Students are to post ONE reaction (minimum 350 words) to the assigned listening/reading/viewing linked below. Students are encouraged (but not required) to additionally respond to other student reactions."The Autumnal Genius of John Bellairs" by Grady Hendrix: "There’s a particular kind of nostalgia that smells like burning autumn leaves on an overcast day. It sounds like a static-filled radio station playing Brylcreem advertisements in the other room. It feels like a scratchy wool blanket. It looks like a wood-paneled library stuffed with leather-bound books. This is the flavor of occult nostalgia conjured up by author John Bellairs and his illustrator, Edward Gorey, in their middle grade gothic New Zebedee books featuring low-key poker-playing wizards, portents of the apocalypse, gloomy weather, and some of the most complicated names this side of the list of ingredients on a packet of Twinkies." Click heading to read essay.
"Is there still room for scares in John Bellairs?" by Erik Adams: "The imagery and atmosphere of Bellairs’ work inspired a previous generation of readers to become a new generation of writers: The John Bellairs Fandæmonium website collects testimonies from such fans-turned-authors; The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy recently dropped Bellairs’ name in an NPR interview about Under Wildwood, his second YA effort with wife/personal Edward Gorey Carson Ellis. It all goes to show that the art that most often sticks with us, the work that most terrorizes and tantalizes, is that which leaves room for the unknown and the unsaid, that which invites us back by leaving room to interpret what’s hovering just out of view." Click heading to read the essay.
AND
THE GASHLYCRUMB TINIES by Edward Gorey: "Part Tim Burton long before there was Burton, part Edgar Allan Poe long after Poe, the book exudes Gorey’s signature adult picture book mastery, not merely adorned by the gorgeously dark crosshatched illustrations but narratively driven by them." Click heading to read/view The Gashlycrumb Tinies.
THE HAPLESS CHILD by Edward Gorey: Click title to download PDF of The Hapless Child.
Why the Link Between Bellairs & Gorey is Unbreakable by Matt Domino: "Bellairs were browsing a bookstore and came across The Fatal Lozenge, an illustrated alphabet book by Edward Gorey. Bellairs was particularly fond of Z, which was illustrated with a Zouave [a class of French Army infantry members in the 19th and 20th centuries] hoisting an impaled baby on a bayonet with an accompanying verse." Click heading to read essay.
AND
Charles Addams by Christian Willaims (The Washington Post): In a sunny day in 1953, patent attorney F.T. Griswold holds a funny-looking electrical gizmo out the window of his office, aiming it down at the streets below. At his side stands the inventor of the device, hat in hand and waiting hopefully. "Death ray, fiddlesticks!" comes the verdict. "Why, it doesn't even slow them up."That is, of course, a New Yorker cartoon perpetrated by Charles Addams. Like his inventor's ray gun, Addams has never successfully harmed anybody. But it is safe to say that, over the past 50 years, his weird cartoons have certainly slowed them up." Click heading to reading article.
The Father of the Addams Family (NPR): They said that Charles Addams slept in a coffin and drank martinis with eyeballs in them. They said he kept a guillotine at his house and received chopped-off fingers in the mail from fans. It was once reported that he had been given a monogrammed straitjacket as a birthday gift -- a garment that might have come in handy if the other stories were true, such as the one Patricia McLaughlin told about Addams moving around the living room at a party, "methodically and imponderably depositing" dollops of tooth powder in various corners. "A charm to ward off cavity-causing vampires?" she wondered. People said that Addams had married Morticia, the pale dagger in the spidery black dress from The Addams Family, that familiar band of subversives that included Gomez, Lurch, Pugsley, Wednesday, Uncle Fester, Grandma, Thing, and Cousin Itt. Click heading to read essay, excerpt, and/or listen to interview.
Is Someone Going to Bake Me a Pie? The eeriness of Mother Goose. Charles Addams' Illustrations remind us how the classic tales could seem in the minds of the kids to whom we read them. Click heading to view book.
