Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Short Story Wednesday: VAMPIRES, ZOMBIES, WEREWOLVES AND GHOSTS: 25 CLASSIC STORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL edited by Barbara H. Solomon and Eileen Panetta (Signet Classics 2011)





















Or, How Things Can Go Very Wrong for a reasonably good anthology. Consider the timing, for a book edited by two feminist literature professors, who dedicate this book to their daughters, with the contents of their hefty new anthology, a relative rarity in the Signet Classics line (which has always run to new introductions to novels and short story collections of some venerability) arranged in alphabetical order by last name of writer:

It might well be the case that leading off with a Woody Allen story in the months before the big exposure of his (alleged, sadly probable) worst bad behavior began wasn't the only factor that led to this fat anthology, listing at $7.95 US ($8.99 Canadian) from a usually relatively low-priced line of paperbacks (one of its several charms), to see only one printing, so far, a dozen years out. But it probably didn't help. Which is a bit of pity, since it's an interesting selection of chestnuts and some relatively recent materials, with an enthusiastic introduction and headnotes, that its editors clearly hoped would become a (relatively) low-priced textbook in classrooms, mostly for college undergrads but also probably high schools as well. For various reasons, of course, H. P. Lovecraft, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling and in some somewhat less voluble corners Anne Rice and Ann Sexton would all be problematic entries in cirricula in even that year and no less now as we start seeing all kinds of resentment of extraliterary (leaving aside some real questions of literary) deviance from the Good and True by these folks or whichever subset one chooses to dislike thus. I'm not the biggest fan of the works of Lovecraft, at least many of his I've read, nor Rice, Strieber, and a few others, and find most of Allen's prose (as with his scripts) pretty shallow, but this remains on balance a good anthology, if somewhat eccentric in its selections...and somewhat interesting in what the purview of the anthology as stated leaves out in horror fiction (other shape-shifters, obviously, but also any number of stories where the fantasticated danger to the characters is something less tangible or identifiable, more a question of realities as a whole shifting, etc.).

And, in fact, let's look at the Allen sketch in prose...the editors date it from 1968, without giving the provenance of that date (maybe Getting Even, the book that gave this its apparent first publication in 1971, includes Allen's tags as when each piece was written), and while it's a competent, not un-witty nor not un-clever but slight comedy item in prose, apparently The New Yorker didn't choose to buy this one, unlike most of the contents of the 1971 book, and they aren't Too wrong. (Of course, editor William Shawn might've, in his self-adoring way, have considered the concept of Dracula too crass.) Something like his later short story "The Kugelmass Episode" might be better for the purposes, except that it has none of the four cited monsters...

For more of today's choices, please see Patti Abbott's blog.


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8 comments:

  1. Jerry HouseMay 24, 2023 at 2:01 PM

    A half-way decent collection for the novice, although I could name half a hundred stories that would excite a student reader more than some of these.

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  2. Todd MasonMay 24, 2023 at 2:41 PM

    I might be a bit kind to it, but it is definitely trying to Reach the Kids (and not-kids) who have never read horror...how many of those will take the classes (unless they think they are easy A classes) without having read the fiction is another story.

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  3. Charlie RicciMay 24, 2023 at 2:49 PM

    You mention Joyce Carol Oates. My wife & I had season tickets to plays at Princeton University a couple of years ago. We sat next to JCO without knowing who she was. Super friendly & she made no attempt to identify herself. We were stunned that during the after play discussion the director who was onstage asked her to stand up and take a bow. Oates was just there to watch the play. She had no connection with it whatsoever.

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  4. pattinase (abbott)May 24, 2023 at 3:27 PM

    I have read a lot of these writers if not the story collected here.

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  5. GeorgeMay 25, 2023 at 10:08 AM

    I'm with Jerry on this one. Plenty of "play it safe" stories for students. Nothing special. Diane and I have seen Joyce Carol Oates speak twice. Excellent speaker! JCO grew up about 20 miles from where I now live so I'm always amused when she includes a Western NY reference in one of her novels or stories.

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  6. Todd MasonMay 25, 2023 at 3:45 PM

    There is a certain Something For Everyone nature to the anthology, which does make a certain market sense both as a text and typical mass-market sale item. It does, however, average no worse than any number of say, Martin H. Greenberg or Peter Haining anthologies in this wise.

    Indeed...she grew up there, and had some bad incidents there that have colored a lot of her career as a result.

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  7. Todd MasonMay 25, 2023 at 3:48 PM

    Well, Charlie, as a Princeton prof as well as literary star, Oates will get a nod if only in the (wan?) hope that will drive publicity about the production! Perhaps even a friend or friendly acquaintance of the director as well.

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  8. Todd MasonMay 25, 2023 at 3:57 PM

    Patti, that is almost certainly why some of them are collected...for example, the Sexton vignette is a pretty slight entry, as I recall it from Jessica Amanda Salmonson's antho WHAT DID MISS DARRINGTON SEE?, which plucked it from near-total obscurity...but that is one of the come-ons, compromises, or laudable diversity of the selection (depending where one stands) as to what audience(s) this book was aimed at...and not to successfully.

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