Gothic and Cosmic Horror - Shodhgangashodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/25472/9/... · The...
Transcript of Gothic and Cosmic Horror - Shodhgangashodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/25472/9/... · The...
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Chapter- II
Gothic and Cosmic Horror
The frequently used term horror fiction jogs one’s attention
towards the gothic fiction particularly, the gothic novel. The gothic novel,
with its unique identity, is looked upon as the pioneer of horror novel. Its
dark ruined mansions, corridors, dungeons, mysterious incidents and
romance ruled and still ruling on the horizon of English literature.
Moreover, its virgins and charismatic villains have occupied permanent
places in English literature. Gothic novel still exists as there are number
of gothic novels produced in nineteenth and twentieth centuries of
English literature. Gothic novel makes readers avid for horror as well as
for supernatural history. According to Campbell:’ horror fiction is a
development of the gothic’’ (See Appendix). Horror novel, however,
continued reflecting gothic elements/icons of horror effectively. Ghosts,
spirits, and haunted houses dominated and yet dominate the modern
horror novel. Campbell’s novels are not exception to it as he employs
spirits, ghosts, and haunted houses as icons of horror in his some novels.
Ramsey Campbell replaces modern houses, bookshops for gothic
mansions and places. These modern places, with gothic icons of horror,
have linked Campbell to the legacy of gothic novel. So critics have
tempted to label his novels as ‘urban gothic novels’. Campbell’s
attraction and imitation of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, reflected in his few
novels, links him to Lovecraftian fiction of horror. Hence, in this chapter
the researcher proposes to discuss and analyze four novels of Campbell
keeping in view the gothic and cosmic elements/icons of horror employed
in the novels. The four novels are placed under two heads; each contains
two novels. The novels To Wake the Dead (1980) and Nazareth Hill
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(1997) come under the heading of the gothic horror whereas the novels
The Hungry Moon (1987) and Midnight Sun (1990) come under the
heading of cosmic horror.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It also becomes clear from the first chapter that Ramsey Campbell
has handled gothic and new mechanisms/ icons of horror in his novels. In
doing so, he has proved himself to be head of his crew of horror fiction
writers. Any mechanism of horror including gothic, cosmic and mundane,
which has rested in Campbell’s hand, has been vivified exploring both
supernatural and non-supernatural horror. Campbell has brought his icons
of horror in the world of human beings and has breathed in them
freshness and life with his skills, techniques and modern settings.
Campbell lives and writes in England. The horrors and disasters which
occur in his novels usually take place in cities and towns, a setting which
he can expect the majority of his readers to find familiar. The setting
directs us to the Campbellian philosophy that exposes true nature of
reality. A deep and close reading of his novels confuses us about reality.
Moreover, his readers are expected to understand the bitter truth about
reality. Like Ramsey Campbell, the modern horror novelists have also
tempted to employ gothic elements/ icons of horror in their novels which
have stirred human heart. Shirley Jackson (1916-1965), Robert Bloch
(1917-1994), William Blatty (b.1928), Ira Levin (1929-2007) and, James
Herbert (b.1942) have carried forward gothic elements/ icons of horror to
masses. It has already been mentioned that horror fiction moves around
the ‘other’. The modern horror novel used its best to deal with the ‘other’.
Human body invasion by the ‘other’ seems to be the dominant theme and
concern of modern horror fiction writers. Aguirre expresses this concern:
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A demonic being immured by magic in a small castle
from time immemorial, waiting and manipulating
people’s mind to be let out and feed on pain even as it
spreads pain and establishes its own brand of Hell on
Earth (Aguirre 197).
Shirley Jackson has exposed this ‘hell’ in his novel Trespass (1953). It
shocks and creates horror when the protagonist returns home after a five
month absence and finds his wife pregnant though she has not committed
any infidelity. This ‘hell’ operates in a full swing in Ira Levin’s
Rosemary’s Baby (1967) and in William Blatty‘s The Exorcist (1971).
Aguirre quotes few lines from Paul Wilson’s novel The Keep (1981)
which speaks of the same ‘hell’:
Everyone will suffer. Women and children the most.
People will be born into misery; they will spend their
days in despair; they will die in agony. Generation
after generation, all suffering to feed Rassalom
(Aguirre 197).
Surprisingly, in post-modern era the possession of a human body
by the ‘other’ is a recurring motif of horror fiction and cross-genre
writers. Séances and normal people dabbling with extrasensory are
fictionalized by various novelists. The contemporaries of Ramsey
Campbell and famous American horror fiction writers Peter Straub (b
1943) Stephen King (b 1947) have produced recurring characters who
dabble in the occult and black arts in their Talisman series, The Talisman
(1994) and Bleak House (2001). Gary Holliman’s the most popular novel
Ungrateful Dead (1999) deals with a young woman who is possessed by
the ghost of her mother.
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The modern horror movie producers and directors have given
significance place in their movies to the motif of body invasion by the
‘other’. In John Hayes’s Grave of the Vampire (1974) the heroine,
Lesley, is raped by a patriarchal vampire just after her friend has
proposed marriage. What is insight is not a human being. She carries it,
once delivered, it turns on her. The same situation is screened in David
Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977) and in Larry Cohen’s movies its Alive (1974)
and It Lives Again (1978). The Possession (1981) arouses horror when it
screens a rape on a sister by a demonic possessed brother.
What emerges from this cursory survey is that the horror fiction
and the horror film flourished after Second World War showed how the
external ‘other’ in any form invades the female reproductive system and
then reappears as a devil, and perhaps, a devouring child. Surprisingly,
Ramsey Campbell is also at the front to weave his stories around the
external ‘other’ since his few novels are packed with ghosts, spirits,
haunted houses and places. Although Campbell has often been credited
for the invention of new elements/icons of horror, he does not hide his
interest in spirits, ghosts, haunted houses and haunted forests. The
external ‘other’ appears in the form of a ghost in The Influence (1993). It
creates horror when the corpse of Queenie rises from the grave which
Hermione is disinterring:
She was still gripping the flashlight, which thumped
the lining of the coffin and showed her Queenie’s
grinning head. The head was rising from its nest of
hair.
The hair stuck to the lining. It tore free of the
gray scalp as the corpse sat up stiffly, a bald grinning
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doll with no eyes worth the name. Perhaps it was
mindless as puppet … it clasped its arm around
Heromine’s neck and pressed its face against hers
(Influence 166).
Campbell’s recently published novels The Darkest Part of the Woods
(2002) and The Overnight (2005) are set in haunted places. The former
takes readers to the deep haunted forest and the latter to the haunted
bookshop. However, the researcher has selected the novel To Wake the
Dead (1980) for discussion because the novel like The Exorcist reflects
the age- long fear of body invasion that repeatedly occurred in the horror
fiction and film produced after the Second World War. The Exorcist and
Rosemary’s Baby both as horror novels and horror films (bearing the
traditional mechanism of horror and the theme of body invasion) have
successfully carried their icons of horror down to masses and have ruled
the minds of people for a long time. In such an atmosphere, Campbell
launched To Wake the Dead to depict the intrusion of the ‘other’ in
human life thereby exposing the horrible life of modern people in a
compelling way. Moving from past to the present, the novel unfolds
nightmarish life of a woman consumed by a spirit of the man who died
long ago.
2.1 To Wake the Dead (1980)
To Wake the dead published in England in 1980 and in the same
year the same novel published in America under the new title The
Parasite. This novel has different ending than To Wake the Dead. But
according to critics both novels have twisted endings. This British
Fantasy Award winner novel attracted scholars, critics and readers.
However, Campbell has a feeling that he has not presented the novel as
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he wanted to be. In an interview with David Mathew, Campbell
expressed his feeling:
The Parasite is the classical example . . . where it seems
to me that the book simply gets more and more shrill –
because there’s nowhere else for it to go. The problem
I‘d set myself, which I don’t think you can sustain for
novel length, is that it’s from the view point of the
character to whom all it’s happening, and she is aware
of what is happening to her. All I think you can do is
convey her sense of mounting terror and panic, but there
is a limit to how much you can do that (Campbell 03).
Campbell has also admitted that the novel To Wake the Dead is written
with market considerations in mind:
I tried to do what appeared to be the perceived model of the
contemporary horror story, which is characters in an
ordinary environment and something out there is
attempting to get them for whatever reason (Campbell 49).
In spite of all these things, To Wake the Dead, told from the point
of view of protagonist Rose, is a remarkable horror novel. Campbell, on a
single thread, weaves many striking things; vivid characterizations, a
compelling floating-style of prose, an intrusion of the past into the
present, a fine blending of supernatural and non-supernatural horror, a
deteriorated human relationship, a modern life under the threat of
supernatural power and the true nature of reality. Moreover, the ‘other’,
lies at the root of all these things, evokes horror. Campbell’s skill of
etching the nightmarish and horrible life of the protagonist stirs the hearts
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of readers with sympathy. The prologue, the main story, and the epilogue
of the novel unveil the horrible journey of the protagonist who travels
from innocence state to a living nightmare.
Beginning with a shocking prologue, the novel horribly presents
the entry of the ‘other’ in the life of a little girl. The girl participated in a
séance with her friends in a deserted house where a Mr. Allan had ended
his life. ‘’I AM EVERYWHERE IN HERE’’ (Dead 15) announces the
very existence of the ‘other’ in the house. The girl, who unwillingly
participates in a séance, gets locked in the deserted house after her friends
successfully flee from the house. Before she can understand anything,
something comes upon her from behind:
When she was seized from behind, she was not even able
to scream. They must be hands, for they had fingers,
though they felt soft as putty- far softer than putty,
indeed, to be able to do her what they began to do then
(Dead 18).
Years pass by; the grown-up girl has obtained name and fame in the
world of film industry. She is Rose Tierney, a Liverpool native and a
famous film critic. Her life goes well with her husband Bill Tierney. It
seems that she has forgotten the past experience of her life. However, on
her visit to New York, the mysterious mugging, ‘’ she had no time before
the fist punched back of her neck’’ (Dead 34) brings a chain of bizarre
experiences in her life. She is subjected to the out-of–body experiences
which she first dislikes and then likes. The novel is packed with such
incidents. In one of the incidents Rose undergoes a strange experience.
She floats- leaving her body on the bed- to a house where a group of
unnamed people have gathered to summon her spirit:
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At least she was in someone’s home. Perhaps she could
rest here and grow calmer, before she tried to think her
way back to her own home, Bill, her body . . . she
glimpsed the figures in the dark . . . . There were more
than a dozen of them. They sat in a circle, on chairs.
Masks were tied over their faces . . . their eyes, which
glimmered white ad grubs, with glistering bruises for
pupils . . . and she was being drawn downward, into their
midst (Dead 69).
Furthermore, Rose undergoes another strange experience in
Munich where she is cornered by a bald-headed man. This man has been
chasing Rose as she has seen him on several places and occasions. A
bald-headed man seems to know everything about her childhood
experience. Rose exercises some sort of inner power that drives the man
away before he tells her anything. In a few days, Rose’s meeting with her
American friend Diana develops her interest in the power of occult. Diana
tells her strange stories of out-of-body experiences. Peter Grace, the
inhabitant of the early decades of the century, believed that he could
achieve immorality by transferring his spirit into another living body
especially, that of female’s. There is a book about Grace entitled as Astral
Rape. The German dictator Adolf Hitler also practiced out- of- body
experiences. There are dim references that Hitler somehow survived the
death of his body in 1945 by the method Peter Grace had delineated. As a
result of storytelling, Diana begins to read the book Astral Rape.
Meanwhile, an anonymous letter, regarding astral projection posted from
Manchester, makes Rose to visit the place. It seems that she has
developed interest in the astral projection. Here she is again confronted
by a bald-headed man and his group- perhaps the same ones who
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summoned her spirit months before. When it becomes difficult for Diana
to flee, her inner power rescues her:
Just let her intuition take over, believe that that it could
do so, just let it move one muscle and the rest would
follow, before the gray things emerged, dropping their
bodies like discarded clothing, and dragged her out in
their midst- just let a cry reach her throat, a cry of outrage
that would give her strength . . . But when the cry came, it
was not from Rose (Dead 194).
Caught in the maze of danger and attraction of astral projection,
Rose is detached not only from her husband but also from the whole
world. She is passing through ordeals and at this point her parents reveal
the truth. They disclose her childhood incident which she has almost
repressed. The house, where the ‘other’ entered the body of Rose, is the
place Peter Grace had known. She finds that she is infected by Grace:
She felt the presence which was watching over her come
clear. It was only one. It was neither of her relatives, but
she knew it all too well. It was old and sly and utterly
ruthless, and had deceived her effortlessly. . .
But its physical form, whatever it might be, was no
longer trapped in the walls. The séance has set it free. She
had touched it through the dusty sheets of the bed, a thin
flabby limb. Perhaps her touch had awakened it fully, for
it had got out of the bed (Dead 273).
