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Chapter- II

Gothic and Cosmic Horror

The frequently used term horror fiction jogs one’s attention

towards the gothic fiction particularly, the gothic novel. The gothic novel,

with its unique identity, is looked upon as the pioneer of horror novel. Its

dark ruined mansions, corridors, dungeons, mysterious incidents and

romance ruled and still ruling on the horizon of English literature.

Moreover, its virgins and charismatic villains have occupied permanent

places in English literature. Gothic novel still exists as there are number

of gothic novels produced in nineteenth and twentieth centuries of

English literature. Gothic novel makes readers avid for horror as well as

for supernatural history. According to Campbell:’ horror fiction is a

development of the gothic’’ (See Appendix). Horror novel, however,

continued reflecting gothic elements/icons of horror effectively. Ghosts,

spirits, and haunted houses dominated and yet dominate the modern

horror novel. Campbell’s novels are not exception to it as he employs

spirits, ghosts, and haunted houses as icons of horror in his some novels.

Ramsey Campbell replaces modern houses, bookshops for gothic

mansions and places. These modern places, with gothic icons of horror,

have linked Campbell to the legacy of gothic novel. So critics have

tempted to label his novels as ‘urban gothic novels’. Campbell’s

attraction and imitation of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, reflected in his few

novels, links him to Lovecraftian fiction of horror. Hence, in this chapter

the researcher proposes to discuss and analyze four novels of Campbell

keeping in view the gothic and cosmic elements/icons of horror employed

in the novels. The four novels are placed under two heads; each contains

two novels. The novels To Wake the Dead (1980) and Nazareth Hill

44

(1997) come under the heading of the gothic horror whereas the novels

The Hungry Moon (1987) and Midnight Sun (1990) come under the

heading of cosmic horror.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It also becomes clear from the first chapter that Ramsey Campbell

has handled gothic and new mechanisms/ icons of horror in his novels. In

doing so, he has proved himself to be head of his crew of horror fiction

writers. Any mechanism of horror including gothic, cosmic and mundane,

which has rested in Campbell’s hand, has been vivified exploring both

supernatural and non-supernatural horror. Campbell has brought his icons

of horror in the world of human beings and has breathed in them

freshness and life with his skills, techniques and modern settings.

Campbell lives and writes in England. The horrors and disasters which

occur in his novels usually take place in cities and towns, a setting which

he can expect the majority of his readers to find familiar. The setting

directs us to the Campbellian philosophy that exposes true nature of

reality. A deep and close reading of his novels confuses us about reality.

Moreover, his readers are expected to understand the bitter truth about

reality. Like Ramsey Campbell, the modern horror novelists have also

tempted to employ gothic elements/ icons of horror in their novels which

have stirred human heart. Shirley Jackson (1916-1965), Robert Bloch

(1917-1994), William Blatty (b.1928), Ira Levin (1929-2007) and, James

Herbert (b.1942) have carried forward gothic elements/ icons of horror to

masses. It has already been mentioned that horror fiction moves around

the ‘other’. The modern horror novel used its best to deal with the ‘other’.

Human body invasion by the ‘other’ seems to be the dominant theme and

concern of modern horror fiction writers. Aguirre expresses this concern:

45

A demonic being immured by magic in a small castle

from time immemorial, waiting and manipulating

people’s mind to be let out and feed on pain even as it

spreads pain and establishes its own brand of Hell on

Earth (Aguirre 197).

Shirley Jackson has exposed this ‘hell’ in his novel Trespass (1953). It

shocks and creates horror when the protagonist returns home after a five

month absence and finds his wife pregnant though she has not committed

any infidelity. This ‘hell’ operates in a full swing in Ira Levin’s

Rosemary’s Baby (1967) and in William Blatty‘s The Exorcist (1971).

Aguirre quotes few lines from Paul Wilson’s novel The Keep (1981)

which speaks of the same ‘hell’:

Everyone will suffer. Women and children the most.

People will be born into misery; they will spend their

days in despair; they will die in agony. Generation

after generation, all suffering to feed Rassalom

(Aguirre 197).

