In the chasms of our minds lurk dark thoughts...
Why do so many writers choose to write
about dark surreal subjects, things that they wouldn't wish upon themselves or
others. Why do readers have such an appetite to read about such dark subjects?
In a way we are weaned on such darkness, so many children's stories have such a
dark side to them and maybe children's innocence is lost through being read
them. I read stories a lot to my two and
half year old son, today a story about
Mr Nosy and the beanstalk...the story seems innocent enough, then suddenly
there is a giant, who says “I will grind your bones to bake my bread”. The
meaning and implication of this sentence is hopefully lost on my son...I
imagine. I started reading Pinocchio,
not a fluffy Disneyesque version, but an original story, I couldn't believe how
dark it was, I had to skip large sections. Maybe you can't keep a child away from the full horrors of
this world, but then you worry you might be filling their heads with deep inner
fears.
The Brother's Grimm are very much
responsible for this strong legacy of dark fairy tales, that are so much
interwoven in our childhood. The Brothers, both librarians collected many
stories for different German regions, their earlier stories being interpretations
based on real events, indeed very sinister events. This is an interesting
pointer for a writer, a story works better, even if it is totally outlandish,
that it is still in some way plausible.
They had to adapt these stories, they had accrued, and leave out elements such as rape,
incest, torture and cannibalism, which were too much for innocent minds of
children. The anointed “father of fairy tales”, was a Frenchman called Charles Perrault,
whose original Cinderella, had some extremely graphic violence, obviously done
by the hand of the wicked step sisters. We should also bare in mind that at the
time Perrault was writing, children's literature didn't exist and so he was writing with adults in mind. By
contrast when we think of Tim Burton films we could term them as fairy tales
for adults.
Maybe when the Brother
Grimm were alive, it was a time when people let their imaginations run wild and
people had this great capacity to “tell stories”. These days we hunch over a
computer, we watch television or DVDs, people don't entertain one another by
telling these incredibly imaginative stories.
Like the Brothers Grimm,
some of my own stories emanate from real stories I have
picked up on, in a newspaper. Newspapers can be rich in stories about unlikely
happenings...a man appears on a beach...no form of identification...he has no
incline who he is or knowledge of his past...nobody comes forward to say who he
is...These kind of stories really enthrall me.
Quite a few of my stories I
would class as being “fairy stories for adults”. In my story “Flawless” a man
is all set to marry the woman of his dreams, in the midst of his proposal, a
beautiful insect flies into his mouth
and he is forced to swallow it. A few
days later he develops an awful skin disease. The woman named Julia, soon deserts him and
his brother deviously steps in and wins Julia's love and worse still intends to
marry her. All this is too much to bare for Sirius, a noble man, who then cuts
himself off from the world. The only thing left for him is...revenge. One the
day of the wedding, he takes an axe and walks to the church where the
treacherous couple are about to married. As he is about to strike the first
blow, he is engaged a terrible coughing fit and this beautiful insect flies
out. His skin immediately returns to its normal state. The story also has a message, which is about
the fickleness of people, how feelings are altered because of something like a
sudden skin condition, and paramount is the theme of betrayal.
Another story that has
distinctly fairy tale feel about it, is called “Bugeyes” It is a story about a
child born with overly protruding eyes, hence is rejected by his mother and
cast aside, being brought up by a gamekeeper. Later he has a sister who like
him has the same features, namely large distinctive eyes. As with her older
brother she is rejected by her in-bred aristocratic family and sent to the gamekeeper, who is responsible for her
upbringing. She grows into a beautiful woman, and becomes famous, her large
eyes, helping to propel her career in the modeling world. She becomes the talk
of the town and is invited to grand party, by another sibling (one with
reasonably sized eyes and therefore not rejected) to large house by rights she
and her older brother should have grown up in.
The story comes to a head as “Bugeyes” gatecrashes the part and seeks to
claim what is rightfully his...
It seems a human
characteristic, we seem to want to indulge in surreal dark stories, maybe
stories are not passed down and elaborated in the same way that they were in
the brothers Grimm's time, but the spark is still there...
Check out Francis Powell's new and very horrific anthology of 22 stories about misfortune:
Follow him on Twitter @Dreamheadz
Well done..
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting. And many compliments to my guest author. :)
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