Rose realizes that: “she couldn’t hold on to a sense of her body,
for it wasn’t hers” (Dead 275). The situation turns worst now. The bald-
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headed man attacks on Rose. His name is Huge Wills who is the author of
the book Astral Rape. He knows that Rose carries Peter Grace’s spirit in
her body and he wants to destroy both it and her. However, Rose is saved
by her neighbours Colin and Gladys Hay who actually belong to the sect
of Grace. They kidnap and take her to a deserted house -perhaps in the
house where a Mr. Allan died. Huge Will follows them. All of a sudden,
the spirit of Grace leaves Rose’s body and enters Will’s body. The novel
moves to the tense situation in which Bill kills Huge Will and becomes an
abode of Grace’s spirit. At this point some cosmic presence enters the
place to bear off Grace’s spirit. But the matters do not end here. Colin
Hay has survived following the car accident, which he met, while
escaping from the police. Rose is separated from Bill and is living with
her parents. Living under the shadow of horror, Rose sees a dream of
Colin stealing her baby. She is horrified as: ‘‘they had all been smiling
evilly, in triumph: Colin, the swarthy man- and the baby’’ (Dead 317).
To Wake the Dead is a superb fusion of supernatural, non-
supernatural, cosmic, and real horror. The deserted house with the spirit,
its intrusion in the life of girl, out-of-body experiences of the protagonist,
the book, Astral Rape, references of occult power, Peter Graces’s
experiments with a small girl and slow deterioration of the protagonist
render the novel highly supernatural qualities. The out-of-body
experiences of Rose, her journey to the unknown house where spirits are
gathered, and mysterious mugging of Rose are fine supernatural touches
that the novelist intersperses in the novel. Therefore, To Wake the Dead
becomes a compact and effective work, skillful in its execution and subtle
in its portrayal of a possessed personality. The last episode of Rose’s
kidnapping to the deserted house is purely a supernatural episode in
which the spirit of Grace shifts from body to body. In short, this spirit of
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Grace, which has inhabited various bodies over the course of decades and
now rests in Rose’s body, creates horror. At one point Rose recalls the
demonic possession of her body:
She was absolutely alone, except for what had risen from
the bed. She clawed at the door, but even when she
hooked her finger in the hole where the doorknob should
have been, the door wouldn’t budge.
A pale shape was creeping about the room, slithering
over the shabby furniture. . . Before she knew, something
cold and flabby, a body which felt not quite formed,
fastened on her from behind (Dead 273-274).
Thus, To Wake the Dead presents the theme of body invasion or
supernatural rape which remains dominants throughout the novel thereby
exposing supernatural horror. However, the novel is also concerned with
the aberrant nature of human beings. It is a richer work, and each
character is painted so subtly that gradually uncovers the ‘other’ lying
beneath outward normality of human beings. In this regard To Wake the
Dead can be considered as non-supernatural horror novel. The ‘other’ in
human beings is, for Campbell, a matter of concern. It is reflected in the
characters of Peter Grace, Adolf Hitler, Colin and Glady. Throughout the
novel, Peter Grace remains a hidden character. His journey of life is
shocking. He began his career as a clergyman. When he found his views
unmatched with his colleagues, he joined ‘Golden Dawn’ to study occult
sciences. His aim of ‘a personal immortality’ led him to form his group.
But he was killed by his ex-followers who sensed the danger of his plan
of action. The transformation of Peter Grace from a clergyman to a
repulsive human being explores the ‘other’ in a human being. Besides, his
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transformation into a spirit ready for consuming female body evokes
horror. Thus, Peter Grace stands for supernatural as well as non-
supernatural horror. Colin and Gladys do symbolize the innermost
essence of ‘other’ which moves with a mask in the novel. In addition to
this, the non-supernatural horror which emerges in the form of Nazi
Germany serves as a vehicle of horror. A fine blending of supernatural
horror with non- supernatural horror uplifts the novel to a height where a
few horror novels and novelists can reach. This quality of Campbell is
creditable. It indirectly suggests Campbell’s inclination to the internal
‘other’ which he fully exposed in most of his novels. Crawford pens this
superb quality of Campbell:
Campbell merges actual human, non- supernatural horror
with his supernatural elements. This aspect of Campbell’s
artistry, his ability to create supernatural horror as a poetic
expression of realistic ones, is the hallmark of his approach
to the genre (Crawford 37).
Rose experiences real horror when the spirit of Peter Grace leaves her
body:
If she could have shuddered, she would have been unable to
stop. She felt trapped in her slumped flesh . . . Two eyes
like ovals of bright scum had been glaring from a pale
bulge on the on the wall. As she had met them, she had
glimpsed their thoughts. . .
She could feel their gaze, plucking at her like hooks,
and their thoughts: cripples hanging by their feet in a dead
place that looked like the moon, their throats cut, their
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bodies withering feebly as they drained; an old Jew
castrated. . . She didn’t need to make out the face that had
begun to form in the corner, on the pale swelling (Dead
303).
The face Rose sees in the corner of the room seems to be Adolph
Hitler’s that symbolizes natural horror. Rose is Campbell’s most pathetic
character caught in mazes of horror. As a result of it, her life deteriorates
and meets tragic incidents. Campbell pens the journey of Rose’s life in a
cinematic way. It is pitiful that the film critic Rose’s life deteriorates like
a deterioration of life shown in a horror movie. The events take place
rapidly baffling Rose and carrying her to a point where only horror
remains. Campbell presents steady mental decay of rose in a cinematic
language:
Still the evening seemed ominous. Darkness flocked across
the sky. As people hurried through the drowned streets, they
trod on caricatures of themselves, dwarfed and half-
dissolved. Rose felt as though she was trying to shake off a
blur of darkness and flesh- coloured blobs that was glued to
her feet.
Aigburth road was coated with glistering orange beneath
lights like bars of electric fires set in concrete hooks. Traffic
lights splashed the roads with fluorescent paint: green,
amber, red. Cars advanced on fractured luminous stilts, tail-
lights bled on the tarmac (Dead 146).
In short, the film critic’s life collapses in a cinematic way.
Campbell’s work returns to certain themes, sometimes with the
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autobiographical touch, sometimes with social and moral touch, and
sometimes with a weird touch. The theme of body invasion, that has a
weird touch, is centered on a female character. Naturally, Campbell
observes human life especially, life of women in the light of horror. His
observation of female life in the shadow of horror can be undertaken as a
separate research topic. The themes with a weird touch speak of
vulnerability of human beings. But they have another connotation of
human sickness. Rose Tierney can be placed in both states. At one point
in the novel she seems to be enjoying the weird situation:
She soared above the plane, plummeted towards it,
swooped away. . . She was tempted to fly in the face of the
plane, an ecstatic challenge. Suppose the pilot saw her? To
risk distracting him was irresponsible. Her power demanded
self- discipline. She turned and plunged in to the clouds. . .
When she emerged, the plane was half a mile away. She
sped to catch it, not in panic but for the joy of flight (Dead
122).
Rose responds to the stimulus in a preserve way as like Hitler and
Peter Grace is a sign of sickness and horror. Like Peter Grace and Adolf
Hitler, Rose seems to be in enjoying state. Human vulnerability leads
towards victimization of human beings and it is twofold in Campbell’s
novels. According to Campbell human beings are victims of their own
whims as well as supernatural powers. Peter Grace and Adolf Hitler are
victims of their own whims whereas Rose and countless human beings
are victims of others whims. Relatively, Campbell’s concern for human
civilization reflects in the theme of ‘human beings as victims’. Rose, Bill
and countless people live under the shadow of horror drawn on them
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either by the supernatural power or by human beings. The novel also
underlines ‘the triumph of evil’ in the world’. The onset of the ‘other’ is
violent but its symptoms are not immediately seen. Horror slowly, but in
a bizarre way manifests on the protagonist and reaches its climax when it
is unbearable.
Apart from these horrors, To Wake the Dead introduces cosmic
horror. It has been already said that interesting features of Campbell’s
work is a powerful mixture of horrors and Campbell mixes them in such a
way that one leads to the other. The sudden presence of a strange entity at
the end of the novel makes readers aware of cosmic horror. Campbell
pens the entity:
It was as though the void of outer space had swallowed
the house. Everything and everyone within it were all at
once infinitesimal, almost insubstantial, for that was how
they appeared to the presence. It was enormous and cold
and pitiless, and unbounded by space or time. It seemed
hardly to resemble life (Dead 306).
To Wake the Dead is the first novel which introduces cosmic
horror. The famous American weird writer H. P. Lovecraft popularized
the term cosmic horror which resembles to supernatural horror. The
cosmic horror depicts insignificance of human beings against cosmic
‘other’. The cosmic horror fiction is based on the idea of human
vulnerability and cosmic power. In short, Campbell’s juxtaposition of
horrors renders the novel superior quality and holds its position high in
the total scenario of weird fiction. But a comparative approach is
necessary to point out similarities and disparities of the selected novel
and the novels produced in the same decade. Naturally, in the history of
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weird fiction The Exorcist and To Wake the Dead will be compared as
both the novels present the entry of paranormal elements into female
bodies. There is a basic difference in the nature of these two novels. The
Exorcist falls under the category of storyteller horror whereas To Wake
the Dead falls under the category of visceral horror. Rose Tierney and
Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist are possessed by spirits and their
behavior can be explained in terms of possession by supernatural entities.
Rose is paranoid whereas Regan exercises some cruel powers. This
becomes clear when Regan begins exhibiting uncharacteristic traits. She
is taken to psychiatrist. Some drugs are prescribed but they do not affect
Regan and her behavior becomes more and more bizarre. Regan’s
masturbating with a crucifix is a height of her bizarre behavior. A
significant point is that Rose discovers about her possession but Regan
does not; it is the exorcist who saves Regan. But Rose becomes a victim
of the spirit as it possesses her unborn child. Though these novels
resemble in presenting the traditional icons of horror, they differ in their
philosophical outlook. The Exorcist underlines the triumph of good over
evil. The novel focuses on the philosophy of Blatty. According to Blatty
if there is a demon then there is a God and Catholicism is one true
religion. It seems that Blatty’s writing tends to prove the existence of God
in the Universe. His work is addressed as the catholic weird fiction. To
Wake the Dead underlines the triumph of evil over good. Campbell also
points out that the whole world is polluted by an evil. It is very difficult
to identify good and evil in this world. What worries Campbell is the
deceptive nature of good and evil. It is this nature that arouses horror.
Campbell’s characters are victims of the deceptive nature of good and
evil. The shadows of horror, for Campbell, have long life to survive and
to chase the victims. Campbell is and has been praised for the aftereffects
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of his novels and To Wake the Dead serves this purpose. In short,
Campbell’s world is full of horror and devoid of exorcists where evil can
play and victimize people at its will to turn human life in to a hell.
Indisputably, The Exorcist has proved as the best horror novel and its
version of film created history in the film industry. Blatty must be
congratulated for this as people have not forgotten both the novel and the
movie since many novels and movies were produced after The Exorcist.
But To Wake the Dead does not lack in arousing horror. It is in a true
sense a horror novel because it displays a spirit’s wish for afterlife. They
are no longer traditional spirits who after their wish fulfillment used to
return to their worlds. These are the modern spirits living in the modern
world. Spirit’s interest in producing their legacy using female body
arouses loathsome and everlasting horror. Moreover, spirit’s interest in
female bodies makes them either very cruelly active or very passive. It is
the possession of Rose by a spirit leads her to transformation and
relationship with her husband deteriorates as she is preoccupied with her
mystifying experiences. She becomes paranoid, alienated and withdrawn.
Her paranoia, increasing withdrawal, and alienation remind readers of
paranoia and alienation of Campbell’s mother. Rose’s paranoid quality is
revealed when she is caught in Collin’s green house. She senses an evil
being in the green house:
Now the sounds were far too clear. They sounded moist
and tentative, but determined. She thought their source
was clumsy, lopsided as an infant, but she could tell it
was considerably larger than an infant – perhaps
incomplete, then. A muffled creaking told her that it
was clambering out of one of the tubes of earth (Dead
138).
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Moreover, To Wake the Dead can be compared to the Thomas
Tryon’s novel The other (1971) as per as the characterization is
concerned. The novel moves around the twins Holland and Niles. It has
more supernatural events than To Wake the Dead. One of the characters
Ada, twin’s grandmother resembles Peter Grace. There is s major
difference between two characters. Peter Grace is dead but Ada is alive.
She teaches the art of out- of- body experiences to Niles. Holland has
long been dead and both these twins have psychic connection with each
other. The ghost of Holland resembles the spirit of Peter Grace as both
cause the disasters of families. Niles’s survival after barn fire is awe-
inspiring but Rose’s journey of life draws sympathy of the readers; her
pursuit by mysterious figures almost to the end of the novel creates
horror. The end of the novel is horrific that suggests the continuity of
horror in the modern world. Campbell suggests that a human being can
pass a possessing spirit onto an unborn child. What appears to be
shocking is Campbell’s depiction of slowly parting relationship of Bill
and Rose. It is clear that Bill fails to understand her as he believes what
happens to Rose is a hallucination. This becomes clear when he separates
from her and settles in America. When Rose’s parents also fail to
understand her, and neighbours Colin and Gladys act as foes rather than
friends. Rose is left alone in the world. She becomes a constant victim of
a supernatural threat. Ramsey Campbell has more effectively dealt with
the same subject in his novel Nazareth Hill (1997) that moves around the
modern haunted house. The novel depicts deteriorated relationship of a
teenage daughter and her father drawing them in the shadow of
supernatural horror
The story of the novel takes place in the upper middle class of
British society. Campbell wants to throw light on the upper middle class
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society of which Colin is a part. He can be compared to Ruth Gordon, the
neighbors of Rosemary in Rosemary’s baby who barge in to gossip or
borrow something, but is actually a leading member of the group of the
witches. This group becomes responsible for whole conspiracy. Thus, To
Wake the Dead skillfully portrays deterioration of human values by
human beings. The fake psychiatrist Colin Hay, who stores LSD and
other drugs, is a wanted criminal (under his real name) in South Africa
for the crime of trafficking. He plays an active role in spoiling the life of
Rose. He somewhat resembles the character of Rosemary’s husband who
for his future career arranges for his wife to be impregnated by the devil.