Surprisingly, in post-modern era the possession of a human body

by the ‘other’ is a recurring motif of horror fiction and cross-genre

writers. Séances and normal people dabbling with extrasensory are

fictionalized by various novelists. The contemporaries of Ramsey

Campbell and famous American horror fiction writers Peter Straub (b

1943) Stephen King (b 1947) have produced recurring characters who

dabble in the occult and black arts in their Talisman series, The Talisman

(1994) and Bleak House (2001). Gary Holliman’s the most popular novel

Ungrateful Dead (1999) deals with a young woman who is possessed by

the ghost of her mother.

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The modern horror movie producers and directors have given

significance place in their movies to the motif of body invasion by the

‘other’. In John Hayes’s Grave of the Vampire (1974) the heroine,

Lesley, is raped by a patriarchal vampire just after her friend has

proposed marriage. What is insight is not a human being. She carries it,

once delivered, it turns on her. The same situation is screened in David

Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977) and in Larry Cohen’s movies its Alive (1974)

and It Lives Again (1978). The Possession (1981) arouses horror when it

screens a rape on a sister by a demonic possessed brother.

What emerges from this cursory survey is that the horror fiction

and the horror film flourished after Second World War showed how the

external ‘other’ in any form invades the female reproductive system and

then reappears as a devil, and perhaps, a devouring child. Surprisingly,

Ramsey Campbell is also at the front to weave his stories around the

external ‘other’ since his few novels are packed with ghosts, spirits,

haunted houses and places. Although Campbell has often been credited

for the invention of new elements/icons of horror, he does not hide his

interest in spirits, ghosts, haunted houses and haunted forests. The

external ‘other’ appears in the form of a ghost in The Influence (1993). It

creates horror when the corpse of Queenie rises from the grave which

Hermione is disinterring:

She was still gripping the flashlight, which thumped

the lining of the coffin and showed her Queenie’s

grinning head. The head was rising from its nest of

hair.

The hair stuck to the lining. It tore free of the

gray scalp as the corpse sat up stiffly, a bald grinning

47

doll with no eyes worth the name. Perhaps it was

mindless as puppet … it clasped its arm around

Heromine’s neck and pressed its face against hers

(Influence 166).

Campbell’s recently published novels The Darkest Part of the Woods

(2002) and The Overnight (2005) are set in haunted places. The former

takes readers to the deep haunted forest and the latter to the haunted

bookshop. However, the researcher has selected the novel To Wake the

Dead (1980) for discussion because the novel like The Exorcist reflects

the age- long fear of body invasion that repeatedly occurred in the horror

fiction and film produced after the Second World War. The Exorcist and

Rosemary’s Baby both as horror novels and horror films (bearing the

traditional mechanism of horror and the theme of body invasion) have

successfully carried their icons of horror down to masses and have ruled

the minds of people for a long time. In such an atmosphere, Campbell

launched To Wake the Dead to depict the intrusion of the ‘other’ in

human life thereby exposing the horrible life of modern people in a

compelling way. Moving from past to the present, the novel unfolds

nightmarish life of a woman consumed by a spirit of the man who died

long ago.

2.1 To Wake the Dead (1980)

To Wake the dead published in England in 1980 and in the same

year the same novel published in America under the new title The

Parasite. This novel has different ending than To Wake the Dead. But

according to critics both novels have twisted endings. This British

Fantasy Award winner novel attracted scholars, critics and readers.

However, Campbell has a feeling that he has not presented the novel as

48

he wanted to be. In an interview with David Mathew, Campbell

expressed his feeling:

The Parasite is the classical example . . . where it seems

to me that the book simply gets more and more shrill –

because there’s nowhere else for it to go. The problem

I‘d set myself, which I don’t think you can sustain for

novel length, is that it’s from the view point of the

character to whom all it’s happening, and she is aware

of what is happening to her. All I think you can do is

convey her sense of mounting terror and panic, but there

is a limit to how much you can do that (Campbell 03).

Campbell has also admitted that the novel To Wake the Dead is written

with market considerations in mind:

I tried to do what appeared to be the perceived model of the

contemporary horror story, which is characters in an

ordinary environment and something out there is

attempting to get them for whatever reason (Campbell 49).

