A Book of Tongues: THUD

[handful_ofdust]

Words added today: 818 (though part of that was just a big chunk of potential exposition/research transcribed from Children of the Night by Tony Thorne, another one of those British books that's really interesting and valid in terms of historical/mythological stuff, yet utter crap in terms of recent horror-cultural genre observations). Yesterday? 399. I tell myself things are moving forward, and I know it's true, but it does indeed seem damn slow at times...not least because I keep worrying about how much wordage I have "left", and how best to employ it. For example: I think I can probably get away with over-writing to the tune of 10,000 words, so long as I know I'll trimming a similar amount out of the gut of what I've written thus far. And so on.

Anyhow--I need to dress, and get my ass over to the gym for BodyFlow. Get the (precious) blood moving!

Comments

[sovay]

Children of the Night by Tony Thorne, another one of those British books that's really interesting and valid in terms of historical/mythological stuff, yet utter crap in terms of recent horror-cultural genre observations

What is this?

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Indigo, a UK publishing company, did a line of dump-everything-in-one-pan reference books about various horror tropes; this is the one for vampires, but I also have the one for werewolves, which was very useful back when I was writing both "In the Poor Girl..." (obviously) and "Nigredo" (less obviously--that's where I got the stuff about Christopher being the Dog-faced Saint).

Like I said, they always seem to fall flat on their faces when it comes to talking about stuff like films, books or other more recent media, but the sections on myths, legends and historical cases are inevitably fascinating. For example, here--on page 90--we have a big chunk of lore about the Slovenian mrak, or "dusk", which comes from an Adriatic island called Krk. It looks like "a gigantic woman or a man with a face which is decomposing and large and glowing hands", and can infect both children and their clothing (if left out on the line to dry when night falls), thus putting them in a permanent "twilight state" in which they are neither well nor ill. Every night, the mrak pursues the sun with a great net until the morning start's brilliant rays drive it back, and the sun is able to rise once more.

Nevertheless, "Despite its reverses, the islanders know that the mrak will eventually win the struggle and the earth will be plunged into eternal darkness." So keep your clothes inside, for fuck's sake!

[sovay]

and can infect both children and their clothing (if left out on the line to dry when night falls), thus putting them in a permanent "twilight state" in which they are neither well nor ill.

Awe. Some.

And this folktale only appears on Krk? Has no one used it yet in horror fiction?

(Particularly given how popular contagion narratives are at the minute; I think zombies have replaced old-style vampires as the preeminent metaphor for plagues, but that doesn't mean there still isn't room for improvement.)

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

If you want something really, really odd in that direction, try Bruce Macdonald's Pontypool, which I watched this evening. Some sort of virus causes random English words (particularly endearments) to become infected, start looping, and turn people who understand them into ravening Maenad-like zombie berserks. The protagonists, a talk-radio host and his producer, first try to insulate themselves by speaking only in shitty Ontario grade-school French; when that doesn't work, they try to induce deliberate aphasia in each other by reassigning word-meanings: "Kiss is kill." "Kill me!"

[sovay]

Some sort of virus causes random English words (particularly endearments) to become infected, start looping, and turn people who understand them into ravening Maenad-like zombie berserks. The protagonists, a talk-radio host and his producer, first try to insulate themselves by speaking only in shitty Ontario grade-school French

Whatever it says about me, I do find that premise appealing.