So she will give birth to the Antichrist.
In short, To Wake the Dead depicts in a compelling manner the
intrusion of the ‘other’ in the human world and human body. Blatty,
Campbell and horror fiction writers point out the interest of the ‘other’ in
human beings. This ‘other’ does not allow a human being to grow in a
placid way. All modern horror novelists including Campbell give a
message that horror has no end and it is omnipresent. Campbell indirectly
suggests that the world that Blatty depicted in his novel has not changed
and if it has changed, surely, it has changed in a more hideous way. Thus,
To Wake the Dead successfully vivifies the traditional element/ icon of
horror by placing it in a modern setting. The novel will shine more
brightly on the horizon of horror fiction as it effectively presents spirit’s
urge for human life, a slowly deterioration of human life, the power of
spirit, shattered human relationship, loneliness of the protagonist and
above all the permanency of horror in the human world. All these things
make To Wake the Dead the superb horror novel.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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A Haunted House as a mechanism/icon of horror has played a
major role in the history of the supernatural horror genre. The great
English novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870) got fascinated with the
icon of a haunted house. This fascination of Dickens is recorded by
Steven. J. Mariconda in his essay The Haunted House:
Within I found it, as I had expected, transcendently
dismal. The slowly changing shadows, waved on it from
the heavy trees, were doleful in the last degree; the house
was ill-placed, ill-built, ill- planed and ill-fitted. It was
damp, it was not free from dry rot, there was a flavor of
rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim of that
indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man’s
hands whenever it is not turned to man’s account
( Mariconda 268).
This icon of horror has allured many horror fiction writers
therefore; a house with a supernatural being is frequently reflected in the
horror genre. Moreover, haunted houses with a series of supernatural
events and with a supernatural background have dominated human minds
from ancient time. In short, a house with ill-reputed history has tempted
readers to shuffle the bookshelves of the libraries and book stores. The
contribution of the libraries in developing the taste of masses towards
horror fiction is mostly significant. Especially, the private libraries have
played a major role in fulfilling the reader’s demand of horror novels and
stories. The enormous production of horror novels and movies on haunted
houses denotes the frequent utilization of a haunted house as an icon of
horror in the world of weird fiction and film. It means that among other
icons of horror a haunted house has appealed and appeased the readers
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while displaying a variety of themes. In horror fiction a haunted house
has become a cheerless and horrific place. As a result of it, the inhabitants
of the house lack love and closeness of relationship. Apart from this, a
haunted house bears so many things. As Mariconda states:
The haunted house story has proved amazingly flexible in
accommodating a wide variety of themes: good versus
evil, science versus supernatural, economic conflict,
class, gender, and so on ( Mariconda 269).
Haunted houses began appearing in the weird fiction since ancient
time. There is clear evidence of it found in Folk-literature. The
Mostellaria (254 BC) is a haunted house tale in Roman comic play by
Plautus. The narrative structure resembles a modern tale. Prior to the
beginning of the story, a guest has been killed or buried on the grounds.
The spirit of the dead guest wanders at night until a brave man arrives to
find the cause of the wandering. He follows the ghost to the spot where
the remains are buried. Following an appropriate burial, the ghost prefers
to rest in the grave.
It is Horace Walpole who first brought the haunted castle with
many secret and bizarre things in gothic novel. The Castle of Otranto
(1764) became famous that Ann Radcliffe in her work The Mystery of
Udolpho (1794) portrayed a remote castle. Clara Reeves The Old English
Baron (1777) serves to be the best example of the haunted castle. In
modern weird fiction haunted houses are replaced for haunted castles. A
short survey of nineteenth and twentieth century horror fiction shows that
an icon of a haunted house flourished in the modern weird fiction.
Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables (1851), Hodgson’s The House
on the Borderland (1908), Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House
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(1959), Robert Marasco’s Burnt Offerings (1973), Mark Z. Danielwski’s
House of Leaves (2000) including Ramsey Campbell’s Nazareth Hill
(1997) are famous novels on haunted houses.
The stories on haunted houses have enriched the horror fiction. The
contributions of E. A. Poe (1809-1849), J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-
1873), Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951), Ramsey Campbell etal have
not only attracted readers but also have increased the level of horror
fiction. Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) is very haunted
house famous story. The house gets haunted by the spirit of the Madeline,
the sister of Roderick Usher who buried her when she was alive.
Blackwood’s The Empty House (1906) is a typical haunted house story
packed with many bizarre and unnatural events which Shorthouse and his
aunt undergo. Campbell’s Ash (1969) shows emerging of supernatural
element from the remains of a woman murdered in the place. His famous
short story The Proxy (1977) is a striking tale about the ghost of the
house.
An icon of a haunted house has attracted film producers and
directors and that resulted in an immense output of horror movies on
haunted houses. The list of movies based on haunted houses is quite long
and the most of the movies are based on horror novels. The Old Dark
House (1932) is one of the best films of this type. The Shinning (1980) is
known as a top grossing film that deals with haunted hotel. It is obvious
that the modern horror novelists and screen writers have presented houses
and hotels as places of demons and monstrous entity. The external ‘other’
has moved from castles and remote places to houses located in the heart
of towns and cities. These modern haunted houses are alive. It is not just
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inhabited by some ghostly presence; the presence that lurks in it is a part
of the house itself. In the words of Aguirre:
The house in modern terror fiction is not a haunted but a
haunting house. It is no longer a human space; it does not
happen to be sheltering a numinous presence, it is the
numinous presence, an otherworldly living space that
craves birth, sustenance growth, reproduction in the
human world. It is another perfect parasite, another cell in
the body of mankind which has been transmuted in to a
part of the Enemy (Aguirre192).
These modern houses do not simply destroy their victims, they
change them. Marian Rlofe in Burnt Offerings gets fascinated by unseen
lady and her house. As the building’s dormant power increases Marian’s
hair becomes gray and her face weakens.
Ramsey Campbell’s two novels The Doll Who Ate His Mother
(1976) and Nazareth Hill (1997) can be grouped as haunted house novels.
According to Stephen King The Doll Who Ate His Mother is a favorite
haunted house novel. Here the protagonist discovers that the villain, the
cannibal Christopher Kelly is the illegitimate child of a Satanist. The
immoral past of Kelly’s home has made him a cannibal. But Nazareth
Hill surpasses The Doll Who Ate His Mother. It is significant to note that
Campbell published Nazareth Hill after his establishment as a well-
known horror fiction writer. He has become a front-headed horror fiction
writer who has begun experimented with novel icons/ elements of horror
such as serial killers and murderers. The novel The Count of Eleven
(1992) attracted readers and changed the scenario of modern horror
novels. It is at this point Campbell dared to handle the traditional
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mechanism/ icon of horror. Nazareth Hill with its haunted house and
modern setting focuses on many things that stunt readers.
Nazareth Hill may seem on the surface as a haunted house novel,
but it is much more than the haunted house novel. It is indeed a portrayal
of supernaturalism that he skillfully handled after The Influence (1988).
But it is also a portrayal of severe domestic conflict that can be found in
any novel of Campbell. The novel arouses horror when a placid and
enjoyable life of a girl turns to be fatal one. It leads her to demise. Thus,
the novel has its theme of family discord and the height of hatred.
2. 2. Nazareth Hill (1997)
A ruined and deserted house, on the Nazarill hill, overlooking the
small town of Patrington in northern England, near Sheffield, is an object
that terrifies a teenager girl Amy Priestly. She calls it: ‘’the spider house’’
(NH14). One day Oswald, her father takes her to the ground-floor of
this old deserted house. Carrying her on his shoulders, he urges her to
look inside; but she gets afraid as she sees the strange entity:
. . . It crouched in the farthest corner, its withered limbs
clenched like a dead spider’s leg around its ragged
scrawny torso, its blackened twigs of fingers digging
into its cheekbones as though it had torn all the flesh off
them (NH 17).
As a result of it, Amy stumbles into the room but she is dragged
out and brought back home. At that night she sees a dream in which her
father appears saying: ‘’your mother’s dead, and you’re mad . . . and
you’re staying here in Nazarill’’ (NH 25). On the very night she decides
that: ‘’she would never again in her life go anywhere near Nazarill’’ (NH
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26). As the novel progresses, the old deserted house is turned into an
apartment and Amy, who has lost her mother in a car accident, comes to
live with her father in a newly built apartment. Amy has become a typical
teenage girl who likes music and her boy friend Rob Hayward whom
Oswald does not like. Campbell shows the disagreement between a father
and a daughter which typically represents universality of such a
relationship.
The placidity and smoothness of life shatters when a cat of a fellow
tenant dies mysteriously. It is found hanging on the huge oak tree which
dark shadows dance on the grass. Later on, Dominic Metcalf, a tenant and
a photographer snatches a group photo of all the tenants in front of the
apartment. When a print is developed, a strange figure appears in the
photo peeping through the window of the photographer’s flat. In a little
while, Metcalf is found dead in his flat. In the meantime, Amy gets
obsessed with the history of Nazarill and she is also troubled by the
strange behavior of her father. Shortly afterwards, a Bible, located by
Amy among the rooted stumps of oak trees that have recently been cut
down, strengthens obsession of Amy as it uncovers the true and hidden
history of Nazarill. There was an ancient mental hospital on the hill. Prior
to it, the hill was occupied by Patrington witches who used to perform
dance before Nazarill was built. Strikingly enough, the information about
Nazarill that Arkwright supplies to Oswald is akin to the information
recorded in the Bible. The place had been offices in the Victorian area. It
became a mental hospital that unfortunately razed to the grounds by the
fire that mercilessly consumed all the staff of the hospital. With the
passing of the time, Amy’s obsession becomes unbearable to Oswald who
grows restless with Amy’s behavior. He decides to remove false and
foolish ideas out of Amy’s head. So, he takes her through the unoccupied
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ground-floor flats of the apartment. But as she is in Roscommon’s
windowless flat, she sees a strange figure:
It was taller than her father, and thinner than anything
except bones could be. . . A mass that looked composed
as much of cobwebs as of hair dangled from its brownish
piebald scalp. Its left eye glittered, or at least the
contents of the socket did, before flying round the head
to the other eye. Even if the figure couldn’t see the Amy,
she could tell it was aware of her, because its right arm
wavered up to gesture at its face (NH 203).
However, the figure escapes through a door, ’’where no door
should be’’ (NH 204) to a neighboring flat before Oswald notices it.
Furthermore, Campbell focuses on the deteriorated relationship of Amy
and Oswald. They are doubtful about each other as if the blood
relationship between them has dried. On his visit to Amy’s school
Oswald feels: ‘’he couldn’t help wondering if this was a show she was
putting on for the school mistress’’ (NH 214). On the other occasion Amy
thinks of leaving Nazarill forever. As she comes out of her flat, she finds
all six doors of the ground floor flats are ajar. Then, a bony hand comes
out of one door and the creature suddenly appears before Amy:
The figure still had some of a face, or had somehow
reconstructed parts of one, which looked in danger of
coming away from the bones, as the scraps of the chest
peeling away from the ribs to expose the withered heart
and lungs, which jerked as though in a final spasm as
Amy’s gaze lit on them (NH 287).
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The mysterious creatures blocks her way and summons its
companion. This whole situation makes Amy run to her apartment; but
she can’t find the keys as Oswald had taken them from her bag. When she
tries to unlock the door with a metal comb, Oswald returns and hurls
Amy into the flat. Furious Amy locks herself in the bathroom and tries to
give message to Rob on the phone as she has taken a cordless phone with
her. But Rob’s mother refuses to help declaring Amy as a mentally
disturbed girl who needs a medical treatment. Enraged with all things,
Oswald locks Amy in her room fixing a bolt on the door. Amy’s efforts to
unscrew the hinges with her metal comb prove to be futile, for a comb
breaks before she can manage to lose some screws. Oswald, in
continuous attempt to control Amy, shuts off all the electricity of the flat.
In the darkness Amy again sees a figure crouching beneath the level of
mirror. At this point Amy feels she has no way but to terrify Oswald so
she goes on talking constantly about the spiders. In a fury and fear,
Oswald rushes into her room and cuts down his daughter’s tongue. This is
the most loathsome incident Campbell has ever produced in his fiction:
She felt the blades close on her tongue and, with a
considerable effort, meet. She saw them snatch a reddish
object from her mouth and shy it into the hall. Her father
turned away at once, as if he had no further interest in
her, and heaved the door shut after him (NH 359).
The horror of Oswald however, does not end but begins. As he
falls asleep, he sees a dream of spiders. Horror mounds on him when he
wakes up and sees spiders everywhere in his flat. He opens the window
and calls for help but no one is there. He sets fire to the old Bible and
hurls it at the spider poised on the latch. To his horror, an explosion in the
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kitchen befalls on him. The gas oven catches fire spreading across the
flat. It embraces Oswald and lands on his body. Before he attempts to free
Amy, still locked in the room, the fire guts him. In short time, Amy
wakes up and finds doors of the room have razed to the ashes. She comes
to know that Nazarill has become a ruined place. In a purely dreamlike
atmosphere she is guided down by a strange creature. As she moves, she
realizes that she no longer feels her footsteps. When she comes down, a
mysterious figure takes her hand and soars with Amy to the peak of the
hill. The final chapter reveals the truth: Amy and Oswald were consumed
in the fire, and the spirit of Amy joins those of Patrington witches.