14 comments:
Bellaire’s style of writing correlates with what we are learning in class. When writing The House With A Clock In Its Walls, Bellaire wrote in a setting similar to his hometown of Great Lakes State and even put some of his childhood memories in this novel. It makes the story feel much more personal, especially since the main character, Lewis, is the same age as the author when he lived in the Great Lakes State. Transforming the novel from an adult book to a children’s story was a clever choice because the personal moments and writing about “childhood horrors” helped create a more relatable experience for children. The AV club article mentioned that many children could see themselves in Lewis, and seeing someone so similar to them being thrust into this magical world makes them feel like they’re a part of the journey. Another author who played with childhood horrors is Edward Gorey. Unlike Bellaire, Gorey went down a more horrific route rather than one that was fantastical. Reading “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” was a very macabre story that included children and is portrayed like a children’s book by presenting the alphabet. I love horror, but these pages disturbed me due to the author’s art style, how each child met their demise, and, more importantly, how this book was made for children. As well as reading “The Hapless Child,” where you hope the young girl will finally reunite with her father after suffering so much, but she then dies in the end, which is heartbreaking. According to The Millions article, both John Bellaire and Edward Gorey are very similar, yet so different, in their styles of illustrations. Despite being a part of different parts of history, there’s no doubt that both authors equally share this skill to turn away from the expectations of a children’s book and completely subvert those expectations by including horrific elements in a book made for children. They teeter on the line between topics that are catered towards children or one that is catered towards adults. No different from Charles Addams, who also dances around with more macabre topics, but he puts it into a humorous light rather than in a light of horror like Bellaire and Gorey.
Hearing about how demented people thought Addams was reminded me of how generally eccentric creative people tend to be. But his story specifically reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock (who was actually not a very good man) who was very popular and famous during his life. There are stories, some true, some not true, and some unknown, of cruel and unusual things he’s done. Like there’s a story of Hitchcock hiring an actress for one of his parties and pretending not to know her and seeing his guests be confused, which sounds like it would be pretty funny. And there are more horrifying stories of “pranks” he pulled on his staff during shoots. Hearing the NPR podcast and Linda talk about the suspicious stain around the kidney area of Addams’ coffee table reminded me somewhat of what I just mentioned with Hitchcock. I also really liked when Linda talked about how Addams would draw his fears and make fun of them to defuse them. As someone who is extremely scared of snakes himself, to the point that I will literally tense up if I see a picture of a snake, seeing how Addams dealt with this fear I would agree with Linda that it seems to be the psychologically smart thing to do. I also really liked The Hapless Child. I appreciated the illustrations as an aspiring artist/animator who has recently tried dabbling with the dark/horror genre in his work. I also really liked the story, which is weird to say about a story with a sad ending. But I liked how it was made even more sad by the fact that the father didn’t know it was his daughter, so he’ll keep searching for his daughter who he doesn’t know he killed. I would honestly like to see an extended adaptation of this story. I also really enjoyed The Atlantic article. I generally preferred the black and white illustrations to the colored ones, but I liked the captions, something about rhyming scratches my brain the right way. I also noticed that the illustration of the man telling the bat to come under his hat looked very similar to the character design of the old german film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Edward Gorey's style of writing is notably off-putting and disturbing. The first piece I read was The Gashlycrumb Times which seems like an alphabet book, however it is nothing like the typical children's alphabet books that you would expect. For each letter Gorey describes a different child with a first name that matches the letter and comes up with a unique way to describe each one of them essentially dying. It varies from "B is for Basil assaulted by bears" to “Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin”. A lot of the descriptions are really random and dark. You wouldn’t picture children necessarily going through what they are being described to go through, however the corresponding drawings show children going through very intense experiences. Personally, I am not the biggest fan of this contradiction. It creates a weird and disturbing mood that I do not enjoy. I am not sure who the audience was for Gorey, however I definitely believe it should not be kids in any way. Furthermore, the second piece I read furthers this belief in my mind. I read the Hapless Child by Gorey which was a story about a girl whose father and mother both died making her left with essentially nobody. She then went to boarding school and was treated so poorly there that she tried to escape, only to almost die and be found by a man who sells her to another man who abuses her. The story ends with her father actually being alive and finally finding her, yet when he finds her he doesn’t really recognize her because of her condition and to make everything worse, she is dying. Overall, the story just had me thinking the entire time “how much worse can this get” and then it got worse. There didn’t feel like much of a point or purpose in the story besides making this girl’s life as bad as it can be. I did appreciate that it didn’t end in a cliche way where her father found her and everything was fine again, however I honestly think I would have preferred that to the outcome that she got. From reading these two pieces, I think it's clear that I am not the audience for Edward Gorey’s writing.
