Is Vault of Evil anti-intellectual?

[weirdmonger]

I'm not fishing for an apology. Discussion forums can be hurtful. It's part of their nature.
However, I am genuinely bewildered by what you accuse me of.
And I've re-read the thread.
Aren't we allowed - as grown-up people - to discuss this topic here - on the off-topic facility provided (although it's not strictly off topic) - first because of Dem's original comments on this site that I was addressing - and, later, laird barron's interesting interview.

[andydecker]

Upon reading this again I realize this has become a long rant from a foreigner viewpoint.

So, dear vaulters, if you have something better to do, say, grab a can from the fridge or pop the champagne, do it. You have been warned ;D

You don´t know how good you have it, do you At least you have a discussion about the merits of the different aspects of horror fiction. Here on the other side on the channel most of the discussion about genre literature is just an exercise in rose-coloured nostalgia always about the form, never about the content, done by a few over 40s mostly on the internet. Which of course is understandable, if you disect your average german pulp horror published 30 or 20 years ago with some open eyes in terms of content or craft, there isn´t much positive to say. So this is a argument for the nostalgia.

If you compare a project like Black Book of Horror with most of the efforts of our small press – the only area where original short stories are published -, from this point of view in terms of quality the Black Book is like the best of the massmarket anthologys of yesteryear. In a country where a book like Best New Horror seem to still make at least a decent profit – I suppose so, this isn´t a charity industry; why publish it any longer otherwise - there can´t be all gloom and doom. Of course this a matter of perspective.

This us vs them mentality doesn´t help. I sampled nearly everything of horror fiction in my life, from the stories of M.R.James to Laurence James' The Witches, from japanese tentacle-rape-anime´s to italien possessed nuns movies. Some I liked, some I hated. So I think I can understand both trenches.

I can really understand how a fan of ghost stories in the vein of James or Blackwood has the opinion that the writings of Guy N. Smith or Shaun Hutson belong in the gutter. I do. There are things – and people - which makes your flesh crawl for all the wrong reasons.

(Whereas nobody seems to see the irony that Guy N. Smith at last was succuessful 30 years ago; he sure has a long shadow if he still can incense contemporary writer´s and fan´s like Mr. Lane; except for trips to yesteryears writings he has no impact whatsoever on current publishing trends I am aware of)

I also can understand the dismay of Unfortunately, gratuitous violence and pornography have become the public face of horror. If you watch current tv-horror like The Walking Dead or True Blood, this is the public face of horror. Nowadys cable tv makes the infamous video nastys of yesterday seem like the children´s hour.

But literature? Come on! Maybe I read the wrong books, but where are those mythic violent and pornographic horror novels? Sure, there is still Shaun Hutson, who isn´t very good any longer (as in I didn´t enjoy a lot of his last books which I thought tired and badly plotted; your mileage will vary) despite the aforementioned elements, and a lot of Paranormal Romances on the porn-factor, but as the public face of horror? The sad truth is that in terms of literature the average reader doesn´t give a damn any longer.

Like John wrote The problem is that horror is a genre that, like science fiction, or crime, needs to be popular to survive and to be popular it needs to be entertaining. He is so right. SF always wanted desperatly to be recognized as relevant. Sadly, this didn´t work out. (And I mean this without any snark!) Immensly popular on the screen, but as literature? And the countless Star Wars books or Warhammer novels – as enjoyable they may be if you like this kind of stuff – doesn´t count. They have become the public face of SF. Crime is solid, maybe more solid than years ago. Because crime fiction is in itself adaptable to the times. It is still relevant. But horror fiction? Outside of Stephen King? Not so good. Which is baffling, because horror as literature is like crime immensly adaptable to changing times.

So maybe it is high time that the defenders of the high arts come from their high horses, which long ago have become zombies. Look forward instead of backwards, write some good books which generate interest outside the choir. Be a little more tolerant. Nobody has to defend "The Sucking Pit" as a timeless work of art but it wasn´t (and isn´t) the harbinger of the apocalypse either.

A discussion about the merits of some branches is important and can be a lot of fun, and if you are the opinon that Guy Smith is the better literature writer and stylist than Peter Ackroyd or Thomas Ligotti, convince me! But the attitude of condemning parts I don´t like as garbage which kills the fine flower of quality isn´t helping anyone. And it isn´t true either.