Nazareth Hill is a fine amalgamation of supernatural and non-
supernatural horror novel. The locus of the novel is the old deserted
house with some malignant entity. Its awful performances link the novel
with many haunted houses novels. But Campbell’s meticulous depiction
of human abnormal behavior renders the novel an identification of non-
supernatural horror novel. The supernatural background of the house
enhances the atmosphere of weirdness that serves as a backdrop to the
tragic story of Amy Priestly. The malignant history and its weirdness
reflect in the appearances and disappearances of images that abruptly
consume human lives. Even a hanged cat to the huge oak tree seems to be
a supernatural manifestation. The final transformation of Amy into a
witch is suggestive of supernatural power over human beings. Thus, the
novel’s supernatural background, cumulative mystery and suspense, and
most of all the hints and bad omens of supernatural world typify the novel
as a supernatural horror novel. Moreover, the house itself remains
relatively passive, the haunting nature of its supernatural occupant and
tendency of some inhabitants turn the house into a prison. When the
family of Oswald enters the house, it comes to life again with a full force.
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It is clear that prior to the arrival in the apartment, the Oswald family had
no problems within the family except the death of Mrs. Oswald. The
tragedy of the family begins after the arrival in the house.
The conflict between Amy and Oswald provides the novel with
domestic horror as well as non-supernatural horror. Both get obsessed as
the novel progresses. Amy’s obsession can be explained in terms of her
witness of the entity but Oswald’s reaction to the whole situation is
ambiguous and baffling. His initial action to take Amy to the deserted
house demands many explanations. The prime purpose behind this action
has not been clarified in the novel. Nazareth Hill can be counted as a dark
weird fiction in which the internal ‘other’ gets strengthened as the novel
progresses. Campbell’s examination of complex human nature in a
seamless fashion exposes the internal ‘other’ that occupies a human mind.
The domination of the internal ‘other’ on Oswald manifests brutally and
gets reflected in his behavior with Amy:
‘You devil,’. . . ‘You’re mad, and you’re staying here in
Nazarill.’
He grasped her shoulders, bruising them . . . she felt as
small and helpless as she had been then. Before she could
make up her mind to struggle he’d dragged her across the
hall. . .
She was about to duck free and dodge around him when he
spoke. ‘Whatever must be done,’ he said, and drawing back
his right fist, ``drove it into her face (NH 302- 303).
This is the powerful manifestation of the internal ‘other’. The
juxtaposition of the external ‘other’ with the internal ‘other’ makes the
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novel a powerful horror novel. Amy becomes victim of the double threat;
the threat of the creature hovering around her, and the threat of her manic
father. Oswald is like Campbell’s other villainous characters who play
with the life of innocent children. Oswald should have preferred a gentle
way like a kind father to divert Amy but he prefers to be a dictator and
treats Amy like a criminal. Earlier, at one point in the novel he proves to
be a loving father. His comment passed on Amy after death of her
mother, ‘’it wasn’t Amy’s fault’’ (NH 63) shows him as a sensitive and
an overprotective father. But he changes gradually. It is tragedy that Amy
fails to denote a change that has taken place in Oswald. His strange
behavior exposes his psychic nature evoked by his obsession of
supernatural entity. Jack Sullivan underlines interest of Ramsey
Campbell:
Campbell is more concerned than ever with the
psychology of the supernatural encounter and that his
grimmest phantasms often spring as much from the
psyches of his doomed heroes as from a malignant
cosmos: the threatening apparition is all the more deadly
in that it leaps from both places at once (Sullivan 27).
In this connection, Nazareth Hill underlines what Grixti says: ‘’the
belief that human beings are rotten at the core, that there is a beast within
us which causes us to commit evils . . . ‘’ (Grixti 86). Oswald resembles
Peter Grace for; they both play with the life of children. The beast in
human beings rises to destroy and deform human beings. Even domestic
relationship and humanity lies far beyond their animalistic world.
Oswald fails to control himself and becomes the source of non-
supernatural horror. Thus, in Nazareth Hill there is an exquisite balance
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between external and internal horror- the horror of supernatural and the
horror of a disturbed mentality. As it is said earlier, Campbell’s works
with their weird, moral, social and autobiographical touch render a social
touch to his work. In a beautiful prose style Campbell focuses on the
theme of loneliness that occurs in his every novel. His characters are
lonely. Their supernatural, domestic and eccentric backgrounds make
them either withdrawn or lonely. The focus of this rich, touching and the
atmospheric novel is Amy Priestly, Campbell’s most beautifully
sketched portrait of the motherless, love and sympathy-starved school
girl. Her life becomes a chain of loneliness; the encounter with the
supernatural entity isolates her from others. Even she does not get along
with his father. This passage denotes the parted relationship between
them:
She gazed at him… and saw a furtively anxious old man
in an out-of- date grey overcoat and black scarf. His face
seemed to have devoted its recent years to producing
more of itself, its lower cheeks bellying on either side of
the jaw and pulling down the corners of the mouth, while
the underside of the chin had settled for adding itself to
the throat. His eyebrows had always been prominent, but
their greyness made them appear heavier, and to be
weighing down his eyes (NH 171-172).
Moreover, the school plays a vital role in nourishing loneliness of
Amy. In one of the incidents Campbell focuses on the tendency of severe
punishment followed from generation to generation by human beings.
One of the teachers recalls what her parents did to her to divert her from
evil thing (Actually, it seems that she gives advice to Oswald): ‘’I was
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locked in my room until I swore on the Bible never to go anywhere near
him again’’ (NH 216). Later on, Oswald follows the advice of the teacher
making Amy a prisoner in her own house. Schools have become no more
places of education; they seem to have only role of rebuking or neglecting
such students. A deep survey of Campbell’s novel reveals the negative
role of schools they play in the life of their students. Equally, the people
outside the family neglect Amy’s loneliness. Rob’s mother refuses to
help when Amy is very near to the danger. In short, Campbell examines
loneliness of the character on the large social scale. The mysterious death
of Dominic Metcalf, the encounters of Hilda Ramsden and Donna Gouge
with the ghostly entities make the readers aware of the supernatural
nature of the phenomena. Unfortunately, the glimpses of the weird are
seen by Amy appear to be unmistakably genuine but nobody seems to
believe in them not even her father and her friend Rob. She is left alone
and her sad demise symbolizes Campbell’s concern for children. Amy
Oswald is Campbell’s most troubled and tortured child character. Her
apparent exploitation by her father draws sympathy of readers. Her final
transformation, as the mysterious creature leads her to the unknown land,
maintains the atmosphere of horror, bitterness and tragedy that the novel
initiates from its beginning. Thus, the theme of child as a victim works
most powerfully to sustain the atmosphere of horror. Furthermore, the
employment of supernatural phenomenon can be interpreted in many
ways. One thing is certain that Campbell employs it as vehicle to observe
individual psychological state and individual’s relationship with others or
with his surroundings. When these things are found abnormal or
shattered, there emerges the Campbellian theme-human being as a victim.
In Nazareth Hill Oswald is a victim of the supernatural phenomena and
his own psyche. In short, Nazareth Hill handles pure supernaturalism,
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pure non-supernaturalism, domestic conflict, child as a victim, and
chilling portrayal of psychosis as themes.
Nazareth Hill suggests continuity of horror and also expresses the
basic fact that horror is implacable. Horror lurking beneath the surface of
life is a fatal one and it leads to a horrible grisly death. Campbell draws
reader’s attention to the bitter truth that the civilized man has not only
inherited the barbarism of supernaturalism but also has let him to be
transformed into it. Thus, a civilized man has become symbol of living
barbarism and supernaturalism.
Nazareth Hill is a lengthy novel and it is remarkable for its vivid
characterization. Many characters appear and disappear but only two
characters, Oswald and Amy can be remembered for a long time. Even
Rob Hayward, although significant to the evolution of the plot, remains a
minor figure. The alternative narrative techniques are effectively
employed by Campbell. Many incidents are narrated as they are seen by
characters eyes; the death of Metcalf is seen through his own eyes. In the
similar way, the encounters of Hilda Ramsden and Donna Goudge with
ghostly entities are seen through their eyes. Moreover, in the final stage
of the novel, the alternations of narrative perspective between Amy and
Oswald create horror as well as depict a height of domestic conflict when
both are in the shadow of horror.
Nazareth Hill can be compared to the first haunted house novel The
House on the Seven Gables (1851) by Nathaniel Hawthorne as per as
mysterious incidents are concerned. In both novels supernatural beings
powerfully manifest their powers. The death of Dominic Metcalf reminds
one of the death of Colonel Pyncheon in The House on the Seven Gables.
The difference is that the Colonel mysteriously dies on the opening day of
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the house whereas Metcalf mysteriously dies after his living in the flat for
some days. These two mysterious incidents typify the existence of
supernatural elements mounding horror on readers. Another source that
typifies the existence of supernatural elements is the employment of the
mysterious book. Campbell is not the first writer to employ it. Earlier,
Hodgson employed it in his novel The House on the Borderland (1908).
A bound but mysterious manuscript, located by two characters, records
all horrors that happened recently in and around the house. In Nazareth
Hill the Bible found by Amy records the horrible history of Nazarill.
On the background of supernatural and domestic horror Nazareth
Hill resembles the novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959). Both the
houses are located on the respective hills occupied by the powerful
supernatural elements. The former novel presents the encounters of a
motherless girl with the strange creatures. The latter presents the
possession of lonely and troubled woman by the supernatural entity. Amy
Priestly and Eleanor Vance are unfortunate victims who are brought to
the respective houses. The misshapen incidents occur before them after
they began living in the house. In both these novels supernatural
manifestation is extraordinarily subtle and effective. Bizarre and grisly
incidents that take place in the novels evoke supernatural horror. Both the
protagonists die at the end of the novel. Eleanor meets a car accident in
the premise of the house whereas Amy is killed in the house. The
Haunting of Hill House is purely a supernatural horror novel whereas
Nazareth Hill is a fine blending of supernatural, non-supernatural, and
domestic horror. The novel along with the supernatural threat gives a
message that it is very difficult to be good and moral human beings when
obstacles encompass on human beings from all sides. It is this philosophy
of Campbell that makes his novels worthy of moral and social literature.
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In short, Nazareth Hill has proved on every degree the best horror novel
ever produced in the history of horror fiction.
2.3. Similarities and Disparities:
To Wake the Dead and Nazareth Hill through their atmosphere
creates a sense of menace and gives readers a sense of foreboding. Both
these novels introduce evil early on in the story and the story line makes
use of supernatural monsters. Sudden death, violence, unexpected and
mysterious incidents, haunted and shattered individuals, and unresolved
endings make these novels powerful horror novels. It can be said that
both novels fall under the category of visceral horror. In this type of
horror the evil is introduced early on in the story.
To Wake the Dead and Nazareth Hill have urban settings. The
former novel is set in Liverpool and the latter one is set in Patrington in
Northern England. These novels show a journey of supernatural beings
from remote, deserted places to cities and towns. Both these novels keep
at the background deserted houses, with supernatural beings, with their
malignant history that lead life of respective female protagonists towards
grisly disaster. It is significant that both the girls are brought to the
deserted houses where the ‘other’ occupies the houses. In To Wake the
Dead the ‘other’ allows Rose to grow but she is controlled by it whereas
in Nazareth Hill the ‘other’ does not allow Amy to grow. Thus, these two
novels present women as sufferers. The female protagonists in these
novels either lead a miserable life or they are led to death. Rose Tierney
belongs to the first category and Amy belongs to the next one. The
difference is that Rose is a victim of supernaturalism developed by Peter
Grace. But Amy is a victim of supernatural and non- supernatural horror.
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Nazareth Hill and To Wake the Dead suggest the growing power of
supernatural elements in the lives of human beings.
To Wake the Dead shows a supernatural being’s longing for
afterlife and Nazareth Hill shows its interest in populating the place with
witches. In this context Nazareth Hill can be compared to Bram Stoker’s
Dracula in which Stoker shows Dracula’s interest in populating the
country with fellow vampires.
Nazareth Hill and To Wake the Dead on their spectral background
manifest horror powerfully. But Nazareth Hill grips readers than To Wake
the Dead. In the former novel a chain of bizarre incidents sends shivers in
spines of readers whereas the latter one seems to be somewhat lacking in
doing the same. It offers a sense of enjoyment and relief when Rose
begins to enjoy her flight. Rose is saved from time to time when she is
caught in critical situations but Amy is pushed into the critical conditions.
Rose experiences somewhat loneliness at the end of the novel while
loneliness sticks to Amy from beginning to end. Naturally, Nazareth Hill
seems to be more powerful horror novel than To Wake the Dead.
Mystery, suspense and horror go hand in hand in both novels.
There are mysterious incidents employed in the novels. The employment
of mystery is powerful in To Wake the Dead. The mugging experience of
Rose and the presence of cosmic entity remain mystery throughout the
novel. The similar feature of these two novels is the unhappy endings
suggesting the continuity of horror in human life. In this regard,
Campbell’s novels differ from T. E. D. Klein’s (b. 1947) novels.
