Horror: The 100 Best Books

by Jones, Stephen

  89: [1983] ROBERT IRWIN - The Arabian Nightmare

  Cairo, 1486. Dirty Yoll, the storyteller, relates a series of adventures that mainly befall Balian of Norwich, an ostensible pilgrim who has been sent to the Holy Land as a spy for the Franks. Balian encounters Michael Vane, an English alchemist, and his sorcerer colleague, the King of Cats, and comes to suspect that he is suffering from a mysterious, deadly curse, The Arabian Nightmare. Stories unfold within stories, in which talking apes, murderous courtesans, an order of leprous crusaders, insoluable riddles, demons, and curses figure heavily. Yoll dies, but the stories continue, and a plot to bring about the end of the world is uncovered. A dense, witty, erotic, imaginative and macabre fantasy, The Arabian Nightmare is one of the most original works in its many genres to appear in the ’80s. Irwin, a former teacher of medieval history, is also the author of History of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria (1984) and a novel about the Wars of the Roses, The Dreadlord (1984).

  ***

  The Arabian Nightmare is a thoroughly modern fantasy cast in a classical mould. Its literary antecedents are the Thousand-and-One Nights, which first came to Europe in the French edition issued between 1704 and 1717, and The Saragassa Manuscript, written by the Polish count Jan Potocki and first published (likewise in French) in 1804. Each of these makes use of a discursive and convoluted narrative structure in which tales are embedded within other tales; the first displayed for fascinated Europeans an exotic, mysterious and highly intriguing Eastern world; the second has a most effective recurrent motif in that its hero, who goes to sleep beneath a gallows-tree, is victim of a terrible dream and then awakes, only to find that this awakening is but the first of many illusory moments of relief in a nightmare which will never let him go. Irwin takes up this theme, of a man quite lost in a dream so tortuous he can never be certain that he has awakened, or ever will awake; and populates that dream with the phantasmagoria of that mythical Orient which so obsessed the French Romantic writers of the 19th century. He brings to this task a remarkable freshness, enlivening his consideration of the nature of dreams with ideas drawn from modern psychological inquiry, filling out his marvellous descriptions of 15th-century Cairo and its dream-analogue with detail drawn from the perspective of modern history. It is typical of such a deceptive scheme that the nightmare into which Balian delivers himself might or might not be the Arabian Nightmare of the title, for that is a nightmare which can never be remembered; each time Balian thinks he awakes, he may reassure himself that he has not, after all, suffered that dread fate … but then, he only thinks that he awakes. In much the same way, we are invited to wonder who, within the tale, is its true teller … but every time we think we know, we are confounded; the text is engaged in a constant game of self-deconstruction which links it to the fancies of those more recent French Romantics, the Barthesian mythologies and Derridaesque post-structuralists. There never was another tale as selfconscious in its convolutions as this one, and never one which brought the unease of the dream-state into such seductively sinister intercourse with the intelligence of the reader. It is a tale of horror because it reminds us, unremittingly, of the precariousness of our identity in the face of a world whose solidity and predictability might at any moment dissolve, and abandon us to be rent upon the rack of our anxieties. And yet, even while he taunts and undermines us with this cognitive vertigo, Irwin writes with great charm and suave wit, and almost compels us to believe that in nightmare — though nightmare it is — there is such wonder and such plenitude as would make a fool of any man who preferred jejune reality. There is no greater achievement at which the literary fantasist might aim. — BRIAN STABLEFORD

  90: [1984] IAIN BANKS - The Wasp Factory

  Frank, the sixteen-year-old narrator, lives on an island off the coast of Scotland. Between accounts of his militarist fantasies — which involve murdering various animals — and various forays to the pub with his midget best friend, Frank reminisces about his farcical killings of his cousins Blyth and Esmerelda and his younger brother Paul. Meanwhile, Frank’s unbalanced brother Eric has escaped from an institution and is travelling back to the island. Castrated, as he has been told by his reclusive father, in infancy by a dog, Frank makes discoveries about himself that exceed in strangeness anything that has gone before in his life. Iain Banks followed up this extraordinary and controversial first novel — typically, British readers were more offended by the cruelty to animals than the murdering of children — with the equally strange Walking on Glass (1985) and The Bridge (1986) before turning to science fiction.

