unnecessary descriptions of child molestation in an odd subplot that is completely inessential to the narrative... sort of makes me question the author's motives. overall, an incredibly overrated piece of crap. however, taken by itself, "giant human/rat monsters who are obsessed with sex" is sort of an amusing concept. the description of a pair of these fellows earnestly double-teaming their landlady was certainly a first for me.richard laymon inspires intense debate!
if you feel like reading what follows, know that there are two "marks". there is me - lowercase mark (in honor of my idols kd lang and ee cummings) - and then there is a second Mark who is certainly not me, in any way.
only messages relevant to the debate are included.]
message 445: by mark
Chris wrote: "mark, really? Have you actually read the recent novels by both King and Koontz (recent being, say, the last 10 or so books)? Laymon, not so obvious, but it is there..."
hmmm....well although i am a flaming liberal with a few reactionary tendencies, i do tend to consciously avoid even recognizing political themes in novels. i find political themes to be dull & limiting and they are often just the surface layer anyway, thematically speaking. king & koontz may be on opposite sides of the political spectrum (particularly in who they cast as their villains or who they choose to deride)....but they both share two central things that, to me at least, are more interesting & important:
......
now as far as laymon is concerned...he's a freak! a cracked nut. and certainly no humanist.
message 446: by Kasia
Like you said, your opinion.. An author that I'm friends with said he met Laymon a few times and he was the nicest guy ( Koontz says the same thing too), so just because you read a few books by him doesn't mean you have him all figured out.
message 456: by mark
i have no problem with him being the nicest guy a person could met. lots of folks are. and that doesn't mean i won't have a problem with what they choose to express either. nor do i think it will mean that simply because i judge a person's works, the reasons they choose to focus on certain themes & ideas, and their overall ability....that doesn't mean i'm judging the whole person. what human truly knows every side to any fellow human anyway? but i do feel free to judge not just an artist's work but the representation of themselves that they are expressing through their work.
and from that perspective, in my opinion, laymon is an entertaining pulp writer with striking ideas and expertise at writing page-turners, capable of strong execution, but having poor technical writing skills, an inability to develop realistic characters, and a highly problematic engagement with child abuse & molestation & perhaps women in general. overall, a compelling writer in many ways.
message 457: by Kasia
How astute of you... I doubt Laymon wrote his books with hopes of making the most realistic characters ever, you know what you’re getting when you pick him up so if you keep reading him don’t be surprised with what you find. There is plenty of serious fiction you can turn to if you crave that sort of depth.
message 463: by Mark
One thing, to me, that hasn't been considered is that most of what us horror fans read is FICTION. Sure, once in a while, a writer's personal opinions may seep into a character he or she created, but in a way, saying that an author's character's are a mirror image of the author himself is like saying any actor who plays a character IS that character. All the folks who played Nazis in Inglorious Bastards - are they real Nazis? One even won an Academy Award for his performance it was considered so realistic.
Sometimes, what an author writes has nothing to do w/ his or her personal feelings on a matter. Sometimes, they just create characters and let them "live".
message 465: by mark
you raise a good point and one that should always be brought up.
to use your acting analogy: while i can't say that an actor who plays, say, a flamingly gay villain is therefore a flamingly gay villain in real life (that would idiotic), i can judge both (1) his actual acting ability and (2) the decision by the actor and director to play a gay villain in a stereotypical or offensive way. meaning, i can judge the content & the craft AND the reasons they choose to create a character in this way. i am not judging what they are doing in their personal lives; i'm looking with a critical eye at the choices and decisions & meaning that they are bringing to whatever they choose to display publicly. be it acting, writing, sports, whatever.
message 466: by Branden
I would say that is right, Mark, but you cannot then go on to judge how these individuals are in real life like you have with Laymon, saying that the man, the individual, has "a highly problematic engagement with child abuse & molestation & perhaps women in general". I'm an actor, and I have played countless roles. If I played a serial killer who kills women and children, it was because I was cast in the role (if in undergrad) or the money was good, not because I have a problem with women and children. Is this what you are saying? So, one of your critiques of the actor who plays a flamingly gay villain would be that the actor himself, based on his choice, is (insert whatever commentary on the actor you want here)? That is wrong and a poor judge of character. If I am misunderstanding you, I apologize.
message 471: by Mark
Other Mark, I agree you have the right to question why authors and screenwriters choose to portray a character in a certain way, or include certain repulsive scenes. But I still think it's a stretch to claim Laymon had a possible child abuse fetish.
Horror movies and novels have always been reflections of their time and when Laymon began publishing, kidnapping and serial murder were becoming big stories on the nightly news. Even small towns were no longer immune. I was very small at the time, but I still remember hearing reports about these new items back then. I remember being told never to take rides from strangers, run and scream if someone I didn't know tried to grab me - all of this and I lived in a tiny town where almost everyone knew everyone else. I think this sort of thing is what Laymon was pulling from. The cruelty of humanity - not the cruelty within himself.
