Buddy’s owners) dead; like an increasing number of other Chester’s Mill residents, the elderly couple has committed suicide.

Big Jim, having checked out of the hospital, meets with several of his lieutenants at Sweetbriar Rose: Police Chief Peter Randolph, Deputy Freddy Denton, and Special Deputies Melvin Searles and Carter Thibodeau, his bodyguard. Once again, for a character who is modeled upon Dick Chaney and George W. Bush, Big Jim seems a great deal like Barack Hussein Obama: “he had already started drafting a list of executive orders, which he would begin putting into effect as soon as he was granted full executive powers” (832). During their luncheon, Big Jim sets up the raid on the methamphetamine lab. Colonel C ox calls to deliver the news that there is radiation atop Black Ridge.

Claire McClatchey wants to accompany the others to break Barnie and Rusty out of jail. Her son and Jackie Wettington dissuade her.

As Rose, Ernie, and Norrie, drive to Jim Rennie’s Used Cars, King’s omniscient narrator reminds the reader that the environment under the dome is continuing to deteriorate:

“The air smells so bad,” Norrie said.

“It’s the Prestile, honey,” Rose said. “It’s turned into a big old stinky marsh where it used to run into Motton.” She knew it was more than just the smell of the dying river, but didn’t say so. They had to breathe, so there was no point in worrying about what they might be breathing in. . . (836).
After Ernie steals a van from Jim Rennie’s Used Cars, he, Norrie, and Romeo load it and Romeo’s Escalante with supplies: rifles, lead rolls, food, masking tape, and other items.

Ollie Dinsmore, tossing rocks at the dome, laments his mother’s suicidal death.

Junior Rennie leaves the hospital. Instead of killing his father first, Junior, thinking more clearly and feeling better (his limp has vanished and the keyhole shape in his left eye is smaller), decides to kill Barbie first instead, since Big Jim’s speech will provide “good cover” (849). He is still hallucinating, though: he sees a wolf in the house he shares with his father and imagines that he is now the wolf, having become a werewolf. His limp returns, too. He leaves the house, laughing at a joke he never understood and the punch line to which he’s forgotten.

Carolyn Sturges packs sandwiches for her charges, Alice and Aidan Appleton, who want to attend Big Jim’s speech.

Andrea’s appearance is much better, although she hasn’t finished undergoing her withdrawal from pain pill addiction. She stows her .38 and the file of incriminating evidence against Big Jim in her purse, intent upon killing the villain “in front of this whole town” (852).

The townspeople begin to arrive for Big Jim’s speech. Linda, with her police radio in a pocket of her dress, sits with Andrea. The Appleton children introduce themselves to the women and vice versa.

Big Kim gives Chief Randolph and Special Deputy Thibodeau instructions as to how to enter the stage and what to expect concerning the agenda: prayer, National Anthem, speech, and vote, concluding “This is going to be fine.” King’s omniscient narrator overrules Big Jim, though, announcing “He was certainly wrong about that” (856), providing foreshadowing that maintains--indeed, to a degree, increases--suspense.

As the Star-Spangled Banner begins to play inside the Town Hall, Barbie’s rescue team swings into operation, Rose Twitchell, Claire McClatchey, Joe McClatchey, Norrie Calvert, Benny Drake, Lissa Jamieson, and Joanie Calvert taking Rose’s car and the Sweetbriar van to the McCoy cabin atop Black Ridge while Ernie Calvert serves as the “wheelman” (857) for Jackie Wettington and Romeo Burpee, who use the van that Ernie stole from Big Jim’s used car lot as the getaway vehicle after the former deputy and the department store owner have liberated Colonel Barbara and physician’s assistant Rusty Everett from the Chester’s Mill police station.