In spite of all these things, To Wake the Dead, told from the point

of view of protagonist Rose, is a remarkable horror novel. Campbell, on a

single thread, weaves many striking things; vivid characterizations, a

compelling floating-style of prose, an intrusion of the past into the

present, a fine blending of supernatural and non-supernatural horror, a

deteriorated human relationship, a modern life under the threat of

supernatural power and the true nature of reality. Moreover, the ‘other’,

lies at the root of all these things, evokes horror. Campbell’s skill of

etching the nightmarish and horrible life of the protagonist stirs the hearts

49

of readers with sympathy. The prologue, the main story, and the epilogue

of the novel unveil the horrible journey of the protagonist who travels

from innocence state to a living nightmare.

Beginning with a shocking prologue, the novel horribly presents

the entry of the ‘other’ in the life of a little girl. The girl participated in a

séance with her friends in a deserted house where a Mr. Allan had ended

his life. ‘’I AM EVERYWHERE IN HERE’’ (Dead 15) announces the

very existence of the ‘other’ in the house. The girl, who unwillingly

participates in a séance, gets locked in the deserted house after her friends

successfully flee from the house. Before she can understand anything,

something comes upon her from behind:

When she was seized from behind, she was not even able

to scream. They must be hands, for they had fingers,

though they felt soft as putty- far softer than putty,

indeed, to be able to do her what they began to do then

(Dead 18).

Years pass by; the grown-up girl has obtained name and fame in the

world of film industry. She is Rose Tierney, a Liverpool native and a

famous film critic. Her life goes well with her husband Bill Tierney. It

seems that she has forgotten the past experience of her life. However, on

her visit to New York, the mysterious mugging, ‘’ she had no time before

the fist punched back of her neck’’ (Dead 34) brings a chain of bizarre

experiences in her life. She is subjected to the out-of–body experiences

which she first dislikes and then likes. The novel is packed with such

incidents. In one of the incidents Rose undergoes a strange experience.

She floats- leaving her body on the bed- to a house where a group of

unnamed people have gathered to summon her spirit:

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At least she was in someone’s home. Perhaps she could

rest here and grow calmer, before she tried to think her

way back to her own home, Bill, her body . . . she

glimpsed the figures in the dark . . . . There were more

than a dozen of them. They sat in a circle, on chairs.

Masks were tied over their faces . . . their eyes, which

glimmered white ad grubs, with glistering bruises for

pupils . . . and she was being drawn downward, into their

midst (Dead 69).

Furthermore, Rose undergoes another strange experience in

Munich where she is cornered by a bald-headed man. This man has been

chasing Rose as she has seen him on several places and occasions. A

bald-headed man seems to know everything about her childhood

experience. Rose exercises some sort of inner power that drives the man

away before he tells her anything. In a few days, Rose’s meeting with her

American friend Diana develops her interest in the power of occult. Diana

tells her strange stories of out-of-body experiences. Peter Grace, the

inhabitant of the early decades of the century, believed that he could

achieve immorality by transferring his spirit into another living body

especially, that of female’s. There is a book about Grace entitled as Astral

Rape. The German dictator Adolf Hitler also practiced out- of- body

experiences. There are dim references that Hitler somehow survived the

death of his body in 1945 by the method Peter Grace had delineated. As a

result of storytelling, Diana begins to read the book Astral Rape.

Meanwhile, an anonymous letter, regarding astral projection posted from

Manchester, makes Rose to visit the place. It seems that she has

developed interest in the astral projection. Here she is again confronted

by a bald-headed man and his group- perhaps the same ones who

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summoned her spirit months before. When it becomes difficult for Diana

to flee, her inner power rescues her:

Just let her intuition take over, believe that that it could

do so, just let it move one muscle and the rest would

follow, before the gray things emerged, dropping their

bodies like discarded clothing, and dragged her out in

their midst- just let a cry reach her throat, a cry of outrage

that would give her strength . . . But when the cry came, it

was not from Rose (Dead 194).

Caught in the maze of danger and attraction of astral projection,

Rose is detached not only from her husband but also from the whole

world. She is passing through ordeals and at this point her parents reveal

the truth. They disclose her childhood incident which she has almost

repressed. The house, where the ‘other’ entered the body of Rose, is the

place Peter Grace had known. She finds that she is infected by Grace:

She felt the presence which was watching over her come

clear. It was only one. It was neither of her relatives, but

she knew it all too well. It was old and sly and utterly

ruthless, and had deceived her effortlessly. . .

