Lawrence Block's Multi-tasking Style

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Lawrence Block has a straightforward style. His sentences are mostly active and declarative, written as if he is stating a simple fact, or presenting elaborations—examples or other details—substantiating his declarations. But his style is deceptive. Every sentence counts; each has a purpose, a job to do—often, several at once.

The opening sentence of his short story, “Out the Window,” anthologized in The Night and the Music, reads, “There was nothing special about her last day.” Like any declarative sentence, this one implies questions. It implies (1) who is “her”? and (2) why was there “nothing special about her last day”?, and (3) in what way was it her “last day”? Did she quit her job? Did she move? Did she leave town? Did she die? The fact that we're told that there “was nothing special about her last day” suggests that her last day is somehow significant, despite the fact that it was in no way “special.” Otherwise, why mention it at all? Indeed, why mention “her” at all? The declaration generates suspense; we want to learn more about this ordinary woman, whoever she was, and her last day.

 

Liam Neeson as NYPD Detective  Matthew Scudder

Without identifying “her,” the narrator (Private Detective Matthew Scudder, we will learn) mentions that the woman “seemed a little jittery” and “preoccupied,” but her emotional state and her state of mind were not remarkable: “This was nothing new for Paula.” Finally, we get her name— Paula—who, it seems, was apparently “jittery” and “preoccupied” most days. Nevertheless, readers are likely to note that, despite her routine jitters and preoccupation, her behavior caught Scudder's eye; it was memorable to him, perhaps because, in retrospect, it was “her last day.”

“She was never much of a waitress in the three months she spent at Armstrong's,” the narrator declares. In the process, readers learn (1) she wasn't especially good at her job, (2) the nature of her occupation, (3) the period of her employment, and (4) her employer or place of employment. The rest of the paragraph (two longer sentences) offers examples to support the narrator's contention that Paula “was not much of a waitress”: she'd “forget” some orders and confuse others; she was inattentive; and she often performed her duties mechanically, as though she were an automaton.

She's a spirited young woman, though, the narrator suggests, generous with her smiles and able to make customers feel at ease.

In the story's fourth paragraph, the narrator supplies Paula's last name, Wittlauer, and compares her to himself: “You no more set out to be a waitress in a Ninth Avenue gin mill [Paula] than you intentionally become an ex-cop coasting through the months on bourbon and coffee [Scudder].” The narrator's sense of humor is exhibited in his statement, “We have that sort of greatness thrust upon us,” which, in its use of “us,” draws readers into the story. Scudder switches from talking only about Paula Wittlauer to including “us,” turning his monologue into a conversation.

He contrasts Paula's relative youth with his own more advanced age, through an aphorism that comments upon the point of view of one less experienced in life with that of another who is wise to the ways of the world: “When you're as young as Paula Wittlauer, you hang in there, knowing things are going to get better. When you're my age you just hope they don't get much worse.” This bonding of the two characters, victim and detective, is important, because it is Paula's death, following her otherwise uneventful “last day,” that Scudder, at the request of her sister, Ruth, investigates throughout the rest of the story.

Although I've examined only a few of the ways in which Block makes his sentences accomplish his goals as a writer, sometimes multitasking in the undertaking of double, triple, or quadruple narrative tasks, the point, I believe, has been sufficiently made. There's a reason Block has been named a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America. His books have a lot to teach both professional and aspiring novelists and short story writers, especially those who specialize in thrillers and chillers.

The Horror of Hybrid Creatures

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) remake starring Donald Sutherland takes an eerie turn when a dog with a man's face makes its—his?—appearance on the screen. Offhand, I don't remember what accounts for this strange human-bestial hybrid, but, according to a synopsis of the film, “Matthew and Elizabeth are exposed as human when” Elizabeth screams “upon seeing a mutant dog with a human face, the result of . . . . a mutagenic effect” which caused the assimilation of “both Harry and the dog into a composite organism.”

Such special effects were relatively new at the time, and the human-canine “composite organism” looked especially bizarre on film. Of course, such hybrids have a long history. Ancient mythology, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, and otherwise, frequently includes such creatures as the sirens (bird women and, later, fish women), lamias (snake men and women), harpies (women with eagles' wings), gorgons (women with snakes for hair), satyrs (goat men), centaurs (horse men), sphinxes (lions with human heads), and many others.

Some hybrids consist of human bodies with animal heads (the jackal-headed Anubis, the cat-headed Bastet, the elephant-headed Ganesha, the frog-headed Hequet, the falcon-headed Horus and Monthu, the ram-headed Khnum, the cobra-headed Meretseger, the crocodile-headed Sobek, the ibis-headed Thoth, and the boar-headed Varaha, to name but a few).

