Friday, June 30, 2023

The Pitfalls Of Popcorn Fiction: Why I Don't Read James Herbert Nowadays

 

<'70s Cheesiness Incarnate: 
My original paperback copy of The Fog 
looked something like this...>

<i.>
Last week, I sold three paperbacks that have been quietly gathering dust on my bookshelves since the '70s, all by the British horror writer, James Herbert. As I stated in my description, if you wanted a quick 'n' dirty introduction, this trilogy does the job: The Rats (1974), which launched him as a mass market phenomenon; The Fog (1975); and The Dark (1980). 

These books played a key role in my preteen literary soundtrack, when fantasy, horror, and sci-fi writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Clive Barker, James Herbert, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Stephen King ranked as must-buy, must-read affairs. My preferences also coincided with my interest in becoming a writer, one who'd presumably follow my heroes into the upper echelons of fantasy and weird fiction stardom.

Ducking and dodging Herbert's giant, flesh-eating rats seemed like a more enjoyable pursuit than cranking out the next Great Expectations, or Great Gatsby -- which also grabbed me. But those works featured characters and settings that seemed distant and remote (the 1800s and 1920s, respectively). Like most 13- or 14-year-old boys, I felt too impatient to do the heavy research that such classic masterpieces invariably demand.

Such a task couldn't compete with the glamour of, say, writing the next Rats -- substitute giant sea slugs, spiders, squids, or some equally menacing, creepy-crawly creature -- and hoping to strike it rich, a fantasy undoubtedly fueled by blockbuster hits like Carrie (1976), Star Wars (1977), Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1978), The Shining (1980), and so on.

The small screen had heated up, too. Revivals of classic shows like The Twilight Zone, and upstart series like Tales From The Crypt -- essentially, the horror equivalent of "The Love Boat," where many an out of work actor popped up -- were drawing viewers, and turning heads. Horror, sci-fi and weird fantasy were big business again, thanks to stronger storylines, and rapid advancements in special effects.

No longer did we need to giggle through the campy spectacle of some stuntman in a fuzzy suit, battling overripe dialogue, and glaring technical glitches. Authors and filmmakers now had to serve up a first-class escapist experience, and on a purely commercial level, James Herbert definitely delivered. His 23 novels racked up 54 million sales, with translations into 34 languages (including Chinese, and Russian).

Yet Herbert -- who died a couple weeks shy of his 70th birthday, in 2013 -- remained far bigger in the UK. I don't recall my classmates dropping his name, the way they dropped Stephen King's -- an ironic twist, given Herbert's tag as "the English Stephen King." And there lies the sting in this particular tale, that I'm about to unfold. Sit back, and while you're at it, pass the popcorn.





<ii.>
We've all heard of the "popcorn movie," right? It's a commonly coined critical term for unapologetic mass entertainment. It's the kind of film that says: Hey, schmuck! Have we got a story for you! For the next 90 minutes, you're ours, and we promise one hell of a thrill ride. Sit down, relax, and don't think about it too hard, or it all falls apart. And oh, yeah. Pass the popcorn.

By this definition, we can call James Herbert a popcorn writer, a quality that's vividly apparent in his second novel, The Fog. Essentially, it's a dystopian thriller about a mysterious yellow fog that drives all who encounter it to commit unspeakable acts of depravity and violence -- ranging from rape and murder, to spectacular orgies of mass destruction, as we'll see shortly.

The Fog follows John Holman, a government investigator trying desperately to unravel the chaos spiraling around him. For starters, why the fog hasn't affected him? Eventually, Holman works out that the fog is actually some kind of military experiment gone wrong, an inconvenient truth that his employer naturally wants to keep secret. 

Herbert intercuts Holman's detective forays with interludes of people doing unspeakable things to each other -- such as lesbianism, or so I conclude, after revisiting Chapter 10, which opens with a distressed young woman, Mavis Evers, as she's contemplating suicide on the beach, in the coastal resort town of Bournemouth.

The reason, we learn, stems from the manipulative cruelty of Ronnie, a childhood friend who wastes little time initiating Mavis into the wicked, wicked ways of Sappho -- as an impressionable eleven-year-old. (Ronnie's a year older, which seems sufficient to cast her as the dominant partner.)