  ***

  The Wasp Factory was Iain Banks’ first novel, and became an immediate literary cause celebre on its first publication in 1984. Reactions ranged from extravagant praise to expressions of baffled disgust. It is debatable whether or not The Wasp Factory is a horror novel — it is not fuelled by any vision of a malign universe, or any sense of Evil — but it certainly fixes on horrific incidents, and it has found a following among horror readers. Banks has published several books since, ranging from a rock-‘n’-roll novel (Espedair Street) to an extravagant space opera (Consider Phlebas), but though they have generally been well received, and in some cases have reached the bestseller list, none has had quite the impact of The Wasp Factory. The novel is set in the present day on a small Scottish island connected by a bridge to the mainland. The only inhabitants are the teenage narrator, Frank Cauldhame, and his eccentric ex-hippie father. Frank apparently suffered a bizarre accident when only three: he was attacked by the family sheepdog, which bit off his genitals. When he was five he murdered his cousin by placing an adder inside his artificial leg, and before he was ten he also killed his younger brother Paul (whom he persuaded to attack an unexploded bomb with a plank) and his cousin Esmerelda (attached to a giant kite and never seen again). Each of the deaths was seen as a bizarre accident, and Frank tells us that this was just a phase he was going through at the time. By contrast his older half-brother Eric was a good-natured and idealistic child, who went away to study medicine, only to be sent insane by the discovery in a hospital ward of an infant child whose brain was being eaten alive by maggots (a fly having got under the metal plate in its skull). Eric took to feeding worms to children and setting dogs on fire, and was institutionalized. The novel’s plot (such as it is) is triggered by Eric’s escape: Frank’s account to the reader of his life is punctuated by Eric’s deranged phone calls as he gets nearer the island. Since Frank gave up murder his defences against the rest of the world have taken the form of a bizarre series of rituals and totems: animal heads mounted on “Sacrifice Poles” around the island; a kind of temple in a Second World War bunker whose altarpiece is the skull of the dog which unmanned him; and the Wasp Factory itself, an elaborate construction centred on an old clock face, in which wasps are murdered (depending on which way they wander) in any one of a dozen different ways, which are interpreted by Frank much as an astrologer or tarot reader would interpret signs. The ritual murder of small animals is another essential part of Frank’s invented symbol system for understanding and guarding himself against the world. This may sound absurd in summary, but the novel’s strength is that it pursues its central character’s obsessions unflinchingly, and never steps outside Frank’s skull to allow in conventional reality or perception. Its weakest moment is its denouement, where we learn that Frank’s father has been lying to him all his life: he isn’t a mutilated boy, but a more or less normal girl, dosed with male hormones by his father, partly as an experiment, partly as a sort of practical joke. The problem with this is that it reduces the situation from an obsessional reality to a puzzle with a solution — which ties up the novel, but is less interesting than what has gone before. Still, The Wasp Factory is a remarkably sustained performance; for all the grotesquerie of its content Frank’s narrative is written with tight control and a notable absence of sensationalism, and is sometimes very funny. Unsurprisingly, one of its greatest admirers is J. G. Ballard, himself probably the foremost chronicler of obses
sion in contemporary British fiction; like Ballard’s Crash, Banks’ novel shows the power of obsession to reform the world in its own distorted image. — MALCOLM EDWARDS

  91: [1984] T. E. D. KLEIN - The Ceremonies

  Academic Jeremy Freirs spends the summer in Gilead, New Jersey, renting a house on Poroth Farm, preparing to teach a course in supernatural literature. Along with Carol Conklin, a girl he has recently met, and the dourly religious Sarr and Deborah Poroth, Freirs is manipulated by the Old One, a sorcerer who in the guise of a twinkly-eyed little old man named A. L. Rosebottom or “Rosie”, hopes to bring about the reawakening of an unimaginably vast and evil entity. The four characters are tricked into taking part in a series of obscure rituals that pave the way for the return of the monster. Elaborating upon the habitual themes of Arthur Machen and H. P. Lovecraft, Klein here delves deep into folklore and literary history to provide a richly detailed variation on the Return of the Elder Gods theme. The novel grew upon the skeleton of the story originally published as “The Events at Poroth Farm” (1974). Klein has since worked similar shivers in his collection of novellas Dark Gods (1985), which also deals with the connections between godhood, monstrousness, and the artistic imagination.

  ***

  The Ceremonies is a carefully wrought book, excelling in the areas of characterization, style, and plot. Klein assumes a leisurely pace in introducing and fleshing out the principal characters in his book. No sketches or convenient labels here — you get to know everyone thoroughly and believably. The protagonists become warm, likable friends and the villain slowly assumes a mantle of wonderful despicability. The beauty of this gradual process is achieved through a style and structure which adds layer upon layer of awareness into the story. Klein steadily apprises the reader of the enormity of the evil waiting to engulf our world, but he leaves out just enough to keep things enigmatic, unfamiliar. For a long time, you know there is something terrible about to happen, but you are never told the particulars. By keeping things mysterious, Klein achieves a subtle momentum, which carries you through the novel as effectively as any collection of cheap narrative tricks encountered in many commercially oriented novels. His style is an interesting combination of both modern and traditional elements used in the telling of a supernatural tale. But it is the plot of The Ceremonies which most marks it as a distinctive novel. The historical and literary references to the work of Arthur Machen give the story an authentic feel, a true legitimacy. The idea of a cyclic structure for catastrophe and apocalyptic resolution, while not new in horror fiction, is given new meaning in Klein’s tale. While there are resonances with Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos and even the Bible, there are also references to other, far more arcane belief-systems and world-views. Klein creates a conception of the world which comprises the simplest terms of Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, but he also suggests a hideously complex set of rules which govern the Universe as it chugs merrily along towards its ultimate fate. In essence, the plot of The Ceremonies is unique. It is shot full of menace and a looming sense of inevitability which suggests that Evil is never successfully vanquished. The book’s final image of a great and hideous force in the earth is extremely powerful and, for me at least, unforgettable. The Ceremonies is a book of many levels. It depends as much on philosophy as it does on suspense. It is written with a standard of craft and care rarely seen in the horror and dark fantasy genres, and deserves recognition as a modern classic. — THOMAS F. MONTELEONE