But its physical form, whatever it might be, was no

longer trapped in the walls. The séance has set it free. She

had touched it through the dusty sheets of the bed, a thin

flabby limb. Perhaps her touch had awakened it fully, for

it had got out of the bed (Dead 273).

Rose realizes that: “she couldn’t hold on to a sense of her body,

for it wasn’t hers” (Dead 275). The situation turns worst now. The bald-

52

headed man attacks on Rose. His name is Huge Wills who is the author of

the book Astral Rape. He knows that Rose carries Peter Grace’s spirit in

her body and he wants to destroy both it and her. However, Rose is saved

by her neighbours Colin and Gladys Hay who actually belong to the sect

of Grace. They kidnap and take her to a deserted house -perhaps in the

house where a Mr. Allan died. Huge Will follows them. All of a sudden,

the spirit of Grace leaves Rose’s body and enters Will’s body. The novel

moves to the tense situation in which Bill kills Huge Will and becomes an

abode of Grace’s spirit. At this point some cosmic presence enters the

place to bear off Grace’s spirit. But the matters do not end here. Colin

Hay has survived following the car accident, which he met, while

escaping from the police. Rose is separated from Bill and is living with

her parents. Living under the shadow of horror, Rose sees a dream of

Colin stealing her baby. She is horrified as: ‘‘they had all been smiling

evilly, in triumph: Colin, the swarthy man- and the baby’’ (Dead 317).

To Wake the Dead is a superb fusion of supernatural, non-

supernatural, cosmic, and real horror. The deserted house with the spirit,

its intrusion in the life of girl, out-of-body experiences of the protagonist,

the book, Astral Rape, references of occult power, Peter Graces’s

experiments with a small girl and slow deterioration of the protagonist

render the novel highly supernatural qualities. The out-of-body

experiences of Rose, her journey to the unknown house where spirits are

gathered, and mysterious mugging of Rose are fine supernatural touches

that the novelist intersperses in the novel. Therefore, To Wake the Dead

becomes a compact and effective work, skillful in its execution and subtle

in its portrayal of a possessed personality. The last episode of Rose’s

kidnapping to the deserted house is purely a supernatural episode in

which the spirit of Grace shifts from body to body. In short, this spirit of

53

Grace, which has inhabited various bodies over the course of decades and

now rests in Rose’s body, creates horror. At one point Rose recalls the

demonic possession of her body:

She was absolutely alone, except for what had risen from

the bed. She clawed at the door, but even when she

hooked her finger in the hole where the doorknob should

have been, the door wouldn’t budge.

A pale shape was creeping about the room, slithering

over the shabby furniture. . . Before she knew, something

cold and flabby, a body which felt not quite formed,

fastened on her from behind (Dead 273-274).

Thus, To Wake the Dead presents the theme of body invasion or

supernatural rape which remains dominants throughout the novel thereby

exposing supernatural horror. However, the novel is also concerned with

the aberrant nature of human beings. It is a richer work, and each

character is painted so subtly that gradually uncovers the ‘other’ lying

beneath outward normality of human beings. In this regard To Wake the

Dead can be considered as non-supernatural horror novel. The ‘other’ in

human beings is, for Campbell, a matter of concern. It is reflected in the

characters of Peter Grace, Adolf Hitler, Colin and Glady. Throughout the

novel, Peter Grace remains a hidden character. His journey of life is

shocking. He began his career as a clergyman. When he found his views

unmatched with his colleagues, he joined ‘Golden Dawn’ to study occult

sciences. His aim of ‘a personal immortality’ led him to form his group.

But he was killed by his ex-followers who sensed the danger of his plan

of action. The transformation of Peter Grace from a clergyman to a

repulsive human being explores the ‘other’ in a human being. Besides, his

54

transformation into a spirit ready for consuming female body evokes

horror. Thus, Peter Grace stands for supernatural as well as non-

supernatural horror. Colin and Gladys do symbolize the innermost

essence of ‘other’ which moves with a mask in the novel. In addition to

this, the non-supernatural horror which emerges in the form of Nazi

Germany serves as a vehicle of horror. A fine blending of supernatural

horror with non- supernatural horror uplifts the novel to a height where a

few horror novels and novelists can reach. This quality of Campbell is

creditable. It indirectly suggests Campbell’s inclination to the internal

‘other’ which he fully exposed in most of his novels. Crawford pens this

superb quality of Campbell:

Campbell merges actual human, non- supernatural horror

with his supernatural elements. This aspect of Campbell’s

artistry, his ability to create supernatural horror as a poetic

expression of realistic ones, is the hallmark of his approach

to the genre (Crawford 37).