Campbell differs from Klein in his philosophical view of horror. On one
hand, Klein’s happy ending is suggestive of restoration of moral order
and a defeat of evil by good. On the other hand, Campbell’s unhappy
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ending is suggestive of a defeat of good by an evil and destruction of
culture and moral order.
In a number of late twentieth century horror novels, the heir of
gothic castles and mansions is the bourgeois house itself, the setting in
which chaos is most likely to explode with shocking effects on it owners
certainties and values. Modern houses located in suburban district can
prove as daunting as echoing corridors, dark towers, and misty
graveyards. Ramsey Campbell’s haunted houses depicted in these two
novels are not exceptions to it.
Non- supernatural horror with its historical reference plays a vital
role in To Wake the Dead. It appears in the form of Hitler, Peter Grace
and many other characters. A fine technique of mingling past and present
makes To Wake the Dead the most shocking as Campbell suggests the
inevitable return of the past to destroy any hope of quality in living, now,
and in the future. What makes Nazareth Hill different from To Wake the
Dead is the treatment of period. The former novel exposes the present
with a hideous past lurking beneath it.
Ramsey Campbell has been praised for his superb quality of prose.
His prose style is multi- layered as it evokes thrills, tensions, mysteries
and horrors- supernatural and non-supernatural. He has, indeed, a
fondness of evoking all aforementioned states through ordinary objects.
Oswald experiences the states at one moment:
The cage of branches seemed to flex itself towards him.
He stepped beneath one which had rooted its tip in the
ground as though the oak was trying to drag itself into the
earth, and a smell closed around him: old wood, decaying
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vegetation, and an odour far less pleasant, suggesting that
some animal had voided itself under the tree. . . He was
trying to locate what he’d glimpsed and to avoid treading
in the source of the stench when he realized where, and
hence what, the movement had been. Of course, it was the
length of rope attached to a high branch; only that morning
he’d seen Amy and the girl from the next apartments taking
turns to swing. . . He spied the vertical line of the rope
cutting through the tangled silhouettes of branches, and
took hold of it to throw it over a branch too high for the
girls to reach. Just as he realized that the rope weighed
more than it should, the object at the end of it swung into
his face (NH 65).
Here is one of the examples of Campbell’s use of language which
creates horror and suspense as he describes the plight of the girl suddenly
imprisoned in the dark, deserted house in To Wake the Dead:
The dark closed around the young girl, like the embrace
of fever. The door shook as shoulders thumped it, but held. .
Behind her something dropped softly to the floor. She could
neither turn nor cry out, but she knew without turning what
the sound was: the fall of bedclothes. Had something else got
down from the bed? (Dead 17)
Apart from this strong supernaturalism and the external ‘other’,
internal ‘other’ or ‘other’ in human being dominates these novels. Oswald
is more dangerous and horrible than Bill Tierney. Oswald is a villain
character with powerful internal ‘other’ which Campbell most powerfully
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exposed in his forthcoming novels. But Campbell’s fascination to H. P.
Lovecraft and his cosmic horror cannot be neglected.
2. 4. Cosmic Horror:
Cosmic horror, flourished and developed by H.P. Lovecraft, the
famous American horror fiction writer, allured so many writers including
Ramsey Campbell that resulted in the emergence of the Lovecraftian
School of cosmic horror. Surprisingly, the school emerged after the death
of Lovecraft. He has been widely and repeatedly imitated in the field of
horror fiction. Lovecraft’s early writing, which dealt with conventional
stories of macabre, displayed the influence of Poe and gothic novelists.
However, his discovery of Lord Dunsany’s work in 1919 proved a
turning point in his literary career. As a result of it, Lovecraft began
writing stories woven around cosmic images. These stories stressed on
human insignificance in the vast cosmos. Lovecraft believed and formed
his theory on the assumption that human life can be threatened at any
moment by the cosmic ‘other’ who ruled the universe once upon a time.
In his famous book on Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927)
Lovecraft speaks of the literature of ‘cosmic fear’ as distinguished from
the literature of ‘physical fear and mundanely gruesome’. Apparently,
cosmic horror appears as a substitute term for supernatural horror. But it
is a part of the supernatural horror. According to Lovecraft the roots of
cosmic horror are very ancient. It covered a wide scope from folk
literature to modern horror fiction. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of
Madness (1936), a cosmic novel, exposes horrific ruins lying beyond a
range of mountains. The novel effectively unfolds the nature of
macrocosm. The significance of Lovecraft’s work lies in the discovery of
a protagonist about his helplessness in the vast cosmos. In this connection
Brian Stableford states:
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Lovecraftian fiction is, in essence, a kind of fiction in
which horror arises from knowledge that is too much to
bear; the ultimate knowledge of that kind is, indeed,
related to ‘unplumbed space’ rather than the shallows of
the human evil and to ‘assaults of chaos’ rather than the
pedestrian traffic of commonplace apparitions and curses
(Stableford 66).
Furthermore, Stableford beautifully summarizes the philosophy of
Lovecraft in the light of cosmic horror. He puts:
The fundamental thesis that Lovecraft developed in the
cultivation of cosmic horror is that technological and
social progress since Classical times have facilitated the
repression of an awareness of the magnitude and
malignity of the macrocosm in which the human
microcosm is contained—an awareness that our remoter
ancestors could not avoid (Stableford 66-67).
Thus, cosmic horror exposes cosmic fear of human beings. They
are prey to the race of hunter from the outer space. The destruction of
human race is not a hunter’s goal but it strives for the domination of the
world. The cosmic ‘other’ has a keen eye on human society. Cosmic
horror fiction writers deal with a threat to the society, to the earth or to
the universe at large.
Campbell’s first Lovecraftian pastiche appeared in 1964 titled as
The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants. This story
collection explores forbidden knowledge of human beings and their
struggle against vast forces of the universe. Campbell, after this story
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collection, temporarily deviated from Lovecraftian cosmic horror.
However, he turned to deal with it fully in his mid-career of writing
(except the novel To Wake the Dead). The Lovecraftian cosmic horror is
reflected in the novels The Hungry Moon (1987) and Midnight Sun
(1990).
2. 5. The Hungry Moon (1987)
The Hungry Moon is not listed or praised by critics as the
compelling horror novel. According to critics it is a satire on
fundamentalism rather than a horror novel. However, the novel is a
horror novel that compels readers as it blends many things together; the-
age long fear of cosmic horror and entity, the intrusion of the past in the
present, the insignificance of human life in the vast cosmos,
fundamentalism of religion, paranoia of people, and a lack of rationality.
Moreover, the supernatural excuse people find for their deeds and the
incurable metamorphosis of Godwin Mann rank The Hungry Moon as
one of the best horror novels. The strange metamorphosis of Godwin
Mann underlines the fact that human beings cannot escape horror. This
aspect renders the novel the highest quality of everlasting horror.
Campbell has effectively used the Lovecraftian icon of topography to
depict a haunted England centered upon the fictitious town Moonwell
which is like other fictitious cities of Campbell – Brichester, Temphill
and Goatswood.
The Hungry Moon is set in the small town Moonwell located in the
north area of England in the Peak district. This placid and serene town
gets disturbed when Godwin Mann, an evangelist from California arrives
with the band of his followers. The people of Moonwell have been
practicing an ancient ritual of decorating the cave: ‘‘it was really a
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pothole, fifty feet wide at the mouth and surrounded by drystone wall’’
(HM 21). Man opposes the ritual condemning people’s practice of
decorating the cave with a figure made of flowers:
A truly Christian community can’t keep a pagan
tradition alive. . . I want to ask you a favour on God’s
behalf. Will you think about living this cave as it is this
year, not decorating for it once? (HM 54)
As the novel progresses, Mann becomes a powerful authority of the
town. Most of townspeople join his crew and accept his Christianity.
However, he is opposed by few individuals- a school teacher, Diana
Kramer, a postman, Eustace Hill, and a book store owners, Jeremy and
Geraldine Booth. They are ill-treated and excluded from the community.
But restless Diana Kramer, who has returned to her town from America,
feels that the cave ritual has some ancient religious background. A blind
and an old citizen of the town, Nathaniel Needham reveals the history of
the cave when Diana approaches him. Needham has written a pamphlet
which narrates the history of the Moonwell and the cave. Druids
summoned the monster from the moon when they felt unsafe from
Romans and began worshipping the monster. Furthermore, they started
appeasing the monster with a human sacrifice. Unaware of the history of
the cave, Godwin Mann, with his obsessed ideas, now meddles with the
situation. Perhaps, he is not aware of the incurable danger existing in the
cave. As one of the characters says:
What’s down there in the cave is older than Satan… I
looked down into the cave last night and I heard
something laughing’’ (HM 166).
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But Mann climbs down the cave to show: ‘’whatever is there is no
match for God’’ (HM 147). He believes that his spiritual power will drive
the monster out. But Mann undergoes a change, very difficult to
eradicate. His transformation into heinous entity is horrible and
dangerous. Soon the darkness covers and settles over the town.
Telephones and clocks cease working; no food or papers arrive in the
town. Surprisingly, the outside world has forgotten Moonwell. Those who
attempt to flee from the town are driven back to it. The townspeople try
to explain logical reason behind things. For them, it may be the weather
that causes all things. When they feel something bizarre, they say that the
dark is coming out of the cave. The darkness thickens but thin silver light
emerges from Mann’s room. The whole situation is uncanny. Now bizarre
violence rules the town. The Catholic priest, Father O’ Connell and the
police man are killed violently. The father is brutally killed by his own
dogs whereas the policeman is killed by three unknown dogs. In addition
to this, loathsome and strange creatures begin to manifest themselves and
abruptly appear before people. To his horror, Craig Wilde, who is caught
in the town during the visit to his daughter, sees a strange thing in the
hotel room Mann is occupying:
It was naked. That shocked him so badly that at first it
was all he could comprehend, and then he tried to deny
what he was seeing. It couldn’t really look like a gigantic
spider crouching in the nest of the bed, thin limbs drawn
up around a swollen body that was patchy as the moon.
The patches resembled decay, but they were crawling
over the bulbous body, over it or under the skin… The
smallness of the hairless gibbous head in proportion to
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the body made the shape look even more like a spider
(HM 296- 297).
Craig is shocked when he sees a strange creature with a Mann’s
face on the body. In the meantime, Diana is held prisoner in Mrs.
Scragg’s house for opposing Mann and his preaching. While there, she
happens to see a strange vision as she watches a picture of the moor
bathed in the moonlight. A huge entity on the moon waits hungrily for
the life on the earth. It may be the same entity that is lurking in the cave.
Over the years it has lost its strength but now it is revived by Mann with
whose body it has in fact occupied. Diana feels that this entity will use
nearby missile to destroy the life on the Earth. But how can Diana being a
small human being face this cosmic calamity? It has emerged to violate
human life through darkness and violence. The only way is to remove the
darkness and to bring the light of the sun in the town. Diana begins to
sing a song in the town square:
And then the black sky burst into flames.
It was the sun, but it was like no dawn she had ever
seen. The orange light seemed to tear the blackness
apart, to flood the sky like flames on oil, turning
whiter as it claimed the sky, putting out the moon
(HM 418).
The hideous entity creeps back to the cave. At last Moonwell is
saved but many people turn blind. The darkness, which settles over the
town for a long time, reminds readers of W. H. Hodgson’s novel The
Night Land (1912). The novel depicts the condition of the earth after the
death of the sun and how a few living being witness tremendous
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darkness. In The Hungry Moon people are pitilessly bathed in the
darkness.
The Hungry Moon follows the notion of Lovecraftian fiction
which revolves around the theory of intrusion of cosmic ‘other’ into
human life. Readers can see the theory reflected in Diana’s vision of the
nebulous entity:
The moon was already dead, she saw. Water and
atmosphere had evaporated, and the globe seemed dry
and hallow as a husk in a spider’s web. Meteors still dug
into the surface, causing it to erupt in huge volcanic
craters. The bursting of the surface made her think of
corruption, life growing in decay, hatching. But that
wasn’t what terrified her, made her struggle to draw back
from the moon while there was still time. She sensed that
however dead the globe was. It harboured awareness. The
earth was being watched (HM 314).
And also she sees:
The sight of the bloated body, white as only something
that had passed all its hideous life in darkness could be,
that heaved itself over the rim of the moon… the body that
was bigger than the moon seemed to pour itself into its
tendrils, which were already merging with the moonlight.
Diana saw the light stream down to the earth, saw it touch
the ground and take shape (HM 316).
The employment of the numinous book made Lovecraftian fiction
a purely cosmic horror fiction. Such books are introduced to unlock the
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door of the ‘other’ domain. In The Hungry Moon the pamphlet by
Needham serves the purpose. It discloses history of the cave and the
‘other’. It is also observed that cosmic horror presents the darker side of
nature. The birds of the air, the beasts of the field and even pet animals
like dogs will seek the extermination of a man. The mysterious death of
the Father by his dog is shocking for, the dog gets haunted by the cosmic
‘other’. The death of a policeman by three mysterious dogs from
mysterious places evokes horror. They might be the three infernal dogs
who accompany the moon– goddess Hecate. What is horrific and worried
is the interest of the ‘other’ in shaping human beings into a hideous form.
