08-27-2010, 01:00 AM
Hello Bianca_notte. Interesting questions. My tuppenceworth-
Like AliceChell I am also a woman in my mid-forties, and I too, grew up reading '70s gothics. So there's a nostalgia factor to my love of the genre and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that was common amongst us here.
I discovered the gothic novel as a spin off from my passion for ghost stories, and still have a fondness for supernatural elements in a story so long as they are done well. Having said that I have very strong views about the illegitimacy of calling the current batch of vampire/werewolf stories gothic. At the risk of offending fans: twilight-no, no, no, it's just wrong!
I think one of the things that drew me to these novels all those years ago was the fact that the heroine was the central character rather than the hero. In those days it was still relatively uncommon to find a woman undertaking the brave and daring deeds (such as investigating mysteries and risking death). In my opinion the intelligence of the heroine is an indicator of good gothic fiction. There is nothing worse than a too stupid to live heroine. When it comes to two-dimensional or stereotypical heroines I think that is an expression of a particular author's skill, or lack thereof, coupled with the publishing industry's desire to cash in on a hot genre by printing less discriminately than they might (compare with chick lit of a couple of years ago).
As for the question of literature vs light reading, for me one of the beauties of the gothic novel is that it can be either. There are the classics of centuries past that have achieved the status of literature or the pulp of the mid-twentieth century. You can read a serious or frivilous story depending on your mood-just as in many other genres.
Hope my views are of some help and good luck with your project.
Like AliceChell I am also a woman in my mid-forties, and I too, grew up reading '70s gothics. So there's a nostalgia factor to my love of the genre and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that was common amongst us here.
I discovered the gothic novel as a spin off from my passion for ghost stories, and still have a fondness for supernatural elements in a story so long as they are done well. Having said that I have very strong views about the illegitimacy of calling the current batch of vampire/werewolf stories gothic. At the risk of offending fans: twilight-no, no, no, it's just wrong!
I think one of the things that drew me to these novels all those years ago was the fact that the heroine was the central character rather than the hero. In those days it was still relatively uncommon to find a woman undertaking the brave and daring deeds (such as investigating mysteries and risking death). In my opinion the intelligence of the heroine is an indicator of good gothic fiction. There is nothing worse than a too stupid to live heroine. When it comes to two-dimensional or stereotypical heroines I think that is an expression of a particular author's skill, or lack thereof, coupled with the publishing industry's desire to cash in on a hot genre by printing less discriminately than they might (compare with chick lit of a couple of years ago).
As for the question of literature vs light reading, for me one of the beauties of the gothic novel is that it can be either. There are the classics of centuries past that have achieved the status of literature or the pulp of the mid-twentieth century. You can read a serious or frivilous story depending on your mood-just as in many other genres.
Hope my views are of some help and good luck with your project.