We're then treated to a brief scene of mutual masturbation, with overripe language that wouldn't feel out of place in Penthouse Forum ("Ronnie had suddenly asked Mavis if she had ever touched herself. Perplexed, she had asked where?"). It's creepy, and distasteful, but thankfully, Herbert doesn't linger on it for long.

Once their sexual frolics cool down ("Mavis had been surprised and excited by the strange tingle that had run through her"), the steelier, worldlier Ronnie heads off to London, where Mavis encounters her again -- this time, as an impressionable 21-year-old who can't find a flat, or even a friend. Without missing a beat, Ronnie cheerfully invites Mavis to spend the night. Why, you might well ask, when they haven't seen each other for several years?

The reason for that proposition soon becomes apparent after Ronnie suggests a bath for her weary friend. With that stereotypical cue, it's back to Penthouse Forum-ville ("She opened her legs slightly, so that the journey would not be hindered -- and Ronnie was there"). Coded language abounds, such as the author marveling at how their couplings "excluded any artificial contrivances" -- he means sex toys, like dildos, right? It makes me chuckle, but apparently, even the likes of Herbert couldn't go there then. marking a rare show of restraint, for such a sensationalist writer.

What's notable is how long Herbert leers over these proceedings, which ramble on for several overheated pages -- a luxury that he doesn't allow his other major characters (at least, in these books). Even if you accept this scene as a means of fleshing out Mavis and Ronnie's backstory, it's still a jarring interruption. The Fog would fare just as well without it.

Once this final bit of softcore porn concludes, Herbert speeds the story off to its inevitable, stereotypical conclusion. Ronnie gradually begins to withdraw her affections -- at one point, even knocking Mavis to the floor, "screaming that she must never touch her again" -- before she lowers the boom on her clueless, largely passive partner, whom she's ditching for good. For a man, as it happens.

Philip, it seems, is waiting for Ronnie in his car, blissfully unaware of the double-dealing bedmate that he's about to inherit ("He doesn't know about us, and I never want him to"). Cue one final kiss-off from Ronnie, which is revealing for what she doesn't say, once you've read between the lines: "Believe me, Mavis, I didn't want this to ever happen -- I didn't know it ever could -- but it's the right thing. I think we were wrong. Forgive me, darling. I hope someday you'll find what I have."



<Caught in the promotional crossfire:
A reluctant celebrity greets his public,
"This Is Your Life," circa 1995>

<iii.>
At this point in our proceedings, a more astute reader might well wonder if Philip won't end up as chopped liver himself, given Ronnie's transactional duplicity -- and honestly, why Mavis isn't reaching for the nearest kitchen knife? Or, at the least, asking for a wad of pound notes -- maybe the keys to Philip's car --  to seal her lips, and ensure her silence?

Of course not! This is a popcorn horror novel, so Mavis stays true to her passive remit. After spiraling into a total emotional breakdown, she's off to Bournemouth for one final march into the sea, to join thousands of countless other unfortunates, all frozen in some hellish trance ("Most of the people were in their nightclothes, some were naked, as though answering a call that Mavis neither saw nor heard").

As the water grows colder, darker, and deeper, Mavis experiences a change of heart -- but, in the end, her renewed will to live means nothing. She drowns anyway, unable to escape a final trampling amid countless other fog-crazed human lemmings ("She fell to her knees again, and this time, as she attempted to rise, other bodies fell on top of her. She squirmed around beneath the water, becoming entangled in other arms and legs").  

Of course, we already got a suitable whiff of the epitaph, several pages beforehand: "She finally recognized their affair for what it was -- two women living together in an abnormal relationship. She had never accepted the fact that she was homosexual, but somehow, Ronnie's leaving took away all the sensitivity of their mutual inclinations and revealed Mavis in her true light. A lesbian!"

It's impossible to miss the gleefully vicarious bigotry of such a passage, or this one, as the author delivers his final verdict on Ronnie's actions: "She had found a 'normal' love and left Mavis unwilling now for any other kind of love. What would she become? A lonely, embittered lesbian. She cried out in self-pity."