During his speech, after reminding his audience that Barbie has been arrested “for the murders of Brenda Perkins, Lester Coggins, and . . . Angie McCain and Dodee Sanders,” Big Jim explains the origin of the dome (not, of course, that his explanation is likely to be trustworthy):

“What you do not know,” Big Jim continued, “is that the Dome is the result of a conspiracy perpetuated by an elite group of rogue scientists and covertly funded by a government splinter group. We are guinea pigs in an experiment, my fellow townspeople, and Dale Barbara was the man designated to chart and guide that experiment’s course from the inside!” (860)
Big Jim also informs pins his own methamphetamine operation and identifies Colonel Cox as an impersonator who is really a part of the conspiracy of “rogue scientists” and “government splinter group” members. His speech has the desired effect; it enrages his audience. Then, Big Jim tells them that, should they want Barbie shot, it will be by “police firing squad,” not by lynching (861).

Junior starts for the police station, to kill Barbie.

Big Jim warns his listeners not to believe whatever Colonel Cox says during the Dome Visitors’ Day tomorrow, cautioning them that the supposed military man may even say that Big Jim himself headed the methamphetamine operation, to which Andrea Grinnell declares, “You did” (862). She presents Big Jim’s audience with a challenge of sorts, arguing:

“You people need to put your fears aside for a moment. . . . When you do, you’ll see that the story he’s telling is ludicrous. Jim Rennie thinks you can be stampeded like cattle in a thunderstorm. I’ve lived with you all my life, and I think he’s wrong” (862).
When Big Jim orders her evicted from the town meeting and escorted home or to the hospital, the people surprise him by insisting that she be allowed to speak, too, since “she’s a town official, too” (863). Andrea holds the file of incriminating evidence against Big Jim aloft, so the audience can see it, but as she starts to explain the envelope’s contents, she gets the “shakes” (864), her revolver falls from her purse, and she is shot to death by Special Deputy Thibodeau, who also steals her envelope, hiding it under his shirt. Carolyn Sturges is shot and killed by Deputy Freddy Denton.

At the police station, Junior shoots his way past the deputies on duty, killing all three--Rupert Libby (Piper’s cousin), Stacey Moggin, and Mickey Wardlaw, reloads using Stacey’s ammunition, and goes downstairs, to the cells, to kill Barbie.

On his way to Barbie’s cell, Junior notices Rusty Everett. Before he can kill the physician’s assistant, however, Barbie calls to Junior, taunting him by saying, “I got you, didn’t I? I got you good!” and flipping him off with both middle fingers. As Junior shoos round after round of ammunition at Barbie, the colonel manages to dodge the terminally ill assassin’s aim, taunting him all the while. As Junior closes in for the kill and Barbie remembers the knife he’s hidden inside his mattress, Barbie hears Rusty cry, “Get him!” (877) and the soldier wonders which side the physician’s assistant is on.

Although Rusty came across as brave in the earlier scene in which he relocated his own dislocated fingers, he is terrified of the mad, monstrous Junior. Shamefully, “Rusty stepped backward, thinking that perhaps Junior would miss him on his way by. And perhaps kill himself after finishing with Barbie.” Rusty is ashamed of himself for thinking these thoughts: “He knew these were craven thoughts, but he also knew they were practical thoughts. He could do nothing for Barbie, but he might be able to survive himself” (871). Certainly, the reader loses some respect for Rusty, because of his display of cowardice, but the reader also realizes that the physician’s assistant, unlike Barbie, is a civilian, not a military man trained in survival tactics and close combat skills. Unlike Barbie, Rusty has never served in the military, much less in combat. Therefore, his fear is understandable, whereas Barbie’s own fear (he sweat and shook when Deputy Ollie Ortega had threatened to shoot him) is less forgivable, as is his “forgetting” about the knife he’d hidden inside his bunk’s mattress. It seems most unlikely that a man with blacks ops training, hand-to-hand fighting training, and combat experience would forget such a vitally important fact. King’s soldier does, however, and this forgetfulness could easily have cost him both his life and Rusty’s.

