Marshall Wimmer's Horror, Sci Fi, and Fantasy Lit Blog

                         Like most people I fell in love with Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation of “The Lord of the Rings”. In High School I read most of the Hobbit and found it a very different world from the movies, for example, the worgs could talk. But it was not these small details that made it a different experience, I would learn later that the story is intended to be read the child as a bedtime story, as Tolkein would have done so for his own children. This is due to Tolkein’s own love and respect for oral tradition, which makes sense as a linguist. Tolkein believed in the power of songs and poetry to convey information and stories through generations, something epics like Beowulf had to rely on to be told. However, the most memorable chapter, in my opinion, is the fifth chapter where riddles become the central focus.             It is this cha...

To Be Written

To Be Written

            One thing that might separate folk supernatural and ghost stories to Hollywood horror is that they are also meant to expound lessons relating to the culture it was created in. “THE RETURN OF YEN-TCHIN-KING” from “Some Chinese Ghosts” From Lafcadio Hearn of those and one in the collection in particular feels like it has a message to say. I can only speculate from a western viewpoint, and so I cannot say what the author’s intentions were, only what my own personal interpretations are.             The big theme of this story is loyalty and how even in death you will be rewarded. Throughout the short he displays exemplary poise in the face of those than can- and do, harm him. This story is set up so that his resolve keeps being tested, from terrifying imagery to the mockery of the rebels, and eventually to offering a lucrative position. Yet we see him remain loyal,...

To Be Written

Elizabeth’s story always struck me as a very weird part. When simplified it reads as thus: Victor’s family goes to Italy and at Lake Como his mother visits the poor and among them finds a child who looks different from the rest, appearing of “different stock”. The child is an orphan with a foster family. Victor’s mother decides she wants to adopt the child to be her son’s wife which she admits on her death bead, ““My children,” she said, “my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children.”” And here is my main problem with Elizabeth in the text, which is that her whole life is planned out by adults around her so how does she have a choice? There is a weird grooming aspect to it all that makes you wonder if she ever had a chance at a choice. In the same quote we see Elizabeth immediately given the responsibility of the matria...