horror

A Monster Calls

Niall O'Donnell 16 Comments

I went to see A Monster Calls on Friday night, and really enjoyed it. Without spoiling much, it was a tougher watch than I expected, but still quite beautiful and touching at the same time.

I’ve been ruminating on the word monster since then. While the meaning hasn’t changed greatly in the many years its been in use, I’ve been interested in its complexity and layers of meaning since learning something of its etymology a few years ago. It comes from the old Latin monstrum, meaning divine omen or portent. The appearance of hideous figures was believed to indicate the arrival of some great event. Monstrum is derived from the verb monere, which means both to warn and instruct. From this root also came the verb monstrare, meaning to show or point out. This word gained the prefix de-, with demonstrare meaning to demonstrate, with the prefix meaning entirely.

So while the words demonstrate and monster might seem quite different on the surface, there are some basic similarities in their individual meanings. The appearance of a monster was believed to demonstrate that something momentous was going to happen, and throughout all the time we’ve been telling stories, monsters have been used to demonstrate one thing or another, and instruct us in some important life lessons. Continue reading →

Despatches from the Uncanny Valley

Niall O'Donnell 8 Comments

The term uncanny is a hard one to pin down. It can be traced back to the 16th century, when it meant mischievous, and it came to be used in Scotland and the north of England in the 18th century to mean associated with the supernatural. It’s more modern applications, however, were inspired by the work of Sigmund Freud.

In his 1919 essay Das Unheimliche, Freud used the German word unheimlich to refer to objects which we project our repressed desires onto. These objects might be everyday things which are rendered strange to us when we see them in this new light. The term was translated as uncanny in English, and came to refer to the sensation of the familiar rendered somehow unfamiliar in a manner that’s difficult to explain or identify. This cognitive dissonance, the simultaneous familiarity and unfamiliarity of something, is at the heart of the effect of the uncanny. Continue reading →

Hallowe’en Reads: “The Three D’s”

Niall O'Donnell 5 Comments

I’m 12 or 13, and it’s Saturday night. I’m reading The 4th Armada Ghost Book, having only recently plucked up the courage to start reading and watching things explicitly identifying themselves as horror. Some of the stories are a little spooky, but I’m disappointed that none of them are as terrifying as I’d expected. Until, I finish reading “The Bus Conductor,” and begin reading “The Three D’s.” I had no idea before I started reading the story that I would be scared out of my wits afterwards… Continue reading →

Hallowe’en Reads: The Haunting of Hill House

Niall O'Donnell 3 Comments

                               No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Well if that’s not an opening paragraph that makes you want to read the rest of the novel, I don’t know what is. Published in 1959 by Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House is widely regarded as one of the finest horror novels, and, in my opinion, rightly so. Continue reading →

Hallowe’en Reads: “Gramma”

Niall O'Donnell 7 Comments

Any list of recommendations for Hallowe’en reading would seem incomplete without an entry from Stephen King. I’ll forego some of the more obvious choices from among his novels though, and instead choose one of his shorter short stories: “Gramma.”

The premise is very simple: 10-year old George Bruckner lives with his 14-year old brother Buddy and their single mother Ruth. Staying with them is Ruth’s ancient, senile, bedridden grandmother. When Buddy breaks his leg playing baseball, Ruth goes to the hospital out of town to see him, leaving George alone to look after Gramma. Continue reading →

Hallowe’en Reads: House of Leaves

Niall O'Donnell 13 Comments

I love Hallowe’en, always have since I was a child. I loved the sense that the barrier between our reality and a mysterious, dangerous plane of existence might be opened for one night a year, and anything could happen. It was terrifying and exciting at the same time. And though now I don’t believe in the supernatural, I still love horror films and stories. So between now and Hallowe’en, I’ll share my thoughts on some of my favourite horror fiction.

I’ll start with House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000). Continue reading →

IT

Niall O'Donnell 18 Comments

Where would the English language be without this simple two-letter word? Without it we wouldn’t be able to refer to an object that isn’t clearly male or female for a second time, without repeating the whole word. Like any pronoun it makes speech and writing simpler and more fluid.

But it also has its little quirks. Like when we say:

It’s raining.

What’s raining?

Just, it, you know? It’s raining!

See also it’s cold, it’s quiet, it’s five o’clock etc.

The meaning of these sentences wouldn’t cause much difficulty for any students, beyond absolute beginners. Yet some people still get confused by them because they expect it to refer to something concrete. This is another classic case of confusion caused by thinking about what grammatical rules would seem to demand, as opposed to looking at the practical use of language. It might not seem to make sense to use it when it doesn’t refer to a clear object, yet, every English sentence needs a subject, and impersonal verb phrases don’t have an agent doing the action, so let’s just stick It at the beginning of the sentence and not think too much about it. Continue reading →