Fortunately, during Junior’s attack, Jackie Wettington and Romeo Burpee entered the police station and, seeing the dead deputies, hastened down to the cells, where the former deputy shoots and kills Junior before the selectman’s son can assassinate Barbie. It was to them, unseen by Barbie, that Rusty had been shouting “Get him!,” meaning Junior, not Barbie, of course.

Deputy Freddy Denton and Special Deputy Melvin Searles enter the police station just as Romeo Burpee comes upstairs. Holding the bogus lawmen at gunpoint, Rommie orders them into a cell downstairs.

Barbie, Rusty, Jackie, and Ernie wave to police officers outside the Town Hall as they drive their stolen van out of town, “headed toward Black Ridge” (881).

King’s omniscient narrator keeps the reader reading by concluding many of these brief scenes with a sentence or two that foreshadows imminent violence, conflict, or catastrophe:


. . . at least if she’s with the rest of the town, she’s safe.

That was what he thought before the gunfire started (859).



Later she would wonder how many lives might have been saved if she had told Rommie okay, let’s roll (862).

In the pandemonium, no one heard the shots from next door (867).


“Ah, Jesus,” Rusty said. “We’re in trouble.”

“I know,” Barbie said (867).



“Hello, Baaarbie,” he called down the stairs. “I know what you did to me, and I’m coming for you. If you’ve got a prayer to say, better make it a quick one” (870).



“Close your eyes, Fusty,” Junior said. “It’ll be better that way” (871).



Before the next gunshot came, Barbie had just time to think, Jesus Christ, Everett, whose side are you on? (877)



What his collapsing body revealed was Dale Barbara himself, crouching on his bunk with the carefully secreted knife in his hand. He never had a chance to open it (877).



“Let’s get out of here while we still can,” Everett said (880).
By the way, and for the record, Barbie, who was jailed on page 533 of the novel, finally gets out of his cell (thanks to his rescuers) on page 877 or thereabout, making him Jim Rennie’s prisoner for an approximate count of 344 pages, or 32 percent of the entire story! During this large portion of the novel, Rusty Everett has filled in as the protagonist, apparently, because King’s omniscient narrator (or maybe it’s the voice of the extraterrestrial invaders who may be the inventors of the dome and the cause of all the mischief) declare, when they state as much when they observe that “for the time being, these two men--our heroes, I suppose--are sitting on their bunks and playing Twenty Questions. It’s Rusty’s turn to guess” (802). The existence of two “heroes,” alternating as the story’s central and most important characters makes them both, in effect, protagonists, a feat that seems impossible, even for Stephen King, since, according to the very concept of the protagonist’s being the story’s main character suggests that he or she must also be the only such type of character in the story, for “main” means “chief,” and there is only one chief in any enterprise, a work of fiction included. King’s wanting his reader to believe that there are two “main” characters in his novel betrays another of the narrative’s problematic and confusing elements.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

The Universal and the Particular “Under the Dome”

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman




After smoking more methamphetamine, Andy Sanders has a seizure, during which he sees two orange trucks approaching WCIK radio station and the meth lab that he and Phil (“The Chef”) Bushey occupy behind the station. Whether the prophetic hallucination is the result of the drug or the dome is questionable, but The Chef accepts the vision as intelligence, and he and Andy plan to resist the approaching men’s attempt to take more propane from the site, murdering them, if necessary.

Earlier, through Linda Everett, Stephen King announced one of the themes of Under the Dome. He had her say that there are sides and that everyone needs to decide which side he or she will serve. He reiterates this idea, emphasizing that no one is exempt from this choice: “they were all involved, weren’t they? Under the Dome, involvement was no longer a matter of choice” (793), Claire McClatchey thinks, and, later, the omniscient narrator declares, “Claire opened her mouth to say she didn’t want to get involved, then didn’t. Because there was no choice” (794).