The ‘other’ is not interested in killing human beings. It no longer loves
death. It loves life. It does not enjoy deformity but by dwelling on
deformity. It shows the miseries of the damned. It helps us to discover
smaller joys of our own lives. It draws not our blood but anxiety. This
truth, which is exposed in the novel, evokes horror. The modern horror
novelists have effectively presented this new emerging nature of horror
by metamorphosis of characters. It has been effectively presented in
Bram Stocker’s Dracula that shows metamorphosis of Lucy. In The
Hungry Moon Brian Bevan’s metamorphosis is more dangerous and
horrible after he comes into the contact of Mann. The notion of monster’s
interest in reproducing and redoubling their legacy arouses horror.
Moonwell is full of strange figures:
She noticed she was being watched… She saw the eyes
and teeth first, the jaws ripping at a piece of meat as read
and bloody as the lolling tongues… the three heads
began to snarl in unison, baring their gums like charred
gray plastic, their stained yellow teeth… they flinched
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back, whimpering and fled down the allay (HM 156-
157).
What makes The Hungry Moon a compelling read is the
employment of suspense and mystery. Campbell has skillfully interwoven
mysterious incidents to arouse horror. The incidents like death of the
Father and a policeman, the spirit of unborn child of Craig, the hideous
transformation of Bevan and his death seem to gripe the readers.
Campbell appears to be enjoying his toying with these incidents allowing
the readers to think of them. Though The Hungry Moon utilizes
Lovecraftian elements of horror, it has been infused with Campbellian
elements which make the novel a distinctive one. Paranoid world with
paranoid people is a major concern of Campbell. It furnishes his novels
mundane horror. Godwin Mann with his narrow, dogmatic and
fundamental Christianity creates a world which seems to be paranoid. All
people except few individuals sweep into this world. A comment by one
of the characters, ‘’God sent Godwin Mann to show us where we’d gone
wrong’’ (HM 114) illustrates how people have accepted Mann blindly.
The individuals, who do not fit in this paranoid world, are dishonored.
Diana is fired from her job when she refuses to sign a petition of teaching
moral and religious lessons specified by the headmaster. Germy and
Geraldine are stigmatized for selling books that supposed to be unfit in to
the paranoid world created by Mann. The postman Eustace Hill is
prohibited to perform his comedy as it is about Mann. The school
teachers have the feeling that Mann has come to the town to wipe out the
evil. The interpretation of darkness by one of the characters, ‘‘it’s a sign
that there are still a few people in Moonwell who aren’t on his side’’ (HM
235) confirms deep rooted paranoia. The religious paranoia of the people
reaches to a height when death of Father O’ Connell is commented as:
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‘’Maybe God wouldn’t have let him die that way if he’d supported
Godwin’’ (HM 208).
Undoubtedly, the amalgamation of cosmic horror and the paranoid
world, which emerges following the arrival of Mann in the town, offers
the novel a mystic as well as realistic touch. Campbell’s criticism on
human behavior renders the novel a realistic touch. The Hungry Moon
serves as the best example of Campbell’s criticism on the tendency of
inventing the supernatural as an excuse for what they do or want to do
themselves. Campbell displays this in the behavior of Mann and his
followers who abdicate responsibility for their actions by professing to be
doing God’s work. This human tendency is more dangerous than a
missile. The misuse of religion or the religious madness serves as theme
of the novel. Campbell attacks on fundamentalism or pagan attitude of
characters. He does not attack them directly but condemns them through
their utterances and deeds. The episode of burning the books belonging to
Germy’s shop by Godwin Mann and his followers speaks of Campbell’s
condemning attitude:
The evangelist picked up the largest pile of books
and led out his helpers. As soon as they’d dumped the
books in the gutter outside the shop, he emptied a tin of
lighter fuel over the books and set fire to them (HM
106).
Mann is a threat to a civilized society because of his dogmatism,
intolerance and a fanaticism. It is said that Campbell got bored with the
numerous television evangelists that rose at his time. The Hungry Moon is
the outcome of Campbell’s disgusting attitude towards evangelists.
Campbell has skillfully interwoven supernatural element with the
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religious hysteria in the novel. Mann and his followers are as
blameworthy as the supernatural evil that has invaded the town. Godwin
Mann’s arrival and blind response of the townspeople make readers
difficult to distinguish the nature of good and evil. The novel is an
account of the group of people caught up in the world where everything is
not what it appears to be. Even people of the town cannot distinguish
good and evil. Is a ritual of the cave good? Is Godwin Mann evil? Are
townspeople who are blinded evil as well? It is this deceptive nature of
good and evil makes the novel horror one. The people simply go blind at
the end of the novel because they are unable to face the truth. As the
deceptive nature of good and evil stunt readers, the focus on the children,
who are the constant victims of natural or supernatural attack, renders the
novel a different thematic approach. One of the themes, which peep
through every work of Campbell, is child as victim. The Hungry Moon
reflects the theme powerfully. The character of Andrew Bevan draws
sympathy of readers as his life gets crushed under paranoid society. The
juxtaposition of the innocent world with the paranoid world is effective.
Campbell’s children characters have to face weird and horrible situations.
They are very much aware of what goes on around them but they are
helpless. Andrew, who notices the change in his father’s behavior, is
helpless:
Whatever was wrong with his father, it had something to
do with the cave. He had seen his father creeping up there
in the moonlight, he’d felt his father growing tense when
Mr. Mann went down the rope (HM 198).
As this is not enough, Andrew happens to see a metamorphosis of
Mann that drives him to death. The depiction of Andrew’s upbringing
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that covers much part of the novel shows Campbell’s concern for children
and their upbringing.
In spite of its unmatched qualities, the novel has some limitations
and lacunas. It has been criticized by scholars and critics for its flaws. It
is commented as: ‘’a flawed work in its complexity of its plot and the
many characters Campbell has created’’ (Crawford 56). The episode of
Diana singing a song seems to be a flawed scene in the novel. The song
illuminates the whole town with the sun light and it drives the entity back
to the cave. A song is used by the novelist as a weapon to drive away the
horror element. This device seems to offer soft ending to the novel. The
Hungry Moon with its puzzling incidents arouses horror from its
beginning. Moreover, the episode of the policeman killed by three dogs is
a climax of horror. Campbell’s skill of arousing horror reflects in the
following passage:
They were dogs-mad dogs, to judge by the sounds of
snarling and cloth tearing. . . Nick saw them bring the
policeman down, one slavering red mouth burying its teeth
deep in his thigh, another ripping at his fist as he tried to
defend himself. The man screamed once, and there was
only an agonized gurgling. The next swing of the flashlight
showed the third dog on top of him, paws on his chest,
worrying is throat like a rat. He must have been as good as
dead when his free leg kicked out, his boot smashing the
flash light against the wall. Then there was darkness in the
main room, and the sounds of panting and snarling and
teeth ripping flesh (HM 288).
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Concisely, Campbell has succeeded in generating a nightmarish
and horrific atmosphere from the beginning but it seems to be collapsed
with a song of Diana. Confrontation with a horror element is one of the
powerful aspects of horror novels. The final confrontation with a
supernatural power in Campbell’s some novels seem to be mild one. It
tends to make the end shallow. The Hungry Moon, The Nameless (1981)
and The Influence have shallow endings. In an interview with the
researcher Campbell has accepted the fact:
I think it’s true of the first two – in particular I think
the ending of The Nameless is too contrived in its
resolution (and I liked the ending of the film for being
starker). But the final sentence of The Influence are
pretty bleak, I think – certainly ambiguous. The
endings I most like are the more recent ones, where I
haven’t known what the ending would be until very
late in the book – I’ve grown fond of letting novels
grow organically of themselves and not plotting in
advance (See Appendix).
While stating his opinion about the end of his novels, Campbell has
stated the important fact of horror fiction. He also talks of the qualitative
aspect of horror fiction, particularly, the horror novel. The latter part of
the statement reveals Campbellian style of writing. He has frankly
expressed that he allows novel to grow purely. It is significant that he
does not keep the novel in control so he cannot predict the end ‘until very
late’. What makes Campbell the supreme horror fiction writer is his point
of view towards horror novels. It is his approach towards his novels
naturally fulfills one of the aspects of horror novel. The unpredictable end
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is one of the distinctive characteristics of a horror novel. It is this
characteristic of the novel allures readers. One cannot predict the end of
the horror novel. In this respect horror novel differs from romance and
mystery novel in which readers can often predict the ending after the first
few pages. In horror novels the endings themselves are often vague,
sustaining the menacing atmosphere.
It is true that in some horror novels horror has been beaten or
defeated temporarily but it is not dead. The evil forces flee to lurk, to
return to attack. In Campbell’s aforementioned novels the uncontrolled
entities are fled but not destroyed. Campbell speaks of lacuna of strong
human power or he simply believes in simplicity and poignancy of
humanity. These simple devices seem to be more affecting to Campbell
than any powerful blood- shedding missile. If Campbell had ended these
novels in different ways readers would have enjoyed more horror in the
novel. Apart from these limitations, the novel is praised by S. T. Joshi:
Campbell slyly alludes to a number of classical myths as
the novel develops: the three dogs who tear apart the
town’s chief police can hardly fail to make us recall
three-headed Cerberus; the feast of human flesh that the
moon entity possessing Mann’s body serves up to the
townsfolk recalls the many such banquets in Graeco-
Roman myth; and when an already blind man gouges
out his eyes as he feels himself near the horror, we
immediately think of the blinding of Oedipus when the
truth of his actions dawns upon him (Joshi 172).
The Hungry Moon is praised for its comic situations and ambiguity.
Some scenes in the novel are laughable; the sudden religious hysteria that
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the townspeople undergo, the guilt of Brian Bevan, the leadership of
Diana all play off one another in an amusing manner. Crawford puts it in
best words:
The Hungry Moon, while admittedly a difficult novel to
read, is indeed a subtle, witty and often hilarious novel
that presents a sidelong glance at religion and nature of
good and evil, which are as ambiguous and deceptive as
the white tentacled spider that weaves his spell over the
blind people of Moonwell (Crawford 58).
In short, The Hungry Moon is one of the finest cosmic horror
novels Campbell has ever written. It might be less compelling for some
readers but the horrific effects the novel thumps on the readers are
everlasting. The following passage depicted in the novel compels readers
evoking a sense of cosmic horror:
Meteors still rained down, but caught fire in the
atmosphere. Huge continents were splitting, drifting apart
as storms picked at the world. Mountains reared up, seas
flooded into gaps that were beginning to outline continents
she could almost recognize . . . Life on earth was what the
watcher on the moon was waiting hungrily for (NH315).
The entity affects various characters and shapes them into
loathsome, spiderlike creatures whose ultimate goal is to mutilate human
race. Thus, The Hungry Moon with its peculiar dreadful atmosphere,
(something exists deep down in the cave generates horror) its theme of
religious fundamentalism, the etching of Godwin Mann’s character,
(Mann’s character is based on Billy Graham) the prevailing darkness, (it
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might be a metaphor for the mental darkness of fundamentalism) the
strange violence, and strange spiderlike creatures go on adding horror to
the novel which title is itself horrible.
Campbell’s Midnight Sun has drawn the attention of scholars and
critics as the story of the novel is woven in a strange way. The novel,
written in a flowing, rich prose style, is a superior horror novel.
2. 6. Midnight Sun (1990)
Midnight Sun appeared only three years after the debut of The
Hungry Moon on the horizon of horror fiction. The novel is welcomed
and praised as it expresses Campbell’s fascination for bizarre ghosts. The
story woven around the ice-entity compels readers. The entity, which
dwells in the deep forest, evokes horror. Campbell is a master of creating
mazes of horrors both for characters and readers. The mazes are dark,
deep and dreadful. Once entered, there is no way out and, once out, their
surreal and dreadful atmosphere linger. The aftereffects of Campbell’s
novels stick readers like a burr. Midnight Sun can be praised for its
aftereffects. One wonders when Campbell addresses the novel as: ‘’an
honorable failure’’ (Campbell 04). However, the novel ranks as the
superb horror novel as it unfolds many things under the light of cosmic
horror; a powerful depiction of the ice-entity, the insignificance of human
life, the awfulness of cosmic other, mysterious but dreadful incidents, and
visionary horror. The novel for these aspects is widely discussed.
Midnight Sun is a significant novel because it shows Campbell’s
temporary deviation from Lovecraftian cosmic horror to non-supernatural
horror.
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The first part of the novel (The Seeds) introduces an orphaned
child, Ben Sterling whose parents have recently died in a car accident.
Ben now stays with his aunt. One day Ben runs away from his aunt’s
home to Stargrave to visit the grave of his parents. Ben is brought back
home but he seems to be lost in the past of his family and in the book, Of
Midnight Sun written by his great grandfather, Edward Sterling. The book
is a collection of folk stories based on his great grandfather’s journey of
the world. Ben’s aunt dislikes the book calling it: ‘‘Nasty fairy tales, like
of those Hans Andersons, only worse’’ (MS 16). Possessed with the idea
that the book may affect Ben, she offers it to some charity. But this does
not stop Ben to conceal his interest in the book:
He lay staring up, trying to recall what he’d failed to
grasp. Surely this wasn’t yet another of the mystery
which had to wait until he was old enough. That
reminded him of Edward Sterling’s last book, of Ben’s
grandfather telling him that in order to finish it Edward
Sterling had ventured so far into the icy wastes under the
midnight sun that he’d had to be brought back more dead
than alive from a place without a name… What did he
find? Ben had wanted know (MS 19).
In addition to this, a story- Ben tells at his friend’s house during a
Halloween celebrations- underlines his impressions of Edward Sterling’s
book. The story -about remote people who try to keep away the ice-entity
by burning the fire continuously- is from Edward Sterling’s book. Ben
concludes the story with the entity invading the world after quenching of
the fire: ‘‘so that’s one story about what happens when the ice comes out
of the dark . . .’’ (MS 36).