[dem]

Dec 28, 2010 9:22:31 GMT weirdmonger said:

Not sure what you mean, dem.

just that you've a habit of declaring these tactical withdrawals once you've chiseled away until you finally catch someone in an ugly enough mood to post something hostile, but no matter. it's me who has been out of order here, and i'm very annoyed with myself because i just bust two of my golden rules in one post, namely don't do it when you're grouchy and hungover and don't bother yourself with something said on another board because it surely ain't your business. its done now, i can't take back what i said because i meant it, so - my responsibitity, and i've sin-binned myself until further notice.

yeah, message boards can be hurtful, but i can't remember one row on here all year and even this thread has been civil up until now. maybe next year you'll pick one slightly lighter in mood to revive on Christmas Day?

Dec 28, 2010 9:22:31 GMT weirdmonger said:

No answer?

apologies if you had to wait for a reply but i'd some business to attend, and it was of a rather more pressing nature than this, i assure you.

[weirdmonger]

I love Andy D's post.
And I was only thinking about withdrawing, Dem, as I felt alone and battered at the time on this site.
And yes, Christmas day - sorry, I hadn't noticed.

PS: it started going sour when an out of context quote was brought here, I feel. Not what I linked to on Christmas day.

[Johnlprobert]

Dec 28, 2010 12:45:51 GMT weirdmonger said:

However, I am genuinely bewildered by what you accuse me of.

And in that case I have to say I am genuinely surprised if it really didn't occur to you that your postings had the potential to cause some of the responses that they have.

And I shall leave it at that & get back to the business of enjoying my horror

[weirdmonger]

Dec 28, 2010 15:34:20 GMT Johnlprobert said:

Dec 28, 2010 12:45:51 GMT weirdmonger said:

However, I am genuinely bewildered by what you accuse me of.

And in that case I have to say I am genuinely surprised if it really didn't occur to you that your postings had the potential to cause some of the responses that they have.

And I shall leave it at that & get back to the business of enjoying my horror

I aprreciate, John, that you want to get back to enjoying Horror. I do, too. But how dare you make me responsible for other people's actions as a result of starting a topic.

[weirdmonger]

Oct 25, 2010 13:45:38 GMT weirdmonger said:

It was just that I saw the forum Janitor-of-Lunacy's recent references to 'intelligentsia' and the on-going quotation in his 'signature'. ;D

That gives you some clue why I started this thread last October. Also I believed it would be interesting to discuss. I didn't expect it to be so prominent (but the 'latest 30 messages' device made it so, I suppose) - and I put it on the 'seriously off topic' thread, because I didn't want to clutter up the thread where Dem made those comments.

On Christmas Day (all days are the same to people retired like me ), I linked to Laird Barron's Christmas 'anti-intellectual' topic of an interview since this VoE thread already existed and I thought it would be interesting to those who read this thread.

Later an out of context quote was placed here. Not my responsibility.
des

[David A. Riley]

Actually, Des, if the quotation you keep mentioning is the one I made (and I'm sure it is) then I don't believe it was out of context at all. I wouldn't have used it if I did.

As for the thread going sour, I think the very title you gave it did that without any help from me.

I won't join the Ramsey Campbell Message Board (though I do occasionally glance at it), not because I have anything against Ramsey but because I really don't care for the prevalent attitudes of many of the people who use it. I don't wish to get embroiled in their debates.

[weirdmonger]

If you read the whole thread, David, it was as a result of anti-intelligentsia comments that I entitled it as I did.
At the time it was lighltly humorous.
People have taken it over, like yourself.
A link to another forum is OK, I'd say. But a specific out of its own mmediate context quote from Joel Lane to be posted here - as you did - you must have known would blow this thread apart.

[David A. Riley]

No, Des. I don't see how that quote should have blown anything apart.

Nor was it this that had already upset a few people.

With due respect, I really do think you're trying to pass the buck.

[Craig Herbertson]

At the risk of continuing a thread none of us probably like much anymore I think its worth pointing out that every post of Dem's, has at its foot:

From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.

'...essentially we are, and always has been, a celebration of vintage Brit horror & pulp fiction, preferably in slimline paperback with a memorably outrageous cover'.

Dem is after all the dungeon master of the vault and this is a pretty clear statement of intent.

This thread started with a rhetorical question and as far as I can make out Des answered his question by more or less saying he was split on the issue. It was possibly unfortunate that the question was restarted after the fuss last time but we're here to discuss horror so maybe we shouldn't have all been drawn in again - sadly human nature.

The vault in itself seems to me to be deliberately 'anti-intellectual' by positively affirming the cheap and nasty - coincidentally the thing I really like about the Vault - but it clearly states there is plenty of 'high-brow' stuff about which it does not explicitly condemn.

