Drawing blood, by Poppy Z. Brite:
I've finished the book now. I have to admit one of the things that perked up my interest past the middle of the book is that Poppy writes such great sex scenes. They have an emotional content, intensity, and a naturalness rarely seen in horror. (Plus, the reader does come to truly care about the characters and wonder what is going to happen to them.)
When Trevor and Zach take magic mushrooms while in the house, they both see Zach's old scars opening up. "Trevor felt the blood flowing between them, trickling down Zach's spine." Again, the symbolism of the blood is carried through the book.
Trevor is plunged into what looks like a cationic state to Zach. Really, he has left his body and is flying toward his Valhalla, Birdland, the 1940's home of Charlie Parker. He meets Skeletal Sammy, the junkie Trevor has been trying to draw for years. Sammy wants to shoot up Trevor's blood.
Zach drinks a pot of coffee, something he is deathly allergic to, to attempt to follow Trevor. He has an out of body experience. He thinks he is in a vortex being sucked toward the tub where Bobbie killed himself.
Again, we see mirrors being used as a symbol. (My guess is that it's a symbol of the characters being able to see their true selves, though it is never actually explained in the book.) In the bottom of the tub are shards of broken mirrors. ". . .he saw the glittering shards of mirror and felt himself swirling into them, fragmenting. It was like being forced through a screen, like falling into a kaleidoscope edged with razor blades." Eventually he finds himself in cyberspace, then in Birdland.
During Zach's hallucination, he passes by a theatre-like room labeled, "The Garden of Earthly Delights. "It reminded me of Herman Hesse's, Steppenwolf, in which the protagonist enters the "Theatre for Madmen Only." But Zach doesn't enter, which was disappointing to me. Instead he meets his worst nightmare – his father.
It was inevitable that Trevor would end up back in his house revisiting the night of the murder. Just after Bobby has committed the murders, he is sitting on the bed, holding his head, and regretting what he has done. Trevor learns his father wasn't able to kill him, because the only thing of himself that could survive would be Trevor's artistic abilities. "If I have any talent, any gift left at all, it's in you now. I can kill them, I can kill myself, but I can't kill that."
In a Terminator-like time twist, Bobby is unable to kill Trevor because Trevor's future ghost haunts Bobbie on the night of the murder and asks him why he has done such a horrible thing.
When Trevor and Zach find themselves back in the house in present time, Trevor is in a trance, determined to kill Zach with the murder hammer, thus completing the circle his father started. Zach keeps talking to him and ultimately Trevor's love for Zach prevents him from killing his friend then murdering himself.
After that, their escape from the feds is anticlimactic. I quickly read through that part in order to finish the book.
Overall:
I've started reading The Key, by James Frey, and I do see that this book fits into the archetype pattern. Justin is the innocent who enters the "mythological woods" when he returns to his home, the scene of the gristly murders. He has a "death and rebirth" when he visits Birdland. He has a "showdown with evil" when he confronts his dead father. And he emerges a victor and "heads home with the prize," which is his own identity and freedom from the ghost of his father.
What I ultimately gained from this book was a better feel for characterization. Also I was surprised that it fit so neatly into the archetype pattern.
I think that writers follow this formula on a subconscious level, and I can see how my own novel could follow this format. I'm going to work with it to see if I can use it to get more depth of character with Jenna.
This is personal preference, but books with multiple viewpoints do not draw me into what John Gardner, in The Art of Fiction, calls "the fictive dream" as much as single viewpoint stories do. I know that multiple POV's is a popular format, and that some stories require it to be able to convey all the info.
But like you said to me once, Mike, the limits of human perception are at very heart of horror. That's why I like single viewpoint.
I can't think of anything that could have been done differently to improve this book. Poppy's strong suit is her rendering of many-layered characters. She does a great job driving the interaction of her ensemble cast. Dialogue never feels forced or artificial. Her physical descriptions of the characters are distinct and visual. There is no confusion of having one character blend into the other because they are not unique enough. The reader always knows physically where the characters are and what they're doing. This is something I can use as a model for my own writing.
