|
|
|
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
|
Paranoia and Polarization
| Article
# : |
13112 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1987 |
2,937 Words |
| Author
: |
Robert F. Geary
Robert F. Geary is head of the English Department at James
Madison University. His academic interests include the gothic
novel and its literary descendants. |
INTERNAL DEVICES
A Mad Victorian Fantasy
K.W. Jeter
New York: Bluejay Books and St. Martin's Press, 1987
277 pp., $16.95
DR. ADDER
K.W. Jeter
New York: Bluejay Books, 1984
231 pp. $7.95
Since the sixties, the divisions (never entirely clear) between categories of popular fiction and between popular entertainment and serious novels have become increasingly blurred. Writers seeking to render serious themes have often moved away from the conventions of realism to employ, for instance, elements associated with science fiction or fantasy. Under the assault of the drug and sexual revolutions and hostility toward "the system" engendered by the Vietnam War, a widely shared moral and political consensus weakened in America. For some writers associated with the counterculture, the "normal" reality of America was in truth a nightmare best depicted by techniques emphasizing the grotesque, the fantastic, and the surreal. For others, normal reality edged into the formerly unreal, bizarre, or horrific. Joyce Carol Oates' popular short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" captures the eerie quality of those times when utopian dreams of free love and mind expansion through chemistry turned into the dark and bloody orgies of the Manson cult. Her story of a teenage girl's awakening slides from the convention of fictional realism to those of the supernatural horror story as the girl is visited by a demonic
... (1994 of 18311 Characters)
Read Full Article
|
|