The “sides” of which she spoke were those of law and order versus lawlessness and disorder, but King, in commenting upon his apocalyptic novel’s title, suggests that the same is true for each and every reader, for each and every American, for each and every human being: “We’re all under the dome,” since we are alone, as far as anyone knows, on the planet Earth. We’re all in it together, he implies, and we all have to decide which side we will join in the battle against--what? Law and order versus lawlessness and disorder? Good versus evil?

Law and order versus lawlessness and disorder would be dichotomies large enough to support a 1,074-page novel, but King’s either-or is more pedestrian, more localized, and more ideological. His characters and his omniscient narrator, as his spokespersons, have time and again pointed out the enemies and the heroes. The villains are corrupt, unscrupulous, self-serving, and hypocritical politicians like Big Jim Rennie who use their strengths and talents to hurt, not help, their fellows, and his heroes are those who use their strengths and talents to help, not hurt, their fellows.

This seems a sound basis for developing a practical and pragmatic morality, and, as such, is perhaps as good as it gets in a secular society that is distrustful of, and seeks to thwart, even the idea of the desirability of divinely sanctioned morals. Although Desperation shows that King is capable of appreciating the power of God and of faith (although not in a wholly traditional way), Under the Dome, like several of his earlier works, such as Carrie, ‘Salem’s Lot, and Needful Things, show Christianity to be a dangerous breeding ground for fanaticism, repression, and violence, rather than as a force for good.

Unfortunately, Under the Dome also divides good and evil according to a second criterion, which is based upon his characters’ political beliefs rather than the helpful or harmful effects of their behavior. In Under the Dome, the heroes are largely liberals and Democrats who watch and listen faithfully to CNN, believing its newscasts to be unswervingly accurate and trustworthy. If it’s “CNN BREAKING NEWS,” it is also, for King and his characters, CNN BREAKING TRUTH. Julie Shumway, the token good Republican in Under the Dome (and, indeed, it seems, in all of King’s fiction) is more a Republican in name only, or RINO, perhaps, because she is told that she’s not all that bad as Republicans go.

I have spoken of King’s partisan politics in earlier posts concerning Under the Dome, but reiterate my complaint in this one because King himself makes this distinction between good liberal/Democrat and bad conservative/Republican again and again throughout his novel, having, he himself admits, modeled Big Jim Rennie, heart condition and all, it appears, upon former Vice-President Dick Chaney and President George W. Bush. The fact that Big Jim’s power grab in the wake of a crisis--or series of crises, some of his own making--could have been modeled more easily upon Barack Hussein Obama suggests how superficial and flimsy King’s political biases really are, although King himself seems unaware of this weakness.

Like Rham Emmanuel and President Obama, Big Jim believes that a crisis should never be allowed to go to waste: “Really, there was nothing like a scene of destruction,“ Big Jim thinks, “to get people playing follow-the-leader” (800). King would have been better off in writing a novel that he wants compared to Lord of the Flies being less the political partisan and more the universal moralist.

Of course, with King, where narrative itself is concerned, politics and other peripheral matters aside, the good often outweighs the bad. He is one hell of a good storyteller, and, of course, that’s what the reader is seeking in purchasing his work.

When Roger Killian, Stewart Bowie, and fern Bowie arrive in the orange trucks that Andy Sanders saw in the vision that accompanied his seizure, The Chef, backed up by Andy, turns them men back, confiscating one of their trucks and delivering the message to Big Jim that the methamphetamine lab is now theirs. After the men leave, The Chef tells Andy that, from now on, WCIK radio will be playing music much different than traditional Christian songs, hymns, and gospel music.

Hearing of the conduct of The Chef and Andy, Big Jim decides that he will lead an attack upon them after he speaks to the police and the people of Chester’s Mill, blaming Barbie’s followers for the methamphetamine operation as well as the arson involving Julia Shumway’s newspaper and residence, just as he has already charged Barbie himself with beating, raping, and murdering citizens of the town. The final paragraph of this scene sums up the character of Big Jim better than many pages might. The selectman says goodbye to his son, Junior, who has a malignant brain tumor: “He started out of the room, then went back and kissed his sleeping son’s cheek. Getting rid of Junior might become necessary, but for the time being, that too could wait” (800).