Other hybrids are anthropomorphic creatures with added animal parts, including the wings of birds (angels), insects (fairies), or bats (the dragon Hatuibwari); birds' legs (Lilitu) dogs' legs (Adlet), or other animals' legs; and cows' horns (Hathor) or stags' antlers Pashupati). To their anthropomorphic forms, some hybrids add even more animal parts, as many as three, four, five, or even more, from diverse species. For example, the Japanese Baku has an elephant's head, a rhinoceros's eyes, a tiger's legs, a bear's body, and an ox's tail.

One reason such creatures are horrific is that they represent exceptions to the taxonomy, or classification system, scientists use to classify organisms. For scientists (and the vast majority of laypersons), there is a clear-cut demarcation, or boundary line, between human beings (the only extant members of the subtribe Hominina) and non-human animals. When such boundaries are crossed, as they are, or would be, with human-animal hybrids, not only confusion results, but so does the idea that humans are somehow superior to “lesser” (non-human) animals. To insist on a difference between human beings and non-human animals is to maintain the superiority of the former over the latter. If humans are nothing more than an animal, every non-human animal is equal to humans in status and importance. There can be no hierarchy, such as that which was established by medieval Christianity's doctrine of the divinely established “great chain of being,” the basis, like God's decree, in Genesis 1:26, that “man” should “have dominion” over the earth and its fauna:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Rather than being the image of God, and “the crown of creation,” humans would be just another member of the animal kingdom.

The taboo against bestiality is probably intended to safeguard the qualitative difference between humans and nonhuman animals. The fact that, although not universal, this taboo is widely in effect across the globe, with offenders subject to death or incarceration in some cases, suggests how insistent the separation between the categories of human and nonhuman continue to be. In horror fiction, it is the violation of this separation, the boundary between human and nonhuman animals that the violation represents, that is horrific, which is why the dog-faced hybrid in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is eerie, even today, despite the less-than-spectacular (by today's standards) special effects that produced it.

Other movies (and novels) that mix both science fiction and horror, as they do man (or woman) and nonhuman animals, include H. G. Wells's novel 1896 The Island of Dr. Moreau, the 1932 movie Island of Lost Souls, the 1986 movie The Fly, the 2009 film Splice, and the 2001 movie Dagon.

Villages Under Attack

Copyright by Gary L. Pullman

In Godzilla (1954), a radioactive, fire-breathing, dragon-like monster attacks Tokyo. After being transported to New York City, King Kong attacks The Big Apple. Other creatures, gigantic and otherwise, have likewise run amok in other big cities. In The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), an escaped Tyrannosaurus rex attacks San Diego. To be a resident of any such metropolis at the time of an attack by such monsters would, indeed, be terrifying.

Big cities aren't usually isolated from the assistance that police, medical personnel, firefighters, and other emergency services provide, and they are often homes to a variety of experts upon whose knowledge and experience endangered citizens can rely. In fact, since, typically, big cities are served by airports, railroads, interstate highways, and, sometimes, ports, the deployment of military troops is often quick and easy. Such cities as Tokyo, New York, and San Diego may suffer some loss of life and damage, but, in the end, it's likely that the likes of Godzilla, King Kong, and T-rex are going down and staying down.

Villages, which lack the size, population, infrastructure, technological assets, expertise, and protective firepower of large cities and are often isolated in difficult-to-reach terrain are a different story altogether. If a gigantic monster—or a monster of any size—were to attack, I'd rather take my chances in a big city than a village, any day.

Beginning of the End (1957, clearly shows how a small town, Ludlow, Illinois, fares—or fared—against the attack of gigantic monsters—in this case, radioactive mutant grasshoppers. Apparently before it could sound an alarm, Ludlow was annihilated. Its entire population of 150 residents, who are nowhere to be found, are presumed to be dead. The only clue to what happened to Ludlow's townspeople is the barrenness of the surrounding farmlands, which look as though their crops were devoured by a swarm of locusts.

The monstrous grasshoppers do not fare well when their swarm attacks Chicago. Botanist Dr. Ed Wainwright has gathered intelligence concerning the attackers. He knows locusts have eaten radioactive grain stored in a nearby silo, and he has heard of mysterious incidents in nearby communities. When he discovers the gigantic grasshoppers, he realizes that they have devoured the region's crops and are now seeking human prey. He provides the expertise that the United States military forces need to exterminate the grasshoppers. An electronic mating call is devised from test-tone oscillators, and the warm-blooded predators are lured to Lake Michigan, where the cold water incapacitates them, and they drown.