Rose experiences real horror when the spirit of Peter Grace leaves her

body:

If she could have shuddered, she would have been unable to

stop. She felt trapped in her slumped flesh . . . Two eyes

like ovals of bright scum had been glaring from a pale

bulge on the on the wall. As she had met them, she had

glimpsed their thoughts. . .

She could feel their gaze, plucking at her like hooks,

and their thoughts: cripples hanging by their feet in a dead

place that looked like the moon, their throats cut, their

55

bodies withering feebly as they drained; an old Jew

castrated. . . She didn’t need to make out the face that had

begun to form in the corner, on the pale swelling (Dead

303).

The face Rose sees in the corner of the room seems to be Adolph

Hitler’s that symbolizes natural horror. Rose is Campbell’s most pathetic

character caught in mazes of horror. As a result of it, her life deteriorates

and meets tragic incidents. Campbell pens the journey of Rose’s life in a

cinematic way. It is pitiful that the film critic Rose’s life deteriorates like

a deterioration of life shown in a horror movie. The events take place

rapidly baffling Rose and carrying her to a point where only horror

remains. Campbell presents steady mental decay of rose in a cinematic

language:

Still the evening seemed ominous. Darkness flocked across

the sky. As people hurried through the drowned streets, they

trod on caricatures of themselves, dwarfed and half-

dissolved. Rose felt as though she was trying to shake off a

blur of darkness and flesh- coloured blobs that was glued to

her feet.

Aigburth road was coated with glistering orange beneath

lights like bars of electric fires set in concrete hooks. Traffic

lights splashed the roads with fluorescent paint: green,

amber, red. Cars advanced on fractured luminous stilts, tail-

lights bled on the tarmac (Dead 146).

In short, the film critic’s life collapses in a cinematic way.

Campbell’s work returns to certain themes, sometimes with the

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autobiographical touch, sometimes with social and moral touch, and

sometimes with a weird touch. The theme of body invasion, that has a

weird touch, is centered on a female character. Naturally, Campbell

observes human life especially, life of women in the light of horror. His

observation of female life in the shadow of horror can be undertaken as a

separate research topic. The themes with a weird touch speak of

vulnerability of human beings. But they have another connotation of

human sickness. Rose Tierney can be placed in both states. At one point

in the novel she seems to be enjoying the weird situation:

She soared above the plane, plummeted towards it,

swooped away. . . She was tempted to fly in the face of the

plane, an ecstatic challenge. Suppose the pilot saw her? To

risk distracting him was irresponsible. Her power demanded

self- discipline. She turned and plunged in to the clouds. . .

When she emerged, the plane was half a mile away. She

sped to catch it, not in panic but for the joy of flight (Dead

122).

Rose responds to the stimulus in a preserve way as like Hitler and

Peter Grace is a sign of sickness and horror. Like Peter Grace and Adolf

Hitler, Rose seems to be in enjoying state. Human vulnerability leads

towards victimization of human beings and it is twofold in Campbell’s

novels. According to Campbell human beings are victims of their own

whims as well as supernatural powers. Peter Grace and Adolf Hitler are

victims of their own whims whereas Rose and countless human beings

are victims of others whims. Relatively, Campbell’s concern for human

civilization reflects in the theme of ‘human beings as victims’. Rose, Bill

and countless people live under the shadow of horror drawn on them

57

either by the supernatural power or by human beings. The novel also

underlines ‘the triumph of evil’ in the world’. The onset of the ‘other’ is

violent but its symptoms are not immediately seen. Horror slowly, but in

a bizarre way manifests on the protagonist and reaches its climax when it

is unbearable.