In Under the Dome, more so than in many of his other novels, it seems, upon one’s initial thought, that King’s omniscient narrator makes his presence known to the reader, not only speaking directly to him or her, but also paraphrasing T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, the effect of which is reminiscent of the stage manager’s address to the audience of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town or Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology:

Another night is falling on the little town of Chester’s Mill; another night under the Dome. But there is no rest for us; we have two meetings to attend, and we also ought to check up on Horace the Corgi before we sleep. Horace is keeping Andrea Grinell company tonight, and although he is for the moment biding his time, he has not forgotten the popcorn between the couch and the wall.

So let us go then, you and I, while the evening spreads out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table. Let us go while the first discolored stars begin to show overhead. This is the only town in a four-state area where they’re out tonight. Rain has overspread northern New England, and cable-news viewers will soon be treated [via CNN, the reader may be assured] to some remarkable satellite photographs showing a hole in the clouds that exactly mimics the sock-shape of Chester’s Mill. Here the stars shine down, but now they’re dirty stars because the Dome is dirty (801).
This (apparent) emphatic calling of attention to the omniscient narrator as an entity rather than as an objective and descriptive, impersonal voice is similar to the effect that King created by assembling his cast of characters at the midpoint of his novel, as if they were actors answering an encore. These techniques, well known to both playwrights and novelists, are not frequently used by either, not in modern times, at least, because they call attention to the artificiality of the story, to its fictitious nature, disturbing the reader’s suspension of disbelief by reminding him or her that the narrative is invented, a chronicle of merely imaginary events.

The example, quoted above, is not the only instance of King’s (apparent) omniscient narrator’s intrusion of himself into the novel he’s narrating, nor is it the sole instance of his paraphrasing Eliot, for the narrator interrupts his tale several more times during this scene. After a brief mention of CNN’s meteorologist Reynolds Wolf commenting upon the “fascinating phenomenon” caused by the backing up of rain clouds against the dome, the narrator again puts himself front and center:

That’s enough cable news; let us float through certain half-deserted streets [Eliot again], past the Congo church and the parsonage (the meeting there hasn’t started yet, but Piper has loaded up the big coffee urn, and Julia is making sandwiches by the light of a hissing Coleman lamp), past the McCain house surrounded by its sad sag of yellow police tape, down Town Common Hill past the Town Hall, where janitor Al Timmons and a couple of his friends are cleaning and sprucing up for the special town meeting tomorrow night, past War Memorial Plaza, where the statue of Lucien Calvert (Norrie’s great-grandfather; I probably don’t have to tell you that) keeps his long watch.

We’ll stop for a quick check on Barbie and Rusty, shall we? There’ll be no problem getting downstairs; there are only three cops in the ready room, and Stacey Moggin, who’s on the desk, is sleeping with her head pillowed on her forearm. The rest of the PD is at Food City, listening to Big Jim’s latest stemwinder [sic], but it wouldn’t matter if they were all here, because we are invisible. They would feel no more than a faint draft as we glide past them.

There’s not much to see in the Coop, because hope is invisible as we are. The two men having nothing to do but wait until tomorrow night, and hope that things break their way. Rusty’s hand hurts, but the pain isn’t as bad as he thought it might be, and the swelling isn’t as bad as he feared. Also, Stacey Moggin, God bless her heart, snuck him a couple of Excedrin around five PM.