Unlike Ludlow, Chicago survives, because it is a large city that can provide the scientific and military resources needed to eliminate the threat posed by the gigantic, predatory grasshoppers.

The Black Scorpion (1957) is similar to Beginning of the End in its contrast of a helpless village the residents of which are attacked and injured or killed by gigantic insects—the scorpions to which the film's title alludes—while a big city is saved from the predators' threat of mass destruction. Troops under the command of Major Cosio arrive in the Mexican town, San Lorenzo, to provide disaster relief in the aftermath of a nearby volcano's eruption. However, their soldiers' weapons prove ineffective against the gigantic scorpions, and the villagers remain unprotected. Military might, this movie suggests, is not enough; it must be applied in a fashion made possible only by scientists or other experts.

Fortunately for the humans whose lives are at stake, the largest of the gigantic scorpions kills the others. Now, it is up to Dr. Velasco, an etymologist, to determine an effective way to destroy the remaining scorpion. It is only after he provides the information necessary to destroy the insects, as the scorpions approach Mexico City, that the military can stop them. Using meat as bait, Velasco and his team lure the insect into a stadium, and the army attacks it with larger, more lethal weapons, such as tanks and helicopters, than those that were used by Major Cosio's men. Nevertheless, the tactic fails, and it is only when geologist Dr. Hank Scott fires a spear attached to an electric cable into the scorpion's throat—its only vulnerable spot—and electrocutes the gigantic insect that the predator is killed and Mexico City is saved.

Unlike the village of San Lorenzo, Mexico City provided such assets as a stadium, military aircraft and tanks, and the combined expertise of an etymologist and a pair of geologists, Scott and Dr. Arturo Ramos. Scientific knowledge combined with military might and the architecture of the big city were enough, combined, to defeat the scorpion.

Some other horror movies in which monsters attack villages include The Birds (1963), The Blob (1958), Carnosaur (1993), Earth vs. the Spider (1958), Iron Invader (2011), Manticore (2005), The Mist (2007), Monster from Green Hell (1957), Tremors (1990), and Wyvern (2009).

All's Well That Ends Well

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Horror writers with longstanding records as bestselling authors are not exempt from writing novels with unsatisfying endings. When the novelist is Stephen King, whose novels typically run as many as eight hundred pages (sometimes more), an unsatisfying ending is more than annoying; it's horrible.

Many of King's novels do end poorly, as It, Under the Dome, Revival, and many others attest. After reading hundreds of pages in which reality seems fairly real (other than the presence of the centuries-old, shape-shifting “It”), only to discover that the universe isn't a product of the Big Bang, as astronomers apparently mistakenly believe, but that it resulted from a gigantic turtle's need to vomit—well, readers are apt to think the effect is anything but agreeable. In fact, readers might think they'll be sick enough themselves to vomit a universe of their own. Likewise, the ending of Under the Dome is beyond frustrating. After plodding through hundreds of pages (many of which are devoted to King's Democratic progressivism and his obsessive hatred of Republicans and of President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney in particular), readers discover that the invisible and impenetrable dome that cuts off Chester's Mill, Maine, is the result of a gigantic, mischievous female adolescent alien who placed an inverted dome over the town, much as a mischievous Earthling might invert a bowl over an anthill. Consequently, readers are likely to work out until they've acquired sufficient strength to rip this ridiculous novel page from page. While writing Desperation, King seemed to find nothing amiss with the views of Christian fundamentalists. He even sought out one of them, a pastor, as his adviser. But, as The Regulators, the companion novel to Desperation, indicates, King likes to turn the tables on himself. He does just this in Revival. He'd had no problem with the beliefs and teachings of Christian fundamentalists when he wrote Desperation, but, while writing Revival, he said he couldn't stomach the Christian fundamentalists' idea of hell, as it's described in the Bible. He doesn't cite chapter and verse, but here are a few passages, from the King James Version of the Bible, concerning hell, that most Christian fundamentalists would probably accept:

For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains (Deuteronomy 32:22).

The sorrows of hell compassed me about . . . (Samuel 22:6).

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit (Isaiah 14:15).

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell (Mathew 5:29).

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28).

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18).

Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? (Matthew 23:33).

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched (Mark 9:23).

And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments . . . (Luke 16:23).

For . . . God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment . . . (2 Peter 2:4).