There you have it. This type of relationship is unhealthy, and if you desire one like it, you'll end up on the bottom of some English seabed or other. See, you don't have it so bad, boys and girls, Herbert suggests, with a wink, and a nod. Aren't you glad you're boring and normal, after all? But it's not the first time that he's stacked the deck this way, as we'll see in our next section.



<More '70s Cheese: The Rats, original front cover>

<iv.>
Before The Fog came The Rats, which sold 100,000 copies in just three weeks, and launched Herbert as a full-time writer. However, although Mavis and Ronnie's relationship doesn't survive, at least they get to experience a few moments of bliss, and lustful abandon.

No such pleasures await Henry Guilfoyle, a deeply closeted paper company salesman who loses his job after colleagues learn of his relationship with a much younger co-worker, on whom he's laser focused ("And then he knew -- oh, that glorious moment when he really knew").

In just over six pages, Henry goes from a promising management candidate ("large orders were coming in, and he saw Francis most every day and most evenings"), to a total outcast, targeted by crude bathroom graffiti ("How could they? How could they destroy their precious love like this? Dirty little minds coming in here, sniggering"). Today, we'd call this an example of outing, the popular term for a revelation of gender and sexuality without the affected person's foreknowledge, or agreement.

By page seven, Francis abruptly quits, unable to stand his colleagues' homophobic bullying, and Henry soon follows, "to lose himself in the quagmire of countless other disillusioned people" (fitting description of pre-punk London, isn't it?). When he's not sleeping rough, Henry focuses on taking whatever odd jobs he finds, to earn enough money for his next bottle of gin.

He even squeezes in the odd evening of light entertainment, though it's one that has more in common with the disgraced Pee Wee Herman's antics: "At one time he'd been able to fill his sexual needs in dusty old cinemas, sitting next to men of his own kind. Only twice had he been threatened, once very quietly with menace, the other time with much shouting and fist-waving, as eyes in the cinema centered on his shame." 

Telling, isn't it? Especially the description of Henry's newfound tribe -- who aren't even described as "fellow homosexuals," but "his own kind." That pronouncement follows reminders of his lack of hygiene ("his body smelt of grime in the market and the sheds where he slept"), a condition that kills what desirability he still has left. But that's what happens when you're "a kind," or an "other," something to be feared, hated, and shunned.

As miserable as Henry's post-work life has become, it pales compared to what awaits him next, when he sneaks into a crumbling inner city house for a quick drink. Henry wakes up from his stupor, to find London's finest super-vermin making short work of him, in just over a page  ("Rats! His mind screamed the words. Rats eating me alive. God, god help me"). 

The final epitaph for Henry -- now referred to only by his surname -- leaves little doubt about the futility of a life disrupted by his own transgressive tastes: "He died with no thoughts on his mind, not even of his beloved, forgotten Francis. Just sweetness, not even pain. He was beyond that." 

Like fellow traveler Mavis Evers, Henry dies knowing that the emptiness he feels picked up steam from a sexuality that he apparently had no business expressing, anyway. Why else would he come to such a sticky end, in a dirty, deserted, rat-infested house? 


<The Rats: Original rear cover edition>

<v.>
Similar complaints of homophobia and lurid writing have dogged The Dark (1980), which I'm not exploring here, because frankly, I don't remember anything about it. Which says something about how little of an impression it made,  even at the time, and why I've turned to Google, to jog my memory.

The Dark focuses on Chris Bishop, a paranormal investigator who's looking into a malevolent darkness inhabiting a deserted house, that -- surprise! -- drives people to orgies of feral, amoral behavior, such as a stadium savaged by beserk soccer fans. (Hang on, doesn't that happen regularly over there? Right, never mind.) Sounds very much like The Fog, only crossed with a touch of The X-Files.

The Dark marked a major shift from Herbert's earlier disaster-driven style, to a focus on religious and supernatural themes. As Herbert's commercial fortunes held, he even broadened his palette slightly, to alternative historical fiction. '48 (1996) imagines the maniacal German dictator, Adolf Hitler, unleashing a toxic plague on London, to avenge his crushing defeat.

Ash (2012), his final offering, plunks the late Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadafi, down in a Scottish castle with Lord Lucan, press baron Robert Maxwell, Princess Diana, and her secret love child. Hmm... Maybe I should seek that one out, since it sounds rather different than his standard fare.

