Last Friday, I released a video about the differences between [traditional] Gothic writing – Gothic writing that uses terror – and Horror writing. In that video, I mentioned that in recent years there has been some crossover between the two genres. As much as I would hate for the classic Gothic style to disappear, I think there’s a place in the market for these new crossover products as well.
The reason I say that is partly based on the fact that some of the classic Gothic novels we know and love were already leaning that way. There has always been a terror-horror spectrum in Gothic genre.
Turn of the Screw, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights featured exclusively terror. Frankenstein and Dracula have enough of a manifest threat to arguably qualify as using horror. There’s still a strong measure of terror in these works, but they could easily be thought of as an early step towards Gothic-Horror and away from strictly terror.
But what would Gothic-Horror look like? And what wouldn’t it include? That’s what we’re talking about today.
The Necessary Components
In order for a book to be either traditionally Gothic or Gothic-Horror, it needs to have a Gothic theme. An irrational one. Something that asks and explores an intangible psychological or spiritual question.
It also needs to use its tropes to support that theme, to make it more tangible to readers. If that’s hard to picture, stay with me. Hopefully the examples we cover below will make that clearer.
In contrast, books that feature the fallout from a character or entity’s moral failing (their secret sin) fall into the Horror genre. These books use tropes that are often similar or even identical to those in the Gothic genre, but they employ them differently. Rather than symbolizing the inner state of the character, or making the theme more tangible, the tropes act to create an atmosphere of dark oppression. One that forces the characters to work to overcome the effects of the consequences of that moral failing.
That said, I have chosen two examples for us to examine, both of them contemporary. One is a book that’s classified as Horror, but which I believe to be Gothic-Horror: Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. The other is a book that’s marketed as Gothic, but which I believe to be Horror: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
Gothic-Horror
You may have heard of Dan Simmons if you’ve seen or heard of the TV show, The Terror. I first ran across the book version many years ago while browsing in a bookstore. (When bookstores were still super prevalent and the world was a better place.) His work struck me as Horror written with a brilliant literary quality. Since then I’ve read several of his books, one of which is Carrion Comfort.
That book brought back to me everything I love about his writing. He’s one of the few writers I’ve ever encountered who can perfectly balance plot, character and theme without dropping any thread. Literally. Every scene is a beautiful balance of the three. (If you want to hear more about his writing, watch for my video on Summer of Night, which should be posted on The Gothic Literary Society YouTube channel in the next couple of weeks.)
Some of his books are exactly what they’re marketed to be: Horror. But when I read Carrion Comfort, I realized that he had written a work of Gothic-Horror.
The book features a concentration camp survivor, Saul Laski, who witnessed a horrible incident (worse than the usual events even for a death camp) while he was imprisoned in Poland. A chess game. Unlike most chess games though, in this game, the prisoners were the pieces on the chessboard and the two opposing competitors – Nazi leaders – used their minds to control them.
Simmons calls them mind vampires. As Saul moves on in life, he can’t shake the desire to find the terrible Nazi Oberst who entered into his mind and overruled all of his self-possession. As he searches for him, he discovers something about the world leaders – that they are also mind vampires who are using people for their own purposes.
The theme is essentially a two-fold one. On one hand it asks whether much, if not all, of the world events, especially the most inexplicable ones, are all orchestrated by very evil people. On the other hand, it asks how we can explain some of the extreme violence we’ve witnessed throughout history. For example, how did a handful of Nazi leaders convince an entire nation to either aid them directly in slaughtering millions of people, or to do so indirectly by turning a blind eye to the situation?
It’s an extraordinarily thought-provoking theme, particularly for a genre piece. And it’s a Gothic theme. It’s an irrational question. It asks a spiritual/psychological question about something that we can’t know through reason.
And the only trope he uses are the actual mind vampires themselves. In the book, they are presented as having the literal ability to take over the minds of others and control them in any number of situations. Their actions, which are meant to be symbolic of the effects we see playing out in the world, make the theme tangible. They take what in real life is hidden and make it manifest.
Those two combined, are wonderfully Gothic.
But of course, this book is still Horror in the sense that we witness the actual physical threat unlike terror, which features simply an unseen dread.
When we marry the Gothic theme and use of tropes with the use of horror, we have a Gothic-Horror novel.
Horror, Not Gothic
On the other hand, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s 2020 novel Mexican Gothic, is – as the name would imply – marketed as Gothic, or at least Gothic-Horror. I strongly disagree.
The book centers on Noemí Taboada, who receives word that her cousin believes her husband is trying to kill her. Noemí goes to the mountains to visit and investigate the situation for the family. What she finds is that her cousin’s family (who are not Mexican) have a deep-rooted belief in genetic purity and are acting on that. I won’t give too much away, but basically, they’re a bunch of murderous racists.
It’s a good start to what is a pretty well-written book. The book has an old family estate, lots of family secrets, stormy weather…you name it, the makings of a great Mexican Gothic book. And in many ways, it’s a good book. It’s just not Gothic.
The theme is about the poison that such a belief, and the actual actions that stem from it, cause to everyone else around them, not to mention to the family itself. That’s a theme about a secret sin, a moral failing. It’s a Horror theme.
And the tropes don’t support the theme in the way that Gothic tropes should. They’re dark, they’re evil, they’re oppressive, but they’re not symbolic. They don’t directly tie into the theme and make it tangible. If you watched my video about the Gothic genre versus the Horror genre, you know that sometimes Gothic and Horror writing feature some of the same tropes. But, as I said earlier, they’re used differently. Mexican Gothic uses what appear to be Gothic tropes in a way that’s consistent with Horror novels.
It’s a work of Horror.
Conclusion
Does it matter how these books are categorized? In some ways, it doesn’t. I can imagine a lot of Gothic readers enjoying Mexican Gothic and many Horror readers reveling in Carrion Comfort. From the Amazon reviews, that seems to be the case. However, my concern is not a matter of targeting the audience so much as it’s a matter of potentially muddying the water.
I’m zealous about the definitions of Gothic and Gothic-Horror because I don’t want the genre to fade into obscurity. Or to become something it isn’t: a label for any book, regardless of its theme, that contains a lot of Gothic tropes. And generally those that serve no symbolic purpose.
If there are crossovers, let’s embrace them, let’s enjoy them, but let’s call them what they are. The same for books that aren’t actually Gothic. That way Gothic readers and writers will continue to uphold and produce works that are truly Gothic. Or Gothic-Horror.