  92: [1984] ROBERT HOLDSTOCK - Mythago Wood

  Just after the Second World War, Steven Huxley returns to the Gloucester countryside where he grew up. He discovers that his brother Christian has inherited their father’s obsession with Ryhope Wood, a vast tract of primal forest he believes to be inhabited by “mythagos”. These are folkloric archetypes created by the collective imaginings of the human race, who are compelled to live and relive their legends. Christian disappears into the wood, and Steven sets off after him with the lovely mythago Guiwenneth and ex-flier Harry Keeton in tow. Within the woods, Steven encounters a giant demon pig, Robin Hood, a First World War battlefield mythago, among other creatures, before he confronts his brother in a Neolithic village. Expanded from Holdstock’s 1981 Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy novella, Mythago Wood is a fantasy adventure story and an examination of the roots of England’s rich native mythology. It won the 1985 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Holdstock has since returned to the Ryhope Wood with Lavondyss (1988), The Bone Forest (1991) and Ancient Echoes (1996).

  ***

  There is a type of English fantasy story which for me holds a special fascination. It can loosely be described, I suppose, as the “haunted wood” fantasy. The haunted wood is that place where England’s most ancient history impinges upon the modern world, where prehistoric spirits still live, sometimes yearning for their old power in the world, sometimes merely content to be left alone to hide from the new creatures, the human creatures, whose religions and realities have overwhelmed their own. In the haunted wood magic still persists. Sometimes it is little more than a faint aura, a hint of what it once was. Sometimes it is concentrated, merely awaiting the right catalyst to set it loose, to wreak revenge upon those who opposed it, imprisoned it or sent it into hiding. Various authors have produced fine examples of this kind of story. Machen, Blackwood and Buchan spring immediately to mind, as well as E. F. Benson, M. R. James and several other outstanding English horror writers. For me, Barrie’s Dear Brutus has much of the atmosphere I have described. In recent years, however, only Robert Holdstock has been able to recreate this special frisson for me, in his marvellous fantasy Mythago Wood. Mythago Wood has much of the feel of a classic horror story, both in its elegant style and in its choice of form. Holdstock uses traditional devices to draw us into his tale — mysterious activities, leaves torn from a journal, cryptic letters, discovered objects — until slowly we are as hooked, as obsessed with curiosity, as the protagonists themselves. By the time we begin our expedition into the magic wood we share the same compulsions to search for the truth. Again, as in the very best stories of this kind, the truth is not immediately definable. Indeed Holdstock uses all these traditional devices to his own ends, to discuss the nature of our perceptions, of our understanding of what truth actually is. While with one hand he offers us an answer to a mystery, an explanation for certain events, identification of shadowy characters, with the other he compounds the mysteries. With every revelation comes a fresh doubt until by the end of the novel we know a great deal about Mythago Wood but are left with an entirely new set of questions. Some of these, one hopes, will be answered in the author’s follow-up, Lavondyss. The story concerns two generations of the Huxley family, who live at Oak Lodge, an old country house situated at the edge of three square miles of post-Ice Age forest known as Ryhope Wood and which, by chance, has been left uncleared, undeveloped and largely unexplored for centuries. The sons, somewhat embittered with their father, who tended to ignore them and their mother in favour of his obsession with the wood and its “mythago” inhabitants, are gradually also hooked on the wood’s mysteries. Their father’s journals and letters provide some of the narrative, while the younger brother Steven’s first-person story provides most of the rest. The wood has a cryptic geography. Its boundaries expand the deeper one goes into it; it seems impossible ever to reach the far side. Within it dwell the “mythagos” — whole tribes, whole civilizations, as well as individuals, representing the British racial unconscious. Familiar figures of myth and legend exist here, frequently in their purest or most primitive personae — Hern the Hunter, King Arthur, Robin Hood and many others — while the explorer is apt to come upon the ruins of a Tudor manor farm, a Celtic stone fort or an 11th-century castle. And meanwhile, wandering the trails of this infinite place, are men and women, some “real” and some little more than memories, following desires and urges which even they are scarcely able to describe or define. It is a dangerous place, the mythago wood, where it is perfectly possible for an explorer to be
cut down by a Stone Age axe or a Bronze Age sword, to be killed by warriors brought into reality by his own racial memory. These archetypes as described by Holdstock have all the power that genuine archetypes should possess. Even the woman whom Steven falls in love with and who, it seems, falls in love with him, probably has only as much substance as his own longings can provide. The genuine pathos of Holdstock’s love story again has similarities with the theme of Dear Brutus and its heroine’s desperate final cry that she does not want to be a “might have been”. Holdstock avoids the sentimentality which some detect in Barrie by offering us tougher questions, moral dilemmas, an imagined world far more complex than anything found in the wood’s precursors. For me, this is the outstanding fantasy book of the 1980s; something to read several times and to rediscover the same delight with every new reading. — MICHAEL MOORCOCK