Whatever you take away from his books, though, don't expect much help from the author. The 23-minute Terry Wogan clip (see below) typifies the challenges that I encountered in trying to get the measure of the man -- who comes off as earnestly bland, low-key, a little vanilla, even.

The first half drags on, amid the usual banal shop talk ("If I'm in the study all day working, I'm 'James Herbert'" -- get this man the hook, Igor!). However, the temperature starts to rise when they're joined by a pair of mediums -- who plop on the couch, and argue passionately that they really can speak with the dead. For his part, Herbert mostly hangs back, though he tosses out an understated retort or two ("I'm not sure if it's quite the way you say it is").

It's left to Clive Barker, his younger, gayer counterpart, to inject whatever edge that the show has conspicuously lacked so far ("I don't argue that we go on," he tells the mediums. "Why do we hang around? That's the bit I don't understand"). Despite my best efforts, I haven't found out what Barker thought of his fellow author's depictions of "his own kind." But I can probably hazard a guess.



<"Lemme tell you about life with 'my own kind...'"
Clive Barker (left) and James Herbert (right) yuk it up
for Terry Wogan's Halloween special (10/31/88)>

<Coda>
The Dark didn't end up being the last Herbert novel that I read. That honor goes to The Magic Cottage (1986), the star of his so-called "supernatural period" -- though he'd mined those themes earlier, with The Survivor (1977), and Fluke (1978), about a killer dog. Wait, didn't Stephen King cover that, too, in Cujo? Right, never mind.

So why did I stop reading James Herbert, exactly? Punk rock happened, and then, life. in that order. Once I heard the Clash's and Sex Pistols's raging power chords, my tastes changed. I wanted to learn how to do that, instead. Suddenly, the image of hunching over a typewriter for hours on end, no longer seemed so appealing. My interests had taken a slight detour, if you will. I still planned on becoming a writer -- only one who'd also learn to perform, play guitar, and write songs.

My discoveries of punk, postpunk, and garage music also coincided with a family member struggling to cope with severe mental illness, an ordeal that lead to several hospitalizations during the late '70s and mid-'80s. Suddenly, the 3-D graphic scenarios of those books seemed so quaint, just so much old hat. They didn't resonate anymore for me.

So would I have kept reading Herbert, if those twin lightning bolts had never struck? No, because I'd worked out his bag of tricks, which were wearing thin. The best you can say for his style is that it's atmospheric, and efficient. At 186 pages, The Rats would rank as an outlier in today's literary scene, where authors routinely churn out epics of 600, 700, even 1,000-odd pages. 

Unlike those offenders, Herbert instinctively grasped that less is more, which I consider an outgrowth of his pre-fame career in advertising. Getting people to open their wallets is the game, so every image and syllable has to work toward that end. If your idea doesn't get people to buy, your boss won't let you try it again.

In hindsight, coming up in such a conversion rate-driven culture paid off handsomely for Herbert. If you're not fussy, and don't expect a lot, he gets the job done. That much seemed clear to me, when I reread sections of these books, before I slid them into the padded envelope. But if you want more than immediate gratification, you'll probably end up going elsewhere, after reading a book or two. 

For all the graphic energy that he pours into his gross-outs, Herbert often spaces out on surprisingly basic details. It's a tradeoff that only works if you don't think too hard --  for instance, just how exactly does Mavis make it to Bournemouth, without showing any ill effects of the fog?

At other times, he struggles to breathe flesh and blood life into his characters. The stereotypical likes of Henry Guilfoyle, or Mavis and Ronnie, simply wouldn't fly in a pop culture where gays and lesbians now occupy major chunks of film and TV time. 

I get a similar vibe from heroes like Holman -- tough, practical men of action, who also seem cast of solid cardboard, unlike the clammy bureaucrats that they encounter, in book after book after book, when they're not rescuing girlfriends who seem little more than neurotic, needy accessories.

But that's the trouble with popcorn, isn't it? Once you've eaten enough kernels, you begin to yearn for something more substantial, and then you move on. Like I did. --The Reckoner


UK TV: Terry Wogan (Wogan Halloween, 10/31/88):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgIMMtcLKWg

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