Apart from these horrors, To Wake the Dead introduces cosmic

horror. It has been already said that interesting features of Campbell’s

work is a powerful mixture of horrors and Campbell mixes them in such a

way that one leads to the other. The sudden presence of a strange entity at

the end of the novel makes readers aware of cosmic horror. Campbell

pens the entity:

It was as though the void of outer space had swallowed

the house. Everything and everyone within it were all at

once infinitesimal, almost insubstantial, for that was how

they appeared to the presence. It was enormous and cold

and pitiless, and unbounded by space or time. It seemed

hardly to resemble life (Dead 306).

To Wake the Dead is the first novel which introduces cosmic

horror. The famous American weird writer H. P. Lovecraft popularized

the term cosmic horror which resembles to supernatural horror. The

cosmic horror depicts insignificance of human beings against cosmic

‘other’. The cosmic horror fiction is based on the idea of human

vulnerability and cosmic power. In short, Campbell’s juxtaposition of

horrors renders the novel superior quality and holds its position high in

the total scenario of weird fiction. But a comparative approach is

necessary to point out similarities and disparities of the selected novel

and the novels produced in the same decade. Naturally, in the history of

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weird fiction The Exorcist and To Wake the Dead will be compared as

both the novels present the entry of paranormal elements into female

bodies. There is a basic difference in the nature of these two novels. The

Exorcist falls under the category of storyteller horror whereas To Wake

the Dead falls under the category of visceral horror. Rose Tierney and

Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist are possessed by spirits and their

behavior can be explained in terms of possession by supernatural entities.

Rose is paranoid whereas Regan exercises some cruel powers. This

becomes clear when Regan begins exhibiting uncharacteristic traits. She

is taken to psychiatrist. Some drugs are prescribed but they do not affect

Regan and her behavior becomes more and more bizarre. Regan’s

masturbating with a crucifix is a height of her bizarre behavior. A

significant point is that Rose discovers about her possession but Regan

does not; it is the exorcist who saves Regan. But Rose becomes a victim

of the spirit as it possesses her unborn child. Though these novels

resemble in presenting the traditional icons of horror, they differ in their

philosophical outlook. The Exorcist underlines the triumph of good over

evil. The novel focuses on the philosophy of Blatty. According to Blatty

if there is a demon then there is a God and Catholicism is one true

religion. It seems that Blatty’s writing tends to prove the existence of God

in the Universe. His work is addressed as the catholic weird fiction. To

Wake the Dead underlines the triumph of evil over good. Campbell also

points out that the whole world is polluted by an evil. It is very difficult

to identify good and evil in this world. What worries Campbell is the

deceptive nature of good and evil. It is this nature that arouses horror.

Campbell’s characters are victims of the deceptive nature of good and

evil. The shadows of horror, for Campbell, have long life to survive and

to chase the victims. Campbell is and has been praised for the aftereffects

59

of his novels and To Wake the Dead serves this purpose. In short,

Campbell’s world is full of horror and devoid of exorcists where evil can

play and victimize people at its will to turn human life in to a hell.

Indisputably, The Exorcist has proved as the best horror novel and its

version of film created history in the film industry. Blatty must be

congratulated for this as people have not forgotten both the novel and the

movie since many novels and movies were produced after The Exorcist.

But To Wake the Dead does not lack in arousing horror. It is in a true

sense a horror novel because it displays a spirit’s wish for afterlife. They

are no longer traditional spirits who after their wish fulfillment used to

return to their worlds. These are the modern spirits living in the modern

world. Spirit’s interest in producing their legacy using female body

arouses loathsome and everlasting horror. Moreover, spirit’s interest in

female bodies makes them either very cruelly active or very passive. It is

the possession of Rose by a spirit leads her to transformation and

relationship with her husband deteriorates as she is preoccupied with her

mystifying experiences. She becomes paranoid, alienated and withdrawn.

Her paranoia, increasing withdrawal, and alienation remind readers of

paranoia and alienation of Campbell’s mother. Rose’s paranoid quality is

revealed when she is caught in Collin’s green house. She senses an evil

being in the green house:

Now the sounds were far too clear. They sounded moist

and tentative, but determined. She thought their source

was clumsy, lopsided as an infant, but she could tell it

was considerably larger than an infant – perhaps

incomplete, then. A muffled creaking told her that it

was clambering out of one of the tubes of earth (Dead

138).