According to these verses, hell, an expression of divine wrath, is a locked pit below the earth. Made of several layers, it's a place of eternal darkness and everlasting fire, in which the damned, who are cast therein bodily, are beset by sorrows and live in constant torment (although both body and soul can be destroyed in hell). It's occupied by both fallen angels and by human sinners, and it's set against the kingdom of heaven, which shall overcome it.

This is the conception of hell that King finds ridiculous. In its place, he offers something so extremely absurd that it's laughable, and it is with this, his own conception of hell, which he believes is superior to the Biblical depiction of hell, that he concludes Revival, describing hell as a gigantic anthill full of gigantic, ravenous ants. Huh?

Somehow, King sees a huge anthill in which huge ants crush sinners with their huge jaws as superior to the depiction of hell provided in the Bible, the King James Version of which is, without argument, one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the English language. With judgment this poor, it is truly a wonder that King ever managed to write his much better, earlier work.

The endings of the stories by Bentley Little, another prolific horror novelist, are as bad as those of King's worst books. They're tacked-on, rather than being integral to the plot, and, typically, they explain nothing concerning what has transpired in the hundreds of pages preceding them. They seem to hint at an explanation, but, as there is no actual explanation at which to hint, the intimation itself is nothing more than a half-hearted, meaningless gesture. Read virtually any of Little's novels, including the one for which he won the dubious Bram Stoker Award, and you'll see what I mean—but be prepared for a major disappointment. For example, The Resort suggests the bizarre incidents which occur at the present resort are somehow linked to those which occurred at an earlier, nearby resort, which now lies in ruins. How and why the two resorts might have shared some common causal link is unclear because unexplained. Therefore, readers are within reason to assume that there never was such a link. Likely, they will feel cheated of the time, effort, and money they spent in reading the novel.

Horror master Edgar Allan Poe offered a solution to the dilemma of the sloppy ending 172 years ago. In “The Philosophy of Composition” (1846), he explains how he wrote his narrative poem “The Raven.” First, he decided how the story would end. Then, he selected everything—every word, every image, every figure of speech, every point of the plot, every character, every line of dialogue, every nuance of the setting—so that the final result, the story's effect, would be inevitable, given what came before and led up to it. It seems clear that neither King nor Little (nor many other writers, of the horror genre and of other genres, have any idea where their stories are going or why, but write only in the moment, making up the plot as they go.

Poe applied his technique not only to “The Raven,” but to most of his stories and other narrative poems. One story for which the ending isn't as clear and fitting as the conclusions of his other tales is “Ligeia.” As Kevin J. Hayes points out, in The Annotated Poe:

The ending leaves many questions unanswered. The reappearance of Ligeia can be interpreted as a phantasmagoric illusion [an image projected by the so-called magic lantern, a type of early projector], an opium-induced hallucination [the narrator uses laudanum], a psychological fantasy, a modern recurrence of a traditional transformation legend, or an actual event. . . .

Comments Poe made concerning the story's problematic ending indicate that he'd intended the story to have a supernatural ending. A friend of his, Pendleton Cooke, asked about the story's resolution. In response, Poe “suggested how he might have improved it”:

One point I have not fully carried out—I should have intimated that the will did not perfect its intention—there should have been a relapse—a final one—and Ligeia (who had only succeeded in so much as to convey an idea of the truth to the narrator) should be at length entombed as Rowena—the bodily alterations having gradually faded away.

It seems that Poe, unlike King, Little, and a host of other writers, learned his lesson about writing sloppy endings. He was careful, from then on, to plan more carefully the outcomes of his stories, the vast majority of which have the unified structure and the single effect for which he has become famous. For example, “The Pit and the Pendulum” is based an article, “Anecdote towards the History of the Spanish Inquisition.” According to this article, “when General Lasalle entered Toledo, he immediately visited the Palace of the Inquisition,” where he tested a torture device, which he found to be in good order.

As Hayes observes, the way in which the article recounted the story was ineffective from “a dramatic point of view,” so Poe reversed its chronology:

Though fascinated by the story, Poe nevertheless recognized what was wrong with it, at least from a dramatic point of view: it was backwards. By having Lasalle arrive in the first sentence, the article destroys all possibilities for tension and terror. Poe turned the story around, describing what happens to one particular prisoner while saving Lasalle's timely intervention for the final paragraph.”

Poe had learned the lesson that he would teach in “The Philosophy of Composition” and exemplify in the majority of his own short stories, essays, and narrative poems: in the words of the bard, “All's well that ends well.”