Gothica

The other day I asked a friend to define “gothic.”  Heavy, dark, supernatural—these were a few of the words suggested.  When autumn comes my thoughts turn gothic, and I’m always looking for good gothic things to read.

I have blogged in the past about how reading literature that isn’t great is good.  I’m serious about that.  You can learn a lot by reading poor writing.  Some gothic literature is more the former than the latter.  Like Dark Shadows novels.

Dark Shadows was running on daytime television when I was a child.  As a teen I began to read the novelizations, by Marilyn Ross, whenever I could find them.  Belles lettres they’re not.  Gothic, most decidedly so.  That’s why I keep coming back to them.  They aren’t scary.  In fact, they’re formulaic and predictable.  But so, so gothic.

Spooky mansions, the Maine woods, forlorn vampire, faded wealth.  Even, yes, dark shadows.  The stories create a mood I find difficult to locate elsewhere.

Inspired by the most recent novel I turned on Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows.  It is a disappointing movie.  I like Johnny Depp, and he makes a passable Barnabas Collins, but the writing, alas, is poor.  I remember my dismay when Seth Grahame-Smith was announced as the screenwriter.  Marilyn Ross, where are you?

The film manages a fairly gothic feel for part of the time.  Too many jokes, and too little of the weightiness of the original series.  Nobody was laughing in Collinwood in the 1960s and ‘70s.  Even if resolutions were incomplete, you could sense the actors believed in their roles.

As I write this it has been overcast and raining for a couple of days.  October days.  I have gothic sensibilities, I guess.  I’m also reading one of the classics of gothic literature that shall make an appearance later on this blog.  After all, I do try to read good literature as well as poor.  Those who aspire to the title “author” often do.