I'm in the fortunate position of finding things of great merit in the work of all the authors who've posted on this thread. Maybe the subject should just be dropped to the dark bit of the dungeon.

[weirdmonger]

Dec 28, 2010 17:21:55 GMT David A. Riley said:

With due respect, I really do think you're trying to pass the buck.

In which case I apologise.

[Johnlprobert]

Dec 28, 2010 15:40:14 GMT weirdmonger said:

But how dare you make me responsible for other people's actions as a result of starting a topic.

Des, everything I post on this board is with a smile and I'm sorry it seems to have got you so wound up but in response to your posting above, I actually feel extremely responsible for threads I start on message boards, boards of which I am a member and therefore boards where I hope I know how the land lies and the general feelings and opinions of everyone who joins in any debate that may ensue.

I always feel responsible if I've initiated a thread topic, especially if it's one that I feel may court controversy, which is why I would always think twice before doing so. Anything else would smack of immaturity

[Steve]

I know I'll probably regret getting involved but can't resist the compulsion to a try and pick a few bones out of all this.

First bone - and seemingly one of some contention, though for the life of me I can't really see why - is this business of Dem's signature. I've no intention of trying to put words in Kev's, or Christine Campbell Thomson's, mouth but my understanding of the quote in question is that it's not saying that there's anything wrong with 'literature' as such. Simply that for her own purposes, Campbell was more interested in a good creepy yarn than something more 'literary'. She was simply meeting what she saw as a need. After all, as she says; "For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty".
This could be viewed as an 'anti-intellectual' stance in some respects but it's certainly not sneering. In fact, it doesn't make any kind of judgements at all. It merely, as I read it, states a personal preference.

Bone #2 is this from Andy;

Dec 28, 2010 13:30:14 GMT andydecker said:

Here on the other side on the channel most of the discussion about genre literature is just an exercise in rose-coloured nostalgia... done by a few over 40s mostly on the internet.

Quite honestly, Andy mate, I'm not sure things are so very different 'over here'! At least, that's exactly why I signed up to Vault however many years ago it was. That, and it was friendly, and fun, and never took itself too seriously. I've always thought "an exercise in rose-coloured nostalgia, done by a few over 40s" was a great idea. I did back then and I still do. Do I have sufficient time, energy, moments of sanity/clarity, to properly devote myself to such a board? Sadly no, I don't. I'm too knackered and too unstable to be of much use here any more but that doesn't stop me loving the place.
Obviously, if other people are looking for a discussion with a bit more depth than I am, then good luck to them and I'm not so sure that you can't find that here as well if that's your thing. There's no shortage of very knowledgeable people contributing to Vault.

And to finish...

Dec 28, 2010 9:39:22 GMT @noose said:

I was looking at my bookcase just now - and picked five titles out at random with my eyes closed. They were

Zoltan Hound of Dracula, Boot Boys, Inseminoid, Blight, Crossroads: A Warm Breeze (yup the one with Benny in it)...

That says it all for me really. Blight? Is that the one with the rampaging mutant moths? God bless you, Mr Noose. And Boot Boys... and Crossroads novelisations... Vault isn't just about having an interest in this stuff and coming together to bang on about it, it's about having a passion for one thing and talking about it here and, through the very act of being here and sharing and participating, learning to love all kinds of other lovely old shite. It's going into a decrepit bookshop looking for that old horror anthology you're missing and coming out with a carrier bag full of Confessions books and Art of Coarse whatever it may be books and a biography of Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart... and, well, if you don't understand what I'm talking about there's really not much more I can say.

Is Vault anti-intellectual? The board taken as a whole? No, of course it bloody isn't. It's precisely what people on this thread have been saying the horror genre is. Namely, a broad church. Are there people here who have no interest whatsoever in intellectualising their passions? Yes, it seems to me that there are. It's not a stance, it's just a personal thing. If any dividing lines have been drawn I suggest that they've been drawn around Vault and not from within. And that's fine, you know. Some of the labels that have been attached to us in the past may have been crass and frankly uninformed - and, personally, I'm as anti-crass stupidity as I am anti-intellectual - but the day Vault starts to worry what people think of it will be a very sad day indeed.

Now, where's me tablets?

[noose]

Dec 28, 2010 18:12:02 GMT Steve said:

That says it all for me really. Blight? Is that the one with the rampaging mutant moths? God bless you, Mr Noose.

Yup - and it's a bit crap. I LOVE IT!