The writing and drawings from the Addams family, The Hapless child and House shared a gothic style that I personally love. Horror for children has always been, at least to me, a puzzling genre since there is a shared belief that scaring children and robbing them of their innocence is wrong yet these types of stories tow quite a dangerous line. They are scary without being gory or violent but instead rely on the deeply uncanny. The Addams family recording discussed creating a sense of anxiety without actually putting anyone in danger. The pot of oil is one single finger away from dropping horribly onto the Christmas carolers but not a bubble of oil ever actually hits them. The Hapless Child uses minimal and very simple language coupled with illustrations that may look messy but in reality create a sense of organised chaos–scribblings that are still coherent enough to see the horrors. The simple language hits harder when it is telling readers tragedy after tragedy in such a matter-of-fact way leaving us with the drawings of Charlotte Sophia being tortured to portray any and all emotions. The drawings are black and white and Charlotte Sophia is the only object or person that is purely white. Everything else is marred by chicken scratch and hatching, drawing your attention to the continuous peril that Charlotte Sophia is placed in. The sudden ending with nearly blind Sophia finally meeting her father but being close to death when she does closes an already sorrowful read with an even more tragic ending. Similar to the structure of King Lear we move from one scene to another telling ourselves ‘surely, it can't get any worse’ and then it does immediately, constantly crushing the little bit of hope it creates. Children’s horror often doles out horrifying stories and images non–chalantly, not allowing for their readers to sit with the fright but instead bombard them with quick bursts of uncanny scenes and illustrations with a sudden end. When I think of modern children’s horror as well, for example the Five Nights of Freddy franchise, things such as “The Bite of ‘87” are shown and referred to so flippantly that the attitude towards the horror becomes more uncanny and ominous than the horror itself.
I remember when I was in 5th grade, my reading level was so elevated that I was never allowed to read what the other kids my age were reading, and instead the school librarian would find for me “the classics.” That’s how I started reading The House with the Clock in Its Walls. I never did finish it because I was simultaneously reading an unabridged 600-page copy of Little Women, but I remember being captivated for the few chapters that I did read. I’d honestly revisit it today… maybe during spring break I will visit my local library and pick it up. Anyway, all of that to say, the fact that Bellairs wanted to write his books for adults and then was convinced to rewrite them for middle grade reminds me of Neil Gaiman’s story in reverse – he wrote Coraline for children and his editor was very hesitant to publish it for children.
After reading Gorey’s works, I can certainly see how Lemony Snicket drew a lot of inspiration from him, especially from reading The Hapless Child. Poor Charlotte Sophia was sent from guardian to guardian, and then to boarding school, which is exactly what happened to the Baudelaire children. Her life was her own series of unfortunate events. Gorey’s writing is a little too dark for me, though, and I know that his books would have freaked me out when I was a child if I stumbled upon them.
I liked how Charles Addams took nursery rhymes, which are already a bit freaky if you think about them for a while, so I liked how he inventively took them and interpreted them into drawings. The Mistress Mary Quite Contrary drawing was especially intriguing to me, as she looked like she was dressed for prison, which is not something I ever imagined when hearing that nursery rhyme. Charles Addams certainly sounded like an eccentric character in real life, and you can see it in his drawings as well. I didn’t watch the Addams Family as a child (I preferred the Munsters), but I did watch the Netflix series Wednesday, and I enjoyed how Jenna Ortega portrayed this character.
