07-19-2010, 11:01 PM
Some like milk chocolate, others dark. For myself, if Gothic were chocolate, I'd take the richest flourless truffle or devil's food dripping with fudge buttercream, groaning under turrets of piped ganache and chocolate shavings . . .
Pardon my "metaphorrhea". The point being that I've picked up many a Gothic, enticed by the atmospheric cover art, only to find that the novel within, while good, didn't really resound with Gothic overtones the way I wished it would.
Know what I mean? I often feel that authors could do more of what they're doing, pile on the Gothic with a more liberal hand. By this I mean atmosphere heaped upon mood upon ambience upon eerie suggestive melancholy flavor.
Sometimes you come across an author that does this and you wish they'd written five hundred more books. Evelyn Berckman's The Evil of Time is like that -- one of those novels that envelopes you in its atmosphere and sense of historicity while propelling you through the story all the way to the end. Such an underrated author!
I'm always on the lookout for the "ideal Gothic experience". I suppose we all have our own definition of what that is, but for me it has to do with an author's ability to create an immersive and convincing environment that makes me feel as if I've walked into the cover art. I enjoy most of the Gothics I read, but rarely do I feel this sense of immersion. That takes a special kind of writer with the chops to sustain a mood through an entire novel, not an easy task.
Am I too picky? Anybody else relate to what I'm attempting to describe?
Pardon my "metaphorrhea". The point being that I've picked up many a Gothic, enticed by the atmospheric cover art, only to find that the novel within, while good, didn't really resound with Gothic overtones the way I wished it would.
Know what I mean? I often feel that authors could do more of what they're doing, pile on the Gothic with a more liberal hand. By this I mean atmosphere heaped upon mood upon ambience upon eerie suggestive melancholy flavor.
Sometimes you come across an author that does this and you wish they'd written five hundred more books. Evelyn Berckman's The Evil of Time is like that -- one of those novels that envelopes you in its atmosphere and sense of historicity while propelling you through the story all the way to the end. Such an underrated author!
I'm always on the lookout for the "ideal Gothic experience". I suppose we all have our own definition of what that is, but for me it has to do with an author's ability to create an immersive and convincing environment that makes me feel as if I've walked into the cover art. I enjoy most of the Gothics I read, but rarely do I feel this sense of immersion. That takes a special kind of writer with the chops to sustain a mood through an entire novel, not an easy task.
Am I too picky? Anybody else relate to what I'm attempting to describe?