I've finished the book now. I have to admit one of the things that perked up my interest past the middle of the book is that Poppy writes such great sex scenes. They have an emotional content, intensity, and a naturalness rarely seen in horror. (Plus, the reader does come to truly care about the characters and wonder what is going to happen to them.)
When Trevor and Zach take magic mushrooms while in the house, they both see Zach's old scars opening up. "Trevor felt the blood flowing between them, trickling down Zach's spine." Again, the symbolism of the blood is carried through the book.
Trevor is plunged into what looks like a cationic state to Zach. Really, he has left his body and is flying toward his Valhalla, Birdland, the 1940's home of Charlie Parker. He meets Skeletal Sammy, the junkie Trevor has been trying to draw for years. Sammy wants to shoot up Trevor's blood.
Zach drinks a pot of coffee, something he is deathly allergic to, to attempt to follow Trevor. He has an out of body experience. He thinks he is in a vortex being sucked toward the tub where Bobbie killed himself.
Again, we see mirrors being used as a symbol. (My guess is that it's a symbol of the characters being able to see their true selves, though it is never actually explained in the book.) In the bottom of the tub are shards of broken mirrors. ". . .he saw the glittering shards of mirror and felt himself swirling into them, fragmenting. It was like being forced through a screen, like falling into a kaleidoscope edged with razor blades." Eventually he finds himself in cyberspace, then in Birdland.
During Zach's hallucination, he passes by a theatre-like room labeled, "The Garden of Earthly Delights. "It reminded me of Herman Hesse's, Steppenwolf, in which the protagonist enters the "Theatre for Madmen Only." But Zach doesn't enter, which was disappointing to me. Instead he meets his worst nightmare – his father.
It was inevitable that Trevor would end up back in his house revisiting the night of the murder. Just after Bobby has committed the murders, he is sitting on the bed, holding his head, and regretting what he has done. Trevor learns his father wasn't able to kill him, because the only thing of himself that could survive would be Trevor's artistic abilities. "If I have any talent, any gift left at all, it's in you now. I can kill them, I can kill myself, but I can't kill that."
In a Terminator-like time twist, Bobby is unable to kill Trevor because Trevor's future ghost haunts Bobbie on the night of the murder and asks him why he has done such a horrible thing.
When Trevor and Zach find themselves back in the house in present time, Trevor is in a trance, determined to kill Zach with the murder hammer, thus completing the circle his father started. Zach keeps talking to him and ultimately Trevor's love for Zach prevents him from killing his friend then murdering himself.
After that, their escape from the feds is anticlimactic. I quickly read through that part in order to finish the book.
Overall:
I've started reading The Key, by James Frey, and I do see that this book fits into the archetype pattern. Justin is the innocent who enters the "mythological woods" when he returns to his home, the scene of the gristly murders. He has a "death and rebirth" when he visits Birdland. He has a "showdown with evil" when he confronts his dead father. And he emerges a victor and "heads home with the prize," which is his own identity and freedom from the ghost of his father.
What I ultimately gained from this book was a better feel for characterization. Also I was surprised that it fit so neatly into the archetype pattern.
I think that writers follow this formula on a subconscious level, and I can see how my own novel could follow this format. I'm going to work with it to see if I can use it to get more depth of character with Jenna.
This is personal preference, but books with multiple viewpoints do not draw me into what John Gardner, in The Art of Fiction, calls "the fictive dream" as much as single viewpoint stories do. I know that multiple POV's is a popular format, and that some stories require it to be able to convey all the info.
But like you said to me once, Mike, the limits of human perception are at very heart of horror. That's why I like single viewpoint.
I can't think of anything that could have been done differently to improve this book. Poppy's strong suit is her rendering of many-layered characters. She does a great job driving the interaction of her ensemble cast. Dialogue never feels forced or artificial. Her physical descriptions of the characters are distinct and visual. There is no confusion of having one character blend into the other because they are not unique enough. The reader always knows physically where the characters are and what they're doing. This is something I can use as a model for my own writing.
posted by Sally Bosco at
8:27 AM