Having never read any of these authors, yes, even Addams, this was an interesting introduction to the genre of middle-grade horror. It goes completely against what I first think of when someone says “middle-grade fiction”. It’s dark, and cold, and almost unsafe to be reading. It gives feelings of unease instead of inspiring kids to learn more about the world. As a kid I’m sure that unease would have affected me a little too personally, so it’s probably for the best I never got into it, but it’s so interesting to me that other people would not only feel differently but be enthusiastically into it. There’s a good quote in the Washing Post interview with Charles Addams that I think is central to the whole thing: “There was a minister in North Carolina who sent me stuff for years, but I could never use any. It is remarkable how tasteless the minister’s ideas were.” A major binding element of these stories – if not the outright center – is taste. Maturity without torture porn, all class and no trash. From that perspective, it’s absolutely fascinating, not the least of which because I have none. I think giving kids a chance to explore uncomfortable emotions, such as fear, confusion, dread, is incredibly important, but my experience with that sort of thing has often been through high fantasy and sheltered stories from much of the macabre that marks these authors’ works. Gorey’s alphabet book The Gashlycrumb Tinies was almost shocking in that way. It toed the line of class and torture porn that Addams described in a skillful way, with all violence being limited to either a few words, heavily obscured, or implied. I think that’s what made the difference for me. It’s not reveling in suffering, it’s exhibiting it for the audience in a way that’s supposed to make them uneasy instead of shocked. Bellairs’ book The House With a Clock in its Walls doesn’t sound like it toes that line nearly as much. In fact, compared to that it sounds almost subdued. Maybe it’s the casualness with which it's all described, but it doesn’t hit me the same way.
Gorey’s artistic and literary style completely tickles the child inside me, as I have memories of discovering “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” as a kid and being amazed at the mix of whimsy and macabre, and how that could be allowed for kids! My parents’ favorite holiday was always Halloween, so I grew up watching R rated movies at the age of 3 (not the greatest choice, dad…) and was absolutely fascinated by all things morbid. I adored the Addams Family—I wore our VHS copy of “The Addams Family Values” to death—and Gorey fit that perfect brand of creepy yet tantalizingly exciting that I ate UP as a child. What I find interesting as well is the cultural impact of Gorey’s work, even 50+ years after the publication of “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,” because as a child of the 2000’s and early 2010’s one of my favorite pieces of popular media that emerged was “Dumb Ways to Die,” a 2012 Australian PSA on railway safety, which hit many of the same notes as “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,” and would even evolve into a mobile game which I would play obsessively. The two works actually share quite a few deaths, which I think made it really resonate with me: death by fire, bear, medicine, murder, train, etc. Therefore on revisiting Gorey’s work as an adult, I’m wonderfully pleased in the ability to highlight a path of clear cultural influence—from Gorey’s illustrated poetry, to the later animated song-and-dance of “Dumb Ways to Die,” where the song serves as a modern adaptation of the poetic. I’m reminded of the interview of Daniel Handler on Gorey that we watched last class, where Handler said that finding Gorey’s works as a child felt “almost pornographic,” in how it contained more ‘adult’ themes of death, and the guilty pleasure of enjoying something which should be taboo. This feeling, in some ways, is what I believe evolves into an adult enjoyment of things like horror movies and media; the adrenaline rush that comes with being reminded of one’s mortality, that Gorey’s work manages to encapsulate for children, managing to be wonderfully horrific which is compounded upon by his illustrations, yet not being watered down for a child audience.
Bellaire infuses his work with a sense of wonder and whimsy. In The House with a Clock in Its Walls showcases this exceptionally, having an orphan go to live with his uncle in a magical Victorian house. The gloomy atmosphere and setting is immediately contrasted by the magic of the house and of his uncle and his uncle’s neighbor. The book itself flirts with the idea of the more gloomy and scary atmosphere just beyond the veil while highlighting the interesting and magical things that occur. I think it really showcases how the book had been transformed from an adult book to one in the young adult genre. The two sequels to The House with a Clock in Its Walls really fail to recapture the magic that the first book provided, as they both feel too catered to kids and don’t contain any of that maturity. There is no real reconciliation with the fact that the main characters are kids in this gloomy and magical world, just the fact they are kids. This makes me think about how the mindset with approaching a novel would shift how it may turn out, like some of the novels we picked at the beginning of the semester weren’t young adult novels but still excited us as kids.