For the time being, these two men--our heroes, I suppose--are sitting on their bunks and playing Twenty Questions. It’s Rusty’s turn to guess (802).
After another dramatic segment, wherein Barbie and Rusty are brought forward, so to speak, to speak for themselves, and the reader sees that, indeed, quite literally speaking, the inmates actually are playing Twenty Questions, King again reverts to what appears to be the direct intrusion of his omniscient narrator into the story he is telling:

We’ll leave the to shift the weight of the next twenty-four hours as best they can, shall we? Let us make our way past the still-shimmering heap of ashes that used to be the Democrat. . . (802-803).
The voice, the reader begins to suspect, is actually not that of the omniscient narrator, but that of the entities whom Rusty had discerned, in his vision at the site of the dome generator of the “leather faces,” the suspected aliens the physician’s assistant believes they are, who invented and operate the dome that keeps the town of Chester’s Mill imprisoned and cut off from the rest of the world outside the barrier. If this is the case, the use of a second omniscient narrator, that of the extraterrestrials (or presumed extraterrestrials) in addition to the conventional, narrative omniscient narrator, is extraordinary.

Why does King employ it? Some of the more obvious reasons are that the technique, being rare, adds interest to what might otherwise be drier, duller exposition; it allows King to remind the reader of the pair of meetings yet to come; of the incriminating file concerning Big Jim’s corruption, which is still available, under the end table with the spilled popcorn in Andrea’s living room and of many other narrative threads and subplots; and it reinforces the theme that pollution has an undesirable and dangerous effect upon those who live under the dome (a metaphor for the planet Earth, the atmosphere of which is the “dome”). These are minor gains, though, when the cost is a disturbance of the reader’s willing suspension of disbelief.

What bigger benefits does King enjoy as a result of having called attention to the presence of his behind-the-scenes omniscient narrator in such a blatant way? Certainly, the technique, calling attention to the artificiality of King’s narrative, as a fictional construction, as it does, suggests that the town under the dome is itself something of an artificial construct--that is, the world, the planet Earth, although it is a natural object, is also an artificial phenomenon: it’s culture is a human artifact, as are the nations, societies, and communities that make up the human-designed and engineered aspect of the planet.

King’s inclusion of the intrusive alien intelligence (if that is what it turns out to be--I am writing these blog entries as a reader, as I read the novel, as an example of the sort of dialogue, as it were, that occurs between the reader and the literary work as he or she imagines it to be) alongside of, or in place of, the conventional, narrative omniscient narrator, is an astonishing one and, as such, one that must be regarded as intentional and deliberate.

It invites the reader to step outside him- or herself, as it were, and, indeed, outside his or her own consciousness not only as an individual but as a human being, to see his or her world (or, at least, that part of it that is Chester’s Mill, Maine) from the more universal perspective of an invading extraterrestrial intelligence, as C. S. Lewis does, for example, in The Screwtape Letters, as Jonathan Swift does in Gulliver’s Travels, and as Thornton Wilder does in Our Town (and many others have in other works as well). This is an appropriate level, whether considered from the vantage point of a global perspective, such as all humanity’s would be, or the perspective of an extraterrestrial intelligence. However, its relationship to that of the traditional, narrative omniscient narrator is unclear and perhaps problematic.  (It remains problematic--perhaps even more so--if I am wrong in assuming that this omniscient point of view is not that of alien intruders, but the established narrative one, because the voice in which this viewpoint is delivered differs vastly from the established one, which causes a good deal of unnecessary confusion if it is not a separate and distinct narraor's voice--i. e., the aliens'.)

Something else is problematic as well. King invites the reader to step outside him- or herself and, indeed, the human race and to view Chester’s Mill (and the planet) as a curious and, yes, polluted affair, but, at the same time, he remains extraordinarily provincial in his “us” liberals/Democrats/CNN aficionados (the good guys), versus “them” conservatives/Republicans/FOX News fans (the bad guys). Once again, King’s vision as an artist is itself bifurcated. He wants to think globally, but his sympathies (and perceptions) are local.

Still, he is a compelling storyteller, and, as always, the reader reads on.

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.


Popular Posts