I know several of you don't care for Laymon's writing style, the words "shlock" and "pulp" being mentioned, but I have to disagree with that assessment. I've been a pulp magazine fan for the last several years and have read extensively within each decades and each genres writers. Granted, many of the authors who wrote for the pulps wrote too fast, wrote too sloppy, and didn't engage in the most extensive character development. But, the pulps also birthed Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, to name but two; names that have had a huge influence on the way modern prose is composed. Hammett and Hemingway began their experiments in stripped down, minimalist writing techniques at about the same time and these writers are who I think Laymon most resembles.
message 475: by mark
- at no point did i say that that laymon had a possible child abuse fetish...egads! i have no clue about that and would not presume to weigh in on that or in regards to his personal family life. i literally have clue about what he is all about on a personal level. what i DID say is that he has a "a highly problematic engagement with child abuse & molestation & perhaps women in general". i am talking about laymon as a WRITER, not as the whole human being, certainly not as someone that i actually knew on a personal level. as a writer, laymon consistently include scenes of child abuse & molestation, sexualization of children, etc....as a reader, i find this preoccupation to be disturbing because these scenes are sometimes unnecessary and sometimes written in a way that i see as salacious or at the very least, insensitive. therefore i do find that he has a troubling engagement with depicting scenes of child abuse & molestation.
i could say, similarly, that hemmingway has a troubling engagement with women in general. i am only judging what i read and i am only judging the author insofar as he is allowing me to judge him by consistently engaging with certain topics in a troubling way within his novels. i am critiquing laymon the author, not laymon the actual person who i've never met. i have no idea what his fetishes were!
regarding use of the word "pulp": to me, this is not an insult, it is simply a description. laymon reminds me of the many pulp writers i've read who are short on technical skills but long on imagination and the ability to provide propulsive, exciting narratives. there are many, many writers that i respect who are clearly pulp writers. philip k dick comes immediately to mind. so does robert howard. as do your own examples. i like pulp! i may critique technical skills, or at least point out the lack of them, but for me at least, i enjoy so many things about writing and being able to write at a certain level is only one of those things. characterizations, basic ideas, atmosphere, world-building, etc are all things that i enjoy equally to ability to be a "good writer".
message 476: by mark
branden:
i do not think it is wrong, nor do i think it is being a poor judge of character. yes, i am judging a real side of a person, so in a sense, i am judging a part of their character. but i am not judging the whole person. that point really needs to be clear. i may judge a politician on the legislation he puts forward, that may be a character judgment because i may find he has poor engagement with something i care about, i may speak negatively about this side of him...but what i am absolutely not doing is judging him as a father or husband or philosopher or whatever. i am judging him in his role as a politician, just as i am judging laymon on his role as a writer. people don't just get off scott-free with me simply because they are doing a job or writing a novel for entertainment or just following orders. and they also don't get judged let alone condemned in their entirety because i am unaware of the entire person. i'm only aware of what they've put out for me to see and anyone should feel free to judge an artist's representation of themselves on a consistent, public basis.
back to the acting analogy, and the gay villain analogy as well....if there was an actor who consistently played only gay villains and who only played them as stereotypically & offensively as possible...then yes, i should feel free to judge that person as an actor and in particular the choices they've made when engaging in their art.
i'm not saying they should be criticized for taking particular kinds of roles - unless those kinds of roles are consistently offensive, whether in their conception or their execution. gay villains are awesome! but a gay villain or a black villain or whatever that is rendered stereotypically and crudely and offensively is not so awesome (unless there's some level of irony involved). and the actor who consistently takes offensive roles and/or plays them offensively is, in my opinion, an ass.
and again, this does not mean that i am judging them for what they do in their private life....i'm commenting on what they've chosen to present in their public life, work life, whatever kind of life that has connected with my life. as an actor, that person would be an ass to me but i would not presume to weigh in on them as a whole person.
message 478: by Kasia
Thats a lot of words.. You make the author sound like an actor, ok I'm done, this gave me a headache
message 481: by Mark
mark: I think the problem I have is in an earlier post you said "[Laymon:] is a freak. a cracked nut." then said "he has a highly problematic engagement with child abuse & molestation & perhaps women in general", which changed to "depicting scenes ...". There's a big difference between being occupied w/ something and being allegedly occupied w/ depicting something. Yes, it's semantics, and you may've meant the writer and not the person, but I feel that the way it was worded, and having made the "freak" retort earlier, it seems more like an indictment on the man himself.
I'm glad to hear you like pulp, too. The reason I thought you meant Laymon's writing being "pulpish" as an insult is because you married "pulp" with "having poor technical writing skills" while discussing Laymon earlier today. To me, saying someone has poor technical skills is insulting. And I disagreed w/ the idea that they're technically poor because, to me, they are reminiscent of Hemingway, Hammett, and even many of the minimalist short story writers who published throughout the 1980s and went on to influence writers like Palahniuk. Many people dislike this writing style, but it was featured in many of the Best American Short Story anthologies since it's inception and re: Hemingway and Hammett, influenced every writer that came after them to a lesser or greater degree. Given that, I wouldn't necessarily call that writing style "poor".
