Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Brite Goodreads Author. Get A Copy. Paperback , Penguin 60s , 88 pages. Published August 1st by Penguin first published More Details Original Title.
Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Mar 28, Traveller rated it liked it Shelves: gothic , dark. With no more ado, I shall hand over the discussion to Asterisk and Obstalisk. Yes, we certainly have a lot to say. What are we gonna talk about today? Brite to wax forth on some aspects of Gothic fiction, or even maybe Southern Gothic fiction, because she actually falls into the latter genre.
Shut up, Obstalisk! I would like to talk about how Poppy Z. Brite uses sensual and conceptual contrasts and liberal use of metaphors and imagery in His Mouth will Taste of Wormwood to add a fresh, poetic and disturbing element to her rendering of the Southern Gothic style, and uses contrasts as a method of heightening a sense of the transgressive.
Those stories are all yuck yuck yuckyuck! Jerrold Hogle, in a book called The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction , defines some of the key characteristics of Gothic fiction as follows ASTERISK: Within this space, or a combination of such spaces, are hidden some secrets from the past that haunt the characters, psychologically, physically, or otherwise at the main time of the story.
Jerrold says: These hauntings can take many forms, but they frequently assume the features of ghosts, specters, or monsters mixing features from different realms of being, often life and death that rise from within the antiquated space, or sometimes invade it from alien realms, to manifest unresolved crimes or conflicts that can no longer be successfully buried from view.
It is at this level that Gothic fictions generally play with and oscillate between the.. ASTERISK: As Jerrold Hogle says: It is at this level that Gothic fictions generally play with and oscillate between the earthly laws of conventional reality and the possibilities of the supernatural — often siding with one of these over the other in the end, but usually raising the possibility that the boundaries between these may have been crossed, at least psychologically but also physically or both What do you mean!!
Obstalisk, please stop interrupting me!! Now where was I? I was saying you get terror gothic and you get horror gothic. And I was wanting to say that the titular story of this little selection is a good example of classic Southern horror gothic.
In the story, a lot of the language used is of a florid, descriptive nature, reminiscent in its decadent flair of Oscar Wilde.
It is also strongly reminiscent in style and setting of the classic gothic fictions of Poe and Lovecraft. Hold on, what's the difference between Southern Gothic and Northern Gothic? In much of Souhtern Gothic, the "horror" is more of a psychological nature. Lovecraft and Poe were both technically Southern Gothicers, depending on how you define it But anyway, the first story in the book, the titular story of the collection, is definitely set in the South, in New Orleans.
That's sort of a special sub-genre of Gothic fiction which I find very interesting. But what I was going to say before I got interrupted, is: This is what Jerrold Hogle says about horror Gothic: it confronts the principal characters with the gross violence of physical or psychological dissolution, explicitly shattering the assumed norms including the repressions of everyday life with wildly shocking, and even revolting, consequences.
Aesthetically excessive, Gothic productions were considered unnatural in their under-mining of physical laws with marvellous beings and fantastic events. Transgressing the bounds of reality and possibility, they also challenged reason through their overindulgence in fanciful ideas and imaginative flights. Encouraging superstitious beliefs, Gothic narratives subverted rational codes of understanding and, in their presentation of diabolical deeds and supernatural incidents, ventured into the unhallowed ground of necromancy and arcane ritual.
The centrality of usurpation, intrigue, betrayal and murder to Gothic plots appeared to celebrate criminal behaviour, violent executions of selfish ambition and voracious passion and licentious enactments of carnal desire.
Such terrors, emerging from the gloom of a castle or lurking in the dark features of the villain, were also the source of pleasure, stimulating excitements which blurred definitions of reason and morality Cut that out! ASTERISK: In the stories, we are made privy to rather shocking revelations, and this is where the typical Gothic element of dissolution, of moral decay and depravity comes into play, and one of the core elements of gothic fiction, namely transgression.
Poppy Z. Brite wrote about that community in his brilliant and deeply disturbing Exquisite Corpse, doing it so well I never had the nerve to try to write about it myself. GridFreed LLC.
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