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In the second part of the novel (Thing Overheard) Ben appears as a
successful writer of children. He is living happily with his wife Ellen
(who illustrates his books) and two children, Margaret and Johnny. The
death of the aunt takes Ben and his family to Stargrave to take the
possession of the aunt’s house located near the forest. The big house,
with immense forest at its back, is a thing of attraction for Ben. As Ben
visits the house and the forest, he grows thoughtful, isolated and
withdrawn. It seems that he has developed his interest in something. On
his second visit to the house Ben happens to see a strange scene from the
attic of the house. At this point Ben learns that his great- grandfather died
in the forest. He was found naked in the snow. Since that time the forest
has consumed many lives of trespassers. As his children have increased
their interest in the house, Ben in short time moves to live in the house.
In the third part (The Growth) of the novel the Sterling family
except Ben seems to be leading a happy life in their new house. Ben has
lost himself in the thought of the forest. The whisper of the forest makes
him feel that he and the forest have some secrets to share. As a result of
it, Ben is unable to write anything. Soon Ben finds the glade in the forest.
This must have been a place where Edward Sterling had died. This
incident offers Ben a story idea which he shares with his wife and
children:
Suppose that in the coldest places on earth the spirits of
the ice age are still there in the snow and ice, waiting to
rise again.
Not much chance of that, the way the climate’s going.
It isn’t the climate that keeps them dormant. It is the
sun.
I expect it would.
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The midnight sun, I mean. It shines so many nights
each year that they can never build up enough power to
leave the ice.
So how do they, if they do?
They do I promise you. L am not quite sure how, but I
know I have something in here… if I can just bring it
out into the open (MS 155-156).
The story idea shows his fascination towards the ice-entity that is
continuously chasing him in one or other forms since his visit to the
graveyard. Meanwhile, something during the winter awakes in the forest
that claims human lives; an unknown tourist is found frozen to death on a
Crag. Later, a postmistress mysteriously dies in the forest behind
Sterling’s house while attempting to control her dog:
She had no words to fend off her sense of the presence,
which stopped to her, a presence so cold and vast and
hungry that her blind awareness of it stopped her breath
(MS 179).
The sense of cosmic presence and its cruel appearance move Ben
to feel that something that has caused the death of Edward has awakened:
Edward Sterling’s death had been only the beginning.
The forest concealed what his death has liberated – what
had accompanied him beyond the restraint of the
midnight sun. (MS 210)
Obsessed by the forest, Ben develops into a different person. Ellen
finds Ben as distinct, frightening and psychologically disturbed. A
Christmas story told by Ben to the children moves Ellen with Fear.
Sensing danger from Ben, she decides to leave children at neighbor’s
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house. As they walk in bitter cold to the house concerned, they see a
horrible sight through the window of the house:
A thick pelt of forest covered the furniture, the carpet,
the books on the shelves… Kate and Terry and the
children were kneeling in the space between the chairs…
She wanted to believe they weren’t her friends and their
children at all, or even human… she couldn’t see their
faces (MS 300).
Ellen and children have to return home. The whole town is frozen
and deserted. Ben now realizes that his return to the Stargrave has
reawakened the entity that made him to run from Norwich to Stargrave; it
first emerged in the graveyard to summon him. Then, suddenly, Ben
changes and decides to confront the entity: ‘‘the only light he wanted to
see now, too late, was the light in Ellen’s and the Children’s eyes’’ (MS
319). He walks into the middle of the forest with two containers of gas oil
and pours the oil over himself, and lights a match.
The epilogue of the novel exposes concealed things. More than two
hundred people died following the death of Ben. Ellen and children have
escaped the disaster and now attempt to carry on with their lives. The
epilogue also suggests that Ellen is confused about the whole affair and
the cause of Ben’s scarification. It becomes clear that the ice – entity has
been defeated or has taken shelter where it had concealed.
Midnight Sun, for Campbell, is a Lovecraftian fiction. In an
interview with David Mathew Campbell stated: ‘’Midnight Sun was
going back to Lovecraft’s roots rather than my own: that cosmic vision
was something that I found in Lovecraft.’’ (Campbell 04). Midnight
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Sun becomes a powerful and haunting novel as it exposes cosmic
‘other’ in a Lovecraftian manner. In a letter, which S. T. Joshi cites in
his book, Lovecraft has pointed out the principle lying at the root of his
fiction:
Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise
that common human laws and interests have no validity
or significance in the vast cosmos at- large… To
achieve the essence of real externality, whether time or
space or dimension, one must forget that local
attributes of a negligible and temporary race called
mankind, have any existence at all (Joshi 23).
Thus, Campbell tuning his voice with Lovecraft’s speaks of
vulnerability and insignificance of human race which is a prey of
cosmic ‘other’. Campbell’s concern of human vulnerability and
insignificance is reflected in the expression of Ben:
Ever since we’ve believed, we’ve progressed beyond
our ancestors because they thought the darkness hid
something so alien that they peopled it with gods and
monsters and demons… But sooner or later it had to
waken, and then--- (MS 283).
There are a number of incidents in which cosmic other shows its
existence in one or the other form. On one occasion Ben sees a figure at
window of his room:
The figure which had risen from the forest had lifted a
pale hand and was pointing at him… and its hand
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disappeared into the snow… the face breaking out in
patterns like frost. . . (MS 313).
Campbell here speaks of the historicity of horror and its
inevitability in the present. Ben’s obsession can be understood in terms of
familial association of horror. The repressed ‘other’ emerges in a still
more bizarre and dangerous form and Ben’s return to the town causes it
to erupt in a still more explosive manner. Something, which is beyond
human control, enacts so strongly that the whole town comes under its
possession. As Ellen experiences:
It showed her more of the deadened landscape, the
deserted square, the darkened shops sealed by ice, the
tangles of footprints like a memorial to the townsfolk,
preserving the pattern of a dance… (MS 302).
This passage displays mysterious, loathsome performance of the
cosmic entity. Horror coated with mysterious incidents and events arrest
the attention of readers. Along with this, the employment of mystical
books dreadfully exposes the onset of cosmic other. The book, Of
Midnight Sun by Edward Sterling reminds readers of the Pamphlet by
Needham. It seems that Campbell is still interested using Lovecraftian
device of mythical books. The book exposes the forth onset of ‘other’
which has long been waiting to mutilate human race. The stories in the
book mostly expose human defeat by cosmic ‘other’. However, the end of
the novel is different than that of the story depicted in the book. At the
end of the novel Ben uses fire as a weapon to vanish the entity. He has to
sacrifice for it. This shows Ben’s transformation and it seems that he
sides with human race. Throughout the novel he has been on the side of
ice – entity which possesses him. Then suddenly, he frees himself from
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its influence and sides with human race. Campbell’s many characters,
which are possessed by supernatural elements, are either hostile or
indifferent to mankind. Christopher Kelly in The Doll Who Ate His
Mother Godwin Mann in The Hungry Moon and Jane in Claw (1983) are
infatuated by supernatural elements. They go against welfare of mankind.
These possessed characters fail to understand humanity, sympathy and
love. Jane attains the height of cruelty when she smashes her own baby’s
head on the wall. It is significant to note that Ben is the only character of
Campbell that undergoes the positive transformation. He does what the
remote people in the story had failed to do. Ben ignites himself to quench
the entity. Thus, Campbell shows Ben’s transformation from cosmicism
to ground realities. Godwin Mann’s transformation from normal to
abnormal physical state is a supernatural threat for human beings. Ben
twice undergoes transformation; he gets possessed by the entity and sides
with the entity. Hence, he is not pleased with his family’s futile actions
and continues to urge them to prepare for the imminent transformation
that is to overtake them if they yield to the ice-entity. Suddenly, he feels
sympathy for his family members and he confronts the entity to immolate
himself.
Midnight Sun shows Campbell’s inclination towards Campbellian
fiction. It seems that Campbell has shown his inclination to mundane
horror. Human psyche and abnormal behavior always draw attention of
Campbell. Consequently, human beings with paranoia and abnormal
behavior have proved themselves as shudder-mongering icons of horror
in Campbell’s fiction. It shows Campbell’s interest in men than in
monsters. According to S. T. Joshi the immolation of Ben stands for two
things; the rejection of ‘chilling cosmicism’ by Campbell, and
‘declaration of independence from Lovecraft’:
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It is clear that Ben’s conversion is really Campbell’s
own. Perhaps, then, Midnight Sun in a sense represents
Campbell’s final declaration of independence of
Lovecraft: he uses Lovecraftian cosmicism as vivid
imagery, but comes down firmly on the side of humanity
when all is said and done. The ice – entity Ben Sterling
wishes usher in to the world is the fatally alluring but
chillingly remote cosmicism that Campbell has finally
rejected (Joshi 41).
However, in an interview with Michael McCarthy and Mark
McLaughlin Campbell has admitted that he is still under the influence of
Lovecraft and his cosmic horror:
He remains one of the crucial writers in the field. . . Few
writers in the field are more worth reading; certainly I
find different qualities on different occasions. I recently
read ‘The Outsider’ to my wife to both our pleasures. I
still try to capture the Lovecraftian sense of cosmic awe
in some of my tales… (Campbell 02).
It becomes clear that Campbell has still fascination for
Lovecraftian cosmic horror. It is true that Joshi’s statement of Campbell’s
deviation from cosmic horror is based on the novels published up to
2001. It is also true that after Midnight Sun Campbell did not handle
cosmic horror in his novels published up to 2001. But the novel The
Darkest Part of the Woods published in 2002 shows Campbell’s
inclination to Lovecraft and his cosmic horror. The Darkest Parts of the
Woods centers on the Price family and the story of the novel is set in the
imagery town of Brichester located within the Severn Valley. Lennox, the
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author of the scholarly work, the Mechanics of Delusion, comes from the
United States to study a strange outbreak of dementia in the area. But
Lennox gets fascinated with the dense wood. He is killed but the forest
continues to fascinate the Price family. It has something secretive
initiated by supernatural power and it appears to manifest itself in a
bizarre form. Sam, a grandson of Lennox, while walking in the forest,
comes across a bizarre scene awaking horror:
He limped between the gesticulating trees and stepped
into the open. At once the glittering mass stirred and then
surged into the air. It was a multitude of insects that
swooped and darted in patterns so intricate he was robbed
of thought and breathe. . . Then the tree across the clearing
swayed together covering much of the sun, and the swarm
soared back over the mound and into the depths of the
woods. As he lost sight of them he thought they were
shining brighter yet with colours he’d never seen, even in
dreams (Woods 39-40).
Ben also experiences the strange thing when he goes to the forest:
Snowflakes luminous with moonlight were dancing
beneath the trees.
How could it be snowing there and not above
the forest? . . . It seemed to him that the silent
luminous dance was constantly about to form a
pattern in the air… and there was no sign of snow in
the air (MS 103).
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The Darkest Parts of the Woods bears some resemblance to
Midnight Sun. In the former novel the name Selcouth refers to one
Nathaniel Selcouth, a sixteenth-century magician. He built an abode in
the Brichester woods as he wanted to create a servant who would mediate
between him and the limits of the world, both spiritual and physical. This
mission of Selcouth is somewhat similar to the mission of Edward
Sterling who went into the dense forest to find out ice-entity. In short,
both have attraction for things obscure and astonishing and have written
books that unlock the door of the ‘other.’ Both the novels present
character’s journey in the depth of the woods either to carry out or to
prevent the sinister plans of the cosmic ‘other’.
The comparison of these two novels- despite the wide gap in their
dates of publication- focuses on Campbell’s fascination for Lovecraftian
cosmic horror. It becomes clear that Campbell has not deviated from
Lovecraftian cosmic horror. It is still a thing of fascination for Campbell.
He has also employed cosmic horror in his novels published after 2006.
In an interview with the researcher Campbell stated:
I think there are hints of it in Thieving Fear – the
Victorian sorcerer Arthur Pendemon in this novel
attempts to conjure up cosmic forces by a variety of
means – and quite a few readers have found echoes in
Creatures of the Pool of Innsmouth, although
reconceived in a very Liverpudlian setting in terms of
Liverpool history (See Appendix).
It can be pointed out that Ramsey Campbell is a versatile writer of
horror fiction. He is not restricted himself to the particular type of horror-
supernatural, non-supernatural and cosmic horror. His enormous horror
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fiction produced up to the date is a laboratory with old and new icons of
horror. The field of horror fiction is, for Campbell, a field of joy. The
following statement, which Campbell made in an interview with the
researcher, shows his interest and contribution to the field: ‘’I do often
return to themes if I think I have more to say about them’’ (See
Appendix). It also becomes clear that cosmic horror and its icon is not a
shunned case for Campbell.
Midnight Sun powerfully blends many themes around the
mechanism of cosmic horror; a life of modern man under the shadow of
horror, conflict between family members, the inevitable struggle of a
modern man to understand and to fight against supernatural influences.
What makes the novel so lively is his employment of middle class
characters. Moreover, Campbell’s characters are from urban life with
dignified professional background such as writers, critics etal. They are
gradually drawn under the shadow of the supernatural power. The power,
which is lurking dull in the deserted places, comes to life as it possesses
them. As a result of it, the protagonist loses his ability. Ben’s possession
is so powerful that he cannot write:
As he sat at the desk each morning and gazed into the
forest, he felt as though an inspiration or a vision
longer than he could imagine was hovering just out of
reach (MS 136).