It's, of course, your prerogative to like or not like it, but I think it's a bit of an overstatement to claim the writing to be technically poor when it's indicative of two influential schools of writing.
message 495: by mark
ah! well that makes sense. it's funny in a way because this is rather a misunderstanding. when i called laymon a freak, a cracked nut, i really didn't mean anything by it. if anything, that's just a funny way, to me, of expressing how unusual he ise. i enjoy the company of freaks, am one myself, and enjoy reading their works. hell everyone's freakish or nutty in one way or another.
and i can see how you can connect that to my genuine critical viewpoint in regard to "problematic engagement with blah blah blah". however, they are not supposed to be connected. imo, laymon's a freak because he writes crazy stories with nutty characters and bizarre narratives. also imo, he has a "problematic engagement blah blah blah".....but the former is really not caused by the latter. even if his novels didn't include a single scene of child abuse, i'd still say he was a freak because of his crazy novels. and that's neither a good thing or a bad thing. it just means he's unique.
i'm still going to have to disagree with you re pulp & technically polished writing, and i love pulp. to me at least, a pulp writer does not usually have the sophistication or technical ability of a non-pulp writer. that doesn't mean i'm dismissing them or that they won't eventually get to that level of writing - or that they even need to try to get to that level.
message 497: by mark
Kasia wrote: "Thats a lot of words.. You make the author sound like an actor, ok I'm done, this gave me a headache"
golly, i thought this was a group for people who read! have i somehow stumbled upon the BiffBangPowWoweeMcWowClubForFolksWhoAlwaysAgree,Yahoo!!! group?
you know kasia, i'm so very sorry that you can't deal with critical comments about your hero laymon. i don't consider this a fan club, it is a discussion group. i have not personally attacked your hero, i have critically analyzed his writings. which i should be free to do without any inane commentary re "this gave me a headache" and "a lot of words". feh!
message 498: by Mark
I think Kasia is under the same impression I was: that your authorial critiques were spilling over into personal critiques. So to her, it DID feel like you personally attacked Laymon. I will let her tell you whether he's a hero, or an author she enjoys.
You have to admit: you even said it was a lot of writing ["boy i'm talkative today":], remember? :D
message 500: by Maciek
I don't think Laymon was a freak. Since he was a horror writer, he propably decided to put as much stuff into his books as possible - including sluttish women and lots of gore.
message 502: by Aloha
It's actually pretty fun, popping up into hilarious and strange situations, like popping into this forum at just the right time when Branden is confused about the Marks. I can sympathize with Branden. LOL
It's the Mark vs. Mark in the Matrix. The battle is on! :oD
message 516: by Phil
I really liked The Cellar but the peodophile stuff in it stops me from recommending it to people. I do think it's pretty dodgy.
message 517: by Chris
Again....it was PART of the story...whatever...incidentally, Phil, I recall the scene you speak of and thank you for mentioning it...but for chrissakes'...it is HORROR...sometimes the horror portrayed is REAL, as in not supernatural and I don't think Laymon was at all glorifying such a heinous act. Like what Ketchum did with TGND, takes a lot of guts to "go there."
message 520: by Kasia
Mark wrote: "Kasia wrote: "Thats a lot of words.. You make the author sound like an actor, ok I'm done, this gave me a headache"
golly, i thought this was a group for people who read! have i somehow stumbled u..."
He’s not my hero, I simply like his writing but personally I don’t think it’s fair for you to hint that he’s some psycho and secret child molester or something, besides he’s not even around to defend himself.. I think you’re pissed because you spend all that time writing things and I didn’t reciprocate with an effluvia of words, you can certain feel what you want but you say that someone is a nut and is crazy then five minutes later you say it doesn’t mean anything, that its just fun talk, then I guess nothing means anything if we don’t mean the things we say.. You wrote some comments and I responded to them, you want to have the freedom to analyze his writing and post things about him yet you don’t want me to comment on it that I have a headache, well then don’t give me one, mmkay?
message 521: by Phil
Chris wrote: " Again....it was PART of the story...whatever...incidentally, Phil, I recall the scene you speak of and thank you for mentioning it...but for chrissakes'...it is HORROR...sometimes the horror port..."
Jeez Chris I didn't say Laymon was glorifying anything. But thanks for assuming the worst :P
I agree on the HORROR thing though, if you're gonna read or watch horror you have to expect to be horrified every now and again. Still, even if someone says they like horror, there's still stuff you have to be careful of recommending, imo.
message 548: by mark
Chris wrote: "I have been reading Laymon novels since 1987. Other than teen-agers having SEX--which, ahem, they DO--NONE of his books portray child abuse...."
then you have not actually read his novels, my friend! or you are from opposite world. The Cellar and Island both have extended scenes of child abuse, unnecessarily presented in one case and salaciously presented in the other. apparently child abuse is also present in Darkness Tell Us, Beast House, and The Traveling Vampire Show, although i cannot attest to that personally.
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