I personally am only truly familiar with the Addams Family, and can't say I've ever read anything by John Bellairs or Edward Gorey. However, I would say on a general level the work between the three authors is quite reminiscent of each other. Of course each of them have their own distinct style, but the whimsical and gothic aspects greatly remind me of Tim Burton films which I absolutely love. I read The Gashlycrumb Tinies and after reading a few other responses it seems there are mixed opinions. For me personally, although quite unsettling and morbid, I actually liked reading it. Perhaps children don't need to be reading about detailed and graphic ways to die, but ultimately, death is a part of life and shouldn't be as taboo of a topic as it is (in my opinion). That being said I don't particularly know who Gorey was aiming this (gruesome) alphabet book towards. I looked at The Hapless Child as well and I love the illustrations. I really like Gorey's stylistic preferences and once again can't help but be reminded of Tim Burton, who, after a quick search, was in fact inspired by Edward Gorey.
Colin Meloy of the Decemberists may be my favorite artist and is most certainly my favorite songwriter, and it makes perfect sense to me that he was heavily influenced by Bellaire and his works, especially as Meloy began to write his own Wildwood books and the later The Stars Did Wander Darkling. Its really fun for me to see the works that influenced people that influenced me very heavily. Speaking at a book tour for The Stars Did Wander Darkling, Meloy talked about the emerging middle grade market and how this is the kind of book that he would have wanted as a child, and that's even more clear after looking at the works that inspired him. I really love horror and suspense stories targeting a younger audience, partly brought on from Meloy's work, and its really cool to see how, even before leaning about Bellaire and Gorey, these people have influenced me and my writing and ideas.
I never really watched the Addams' Family but I love the animation style and Gorey's illustrations are quite reminiscent of it. I liked the alphabet book and it's definitely something I would have enjoyed when I was younger (I would have tried to scare other kids with it).
I am certainly intrigued with Edward Gorey's way of storytelling. The way he was able to both imagine and portray dark imagery in his works is amazing. I don't believe I have ever viewed his stories before this class, but I can confidently say he has mastered both the art and the way of story telling he used.
I found the critique of John Bellair's first book series interesting. I can relate to the feeling of a series that steadily declines. The same situations are repeatedly utilized, almost like the creator wants to assert that the book series or show remains the same at its core. But this has an adverse effect. Rather than finding comfort in this repetition, the audience or readers become bored. The House With a Clock on Its Walls was meant to be an adult book until Bellaire decided to change it to Y/A. Therefore, it kept the complexity of the adult version, which, in my opinion, contributed to its success. As the author of the article notes, the subsequent books degraded in quality, with the first book being widely acclaimed and its popularity diminishing through the course of the next few books. Mainly because Bellaire wrote the subsequent books elementarily from the supposed perspective of a child. But even children can grasp complex plots and intrigue, so dumbing down the series ensured its eventual decline. In class, we somewhat discussed how authors have to write for themselves because they ultimately write for themselves and merely invite others into their own worlds. I think the downfall of John Bellaire's series occurred because he forgot to write for himself. By losing sight of himself and instead delegating most of his focus towards his readers, he lost his readers.
Reading how John Bellairs books stood out to Matt Domino in his article is really important for future authors, especially for author’s who are going to write horror stories as well. He starts off by mentioning the illustration by Edward Gorey, and describes it as something unique, and based on the picture it does seem like something that is original. Like something that you know you won’t see in other books, like the figures' faces are disfigured but you can still take horror away based on their expressions. Also the illustration seems like it was shaded in throughout the image which is something memorable. I feel like illustrating is important because although there is a saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” people still tend to do that no matter how much you push that saying and a good cover would make people decide whether or not to pick up the book. A well-designed cover can grab the reader’s attention and generate interest. The illustration is also important because with intriguing covers, it can easily grasp the reader and they are most likely going to stop and explore the book. If the cover is unappealing, it can cause the audience to quickly pass over the book and ignore it, or they can simply get bored quickly. Therefore, one of the importance of the illustration is to give a great first impression. The illustration can also be intriguing because it's the visual representation of the book, it tells the reader what kind of genre they are about to get themselves into. This can be determined by the image of the image, also the color, it tells the reader what to expect. When looking at the cover of a John Bellair book, the color appears to be gray giving it a gloomy vibe, as well the title appears to be swaying also giving a chiling tone. The illustrations are also important because it gives the reader what to expect with the author, this can be important because it can build up a fanbase, based on one book. It can impress the reader and make the book appear well-crafted.
Post a Comment