The predicament of Ben Sterling is similar to the predicament of
Alan Knight, the protagonist of the novel Claw published in 1983 under
the pseudonym Jay Ramsey. This supernatural horror novel is the story of
a family; Liza and Alan Knight and their daughter Anna. The horror in
the novel really begins when a crime novelist, Alan Knight brings a
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crafted metal claw (actually given to him by the anthropologist, David
Marlow from Nigeria) to England with him. Knight had been warned by
Marlow to hand over the claw to the Foundation for African studies.
Since the Foundation feels no urgency in the matter, the claw is kept in
the house of Knight in Norwich. As an effect of the claw, Alan’s writing
does not proceed. He, who went to Africa for the background of his next
novel, finds himself unable to give documentary vision to his perception:
Alan sat at his desk and gazed out of the window. A
steamy whitish sky pressed down on sea, trapping the
heat in his room. . . Half a mile away he could see a strip
of beach, and on it what was either a reddish piece of
driftwood or someone badly sunburnt. The stereo
speakers on either side of his desk were playing the
Goldberg Variations, but despite the glittering stream of
music, he felt restless. He couldn’t write (Claw 31).
Like The Hungry Moon, this novel focuses Campbell’s
philosophical and social views. In Midnight Sun the supernatural basis is
only a rather a crude reason for the display of increasing tensions between
family members. Broken human relationship acquires a special space and
place in the fiction of Ramsey Campbell. The broken and parted
relationship of Campbell’s parents serves as the backdrop for his fiction.
In Nazareth Hill father-daughter relationship turns into enmity. In
Midnight Sun Ben’s behavior shatters the loving and warmth familial
relationship turning it cool and distant. The following passage skillfully
etches the familial broken relationship:
Ellen swung around and almost went sprawling. He was
only a few faces behind her. As soon as their met, he
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gave her an apologetic smile whose tentativeness made
into a plea, but how could she respond to that when the
trail of his footprints indicated that he had been dancing
behind her. Weaving a pattern of steps in the snow? She
was furious with herself for having failed to be aware of
his approach (MS 296).
Campbell is wholly and avowedly concerned with human
relationships. The supernatural is, for Campbell, a cause for human
beings reactions to each other and to a society.
To sum up, Midnight Sun will be remembered as a memorable
horror novel as it is enriched with fluidity of prose, sensitive
characterization, and speed technique of narration. Moreover, the
shudder-mongering incident of Ben’s scarification makes this novel
unique one in the history of weird fiction. What makes the novel more
memorable is the evocation of the natural landscape, emerging of horror
from the ancient world, and a background of cosmic horror against which
the characters appear to struggle in vain. Everything in this lengthy novel
is remarkable. Language, style, events, and incidents contribute to arouse
horror that Campbell weaves around a human-eating form of primitive
snow. In short, both Midnight Sun with the ice-entity and Leiber’s novel
Our Lady of Darkness (1977) with the smoke ghost have surely enriched
the modern horror fiction.
2. 7. Similarities and Disparities:
The Hungry Moon and Midnight Sun are purely cosmic horror
novels as they both introduce cosmic ‘other’. Mysterious events,
unexpected incidents, unresolved endings, possessed protagonists,
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explicit violence, violent Nature, and over all insignificance of human
beings make these novels cosmic horror novels. Campbell introduces the
cosmic evil not at the beginning of the novel but somewhere middle in
the novel. But his story line offers a sense of evil and foreboding from the
beginning of the novels.
The Hungry Moon and Midnight Sun have modern settings on the
background of cosmic horror. The former is set in Moonwell and the
latter in Stargrave. These two novels demonstrate Campbell’s ability to
exploit the narrative benefits of small towns. The names of the respective
cities are fine blending of the space and the earth. The Moon and Star
stand for space whereas well and grave associate with human beings. In
an excellent manner, Campbell exhibits conflict between space entities
and human beings. Though these towns are imaginary, they are far more
advanced than the ancient towns of Lovecraft. They represent the modern
world with phones, cars, newspapers, and hotels. Apart from cosmic
horror, these novels present the small town horror which Stephen King
practiced in his horror fiction. Moonwell and Stargrave appear to be
menaced on several fronts. These towns become victim of the pre-
existing menace and display human feebleness. In short, Campbell has
joined the array of horror writers who use the small town as a setting for
mechanism/icon of horror.
Campbell observes the role of women as they roll in the nest of
horror amid the possessed, obsessed and neurotic people. Significantly,
they either lose their consciousness or preferred to be rolled in the stream
of horror or they oppose to it standing firmly on the ground of humanity.
Diana Kramer and Ellen Sterling are women of consciousness. They act
as normal human beings in the crucial and horrific situations. As the
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situation around them worsens changing everybody and everything, they
remain firm. Diana saves the town and its people by driving back the
entity to the cave where it had been crawling. Ellen Sterling tries her
utmost to keep her children away from possessed Ben. Campbell’s chief
women characters now stand as protectors. Thus, Campbell shows a
change that take place in women – a change from preys to protectors.
Midnight Sun presents visionary horror that appears in the work of
Algernon Blackwood. Omnipotent and Omnipresence of visionary horror,
which is quite different from real horror of being pursued, is dispersed in
Midnight Sun. Although there is no sign of snow in the air, Ben sees the
dance of snowflakes. It is the perfect example of visionary horror.
However, the mysterious but cruel and disgusting events in The Hungry
Moon arouse horror. The incidents of merciless deaths of the priest and
the policeman send a chilling pain in the hearts of the readers.
Campbell shows a transformation of character on the background
of horror. The transformation is twofold; the physical transformation and
the psychological transformation. Godwin Mann and Andrew Bevan
undergo physical transformations. It is their heinous form, in which they
appear after coming into a contact of supernatural power, evokes horror.
Additionally, the transformation of Amy Priestley into a witch is the
climax of horror suggesting the power of supernatural over human
beings. What worries Campbell is the second type of transformation
which some of his characters undergo. This is most horrific
transformation as it denotes a change in the psyche of a character. Peter
Grace, Oswald Priestley, Ben Sterling and countless other characters
change from men to monsters. It is their monstrousness adds to the horror
novel a dark color of macabre. The only positive transformation is the
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transformation of Ben Sterling. He travels from negative transformation
to positive one. His final confrontation with the cosmic power and his
scarification draw sympathy of readers.
Campbell’s employment of language is outstanding as it creates
horror. His language is not informative just to denote what happens to his
men and women and how they are victims of horrors. It is an image-
evoking language. In other words, an image- loaded language creates
everlasting effects of horror. The Hungry Moon abounds with such a type
of language:
The van swung round the curve, and both she
(Geraldine) and Jeremy cowered back in their seats,
gasping, as the headlights lit up what was standing in the
middle of the road, thrusting forward his white eyeless
face that bore a gaping smile, its outstretched arms
touching the trees on both sides of the road . . . its long,
oval body the colour of a dead fish, its penis dangling like
a withered umbilical cord down one fleshless leg. It only
smiled more widely, a smile that totally devoid of
emotion on the flat, shiny, featureless face, and let go of
the trees, ready to reach for the van with its huge splayed
hands (HM 222).
Though Campbell is gifted with an image-loaded language, his
mere ability to frighten readers through a simple language proves his
mastery over language. Campbell does it very effectively in Midnight
Sun:
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Perhaps he (Ben) was seeing only ice and snow . . .
Certainly, thick snow was dancing just within the
glade, though it appeared to be rising triumphantly
from the ground rather than falling from the sky, which
it bolted out. Within the snow, or forming from it, or
both, something else had taken shape . . . He could see
that it was perfectly symmetrical, it must have eyes on
every side to see the world into which it was emerging.
All this was only hint of its nature, he thought numbly.
It was using the snow to hint at himself (MS 211- 212).
This passage is a fine amalgamation of atmospheric, cosmic, and
supernatural horror. It evokes a sense of existence of paranormal element
waiting to emerge more powerfully in the human world.
2 .8. General observations:
A close and deep reading of these novels highlight certain things
that may help to place Campbell in the legacy of horror fiction. Firstly,
Campbell follows the pattern of horror novels. Prologues, epilogues,
haunted and shattered but vulnerable individuals carry on and maintain
horrific atmosphere throughout the novels. Secondly, the idea of horror
conventions and icons- spirits, ghosts, monsters, witches and cosmic
icons-have been borrowed by Campbell from earlier horror literature,
mainly, from gothic and Lovecraftian fiction. Graphic and strong
violence depicted in the novels enhance the effect of the supernatural
power. Thirdly, a chain of supernatural events Campbell set in the novels
add to horror and it also speaks of his closeness to the traditional gothic
and horror fiction.
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But what differentiates him from gothic novelists is his modern
setting of the novels. This modern setting is utilized to focus on the
matter of reality and to denote the philosophy of Campbell. Reality is, for
Campbell, an illusion, Thus, Campbell’s novels express his philosophy of
horror making him a perfect and suitable living horror fiction writer who
has a keen eye on evil things and who longs for social welfare. Thus,
horror fiction is, for Campbell, not an escapist fantasy; it is a social
history.
A general study of horror fiction denotes its interest in main three
themes; incest, insignificance of human life, and social concern. In a way
or other horror fiction deals with these themes so as to link itself with
psychological and social concern. Campbell handles the theme of incest
in the novel To Wake the Dead effectively thereby linking himself with
psychological concerns which gothic, post- gothic and modern novelists
have put before readers through familiar icons of horror. Insignificance of
human life and depiction of distorted human life also remain at the core
of these novels. Thus, Campbell prefers to amble within paved compass
of horror fiction at the earlier stage of his career as a novelist.
In the midst of supernatural entities and events Campbell’s chief
concern of people’s paranoia peeps through the novels. His paranoid
protagonists frequently occur in the selected novels except in Midnight
Sun. The reader is left uncertain whether their paranoia is original or
rendered by supernatural phenomena. Certainly, his paranoid protagonists
and antagonists offer the novels non-supernatural horror Campbell’s
inclination to the internal ‘other’ is exhibited in the novels and paranoia is
an incarnation of the internal ‘other’. It can be understood that
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Campbell’s mind was shifting from supernatural horror to non-
supernatural horror.
Campbell’s technique is very cinematic. A sudden shift from image
to image resembles quick cutting of cinematic narrative. Each sentence
conveys one or more images in a rapid succession: ‘’There was
something in the dark. Don’t think I’ve gone mad, Diana, but it spoke to
me’’ (HM 259). And: ‘’Oswald’s toecap lifted a fragment of gravel,
which clattered ahead of him and was extinguished like an ember. At that
moment, up beneath the oak tree that was fingering its own darkness on
the grass, something moved and then was motionless’’ (NH 64). What
all these suggest that Campbell deals with pre-existence of the ‘other.’
It can be stated that has linked himself to the new theme which
rested in the world of horror fiction around or shortly after 1945. The
theme of the invasion of the ‘other’ into the human world and human
body dominated the world of horror fiction after 1945. Horror fiction
during this time showed a withdrawal of human beings into nothingness
pointing out that the human world is at the mercy of the ‘other’ and it is
not at all safe. The existence of the ‘other’, its silent waiting for a prey, a
chain of mysterious events, and appalling endings make these novels the
best horror novels. His characters and protagonists are normal human
beings who find horrible mental and material universe in and around
them. Campbell has become successful to take his readers back to the
gothic world and the world of Lovecraft.
Campbell’s concern for a modern man gets strengthened as his
writing progresses. Though Campbell deals with supernatural horror, the
four novels discussed in this chapter suggest Campbell’s interest in
internal ‘other’ and it is reflected in characters like Godwin Mann and
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Oswald Priestly. It is significant to note that Campbell moves from
cosmic and supernatural horror to mundane horror. Campbell presents
this shifting distinctively and powerfully that distinguishes him from his
contemporaries and his mentor Lovecraft. In Lovecraftian fiction
phenomena plays more important role than characters whereas for
Campbell the human characters are the sole focus of the horrific
situations. Campbell tends towards depicting horror which is based on
human activities of middle class people. It seems that Campbell is taking
interest in crudely physical horror emerges from the mutilation done to
human beings.
The novels discussed in the next chapter arouse horror revolving
around a single character. Paranoid and mentally disturbed serial killers
appear in the fictional world of Campbell. These serial killers are
perfectly modern as they have accustomed to progress of the world.
Moreover, they utilize the invented devices for their cruel purposes.
Paranoid serial killers associate their cruel deeds to the cause of social
and family welfare. Such killers appear in The Face That Must Die
(1976) and in The Count of Eleven (1990). But the most dangerous serial
killer appears in recently published novel Secret Story (2006). Thus,
Campbell has utilized serial killers as icons of horror thereby linking him
to the modern and post-modern horror fiction writers. Campbell
brilliantly and beautifully vivifies any mechanism/icon of horror that
appeals to him. The urban horror is not an exception to this. The One Safe
Place (1996) focuses on urban horror exposing the bitter reality with
which human beings are quite familiar. Thus, Campbell’s temporary
deviation from the traditional concept of horror, his imagination,
elements, and mechanisms/icons of horror root into the new path of
horror emerged and became popularized during 1960 with the publication
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of Psycho. Hence, the next chapter deals with Mundane Horror. The
novels selected for discussion in the next chapter have Campbell’s own
voice.