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Moreover, To Wake the Dead can be compared to the Thomas

Tryon’s novel The other (1971) as per as the characterization is

concerned. The novel moves around the twins Holland and Niles. It has

more supernatural events than To Wake the Dead. One of the characters

Ada, twin’s grandmother resembles Peter Grace. There is s major

difference between two characters. Peter Grace is dead but Ada is alive.

She teaches the art of out- of- body experiences to Niles. Holland has

long been dead and both these twins have psychic connection with each

other. The ghost of Holland resembles the spirit of Peter Grace as both

cause the disasters of families. Niles’s survival after barn fire is awe-

inspiring but Rose’s journey of life draws sympathy of the readers; her

pursuit by mysterious figures almost to the end of the novel creates

horror. The end of the novel is horrific that suggests the continuity of

horror in the modern world. Campbell suggests that a human being can

pass a possessing spirit onto an unborn child. What appears to be

shocking is Campbell’s depiction of slowly parting relationship of Bill

and Rose. It is clear that Bill fails to understand her as he believes what

happens to Rose is a hallucination. This becomes clear when he separates

from her and settles in America. When Rose’s parents also fail to

understand her, and neighbours Colin and Gladys act as foes rather than

friends. Rose is left alone in the world. She becomes a constant victim of

a supernatural threat. Ramsey Campbell has more effectively dealt with

the same subject in his novel Nazareth Hill (1997) that moves around the

modern haunted house. The novel depicts deteriorated relationship of a

teenage daughter and her father drawing them in the shadow of

supernatural horror

The story of the novel takes place in the upper middle class of

British society. Campbell wants to throw light on the upper middle class

61

society of which Colin is a part. He can be compared to Ruth Gordon, the

neighbors of Rosemary in Rosemary’s baby who barge in to gossip or

borrow something, but is actually a leading member of the group of the

witches. This group becomes responsible for whole conspiracy. Thus, To

Wake the Dead skillfully portrays deterioration of human values by

human beings. The fake psychiatrist Colin Hay, who stores LSD and

other drugs, is a wanted criminal (under his real name) in South Africa

for the crime of trafficking. He plays an active role in spoiling the life of

Rose. He somewhat resembles the character of Rosemary’s husband who

for his future career arranges for his wife to be impregnated by the devil.

So she will give birth to the Antichrist.

In short, To Wake the Dead depicts in a compelling manner the

intrusion of the ‘other’ in the human world and human body. Blatty,

Campbell and horror fiction writers point out the interest of the ‘other’ in

human beings. This ‘other’ does not allow a human being to grow in a

placid way. All modern horror novelists including Campbell give a

message that horror has no end and it is omnipresent. Campbell indirectly

suggests that the world that Blatty depicted in his novel has not changed

and if it has changed, surely, it has changed in a more hideous way. Thus,

To Wake the Dead successfully vivifies the traditional element/ icon of

horror by placing it in a modern setting. The novel will shine more

brightly on the horizon of horror fiction as it effectively presents spirit’s

urge for human life, a slowly deterioration of human life, the power of

spirit, shattered human relationship, loneliness of the protagonist and

above all the permanency of horror in the human world. All these things

make To Wake the Dead the superb horror novel.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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A Haunted House as a mechanism/icon of horror has played a

major role in the history of the supernatural horror genre. The great

English novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870) got fascinated with the

icon of a haunted house. This fascination of Dickens is recorded by

Steven. J. Mariconda in his essay The Haunted House:

Within I found it, as I had expected, transcendently

dismal. The slowly changing shadows, waved on it from

the heavy trees, were doleful in the last degree; the house

was ill-placed, ill-built, ill- planed and ill-fitted. It was

damp, it was not free from dry rot, there was a flavor of

rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim of that

indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man’s

hands whenever it is not turned to man’s account

( Mariconda 268).

This icon of horror has allured many horror fiction writers

therefore; a house with a supernatural being is frequently reflected in the

horror genre. Moreover, haunted houses with a series of supernatural

events and with a supernatural background have dominated human minds

from ancient time. In short, a house with ill-reputed history has tempted

readers to shuffle the bookshelves of the libraries and book stores. The

contribution of the libraries in developing the taste of masses towards

horror fiction is mostly significant. Especially, the private libraries have

played a major role in fulfilling the reader’s demand of horror novels and

stories. The enormous production of horror novels and movies on haunted

houses denotes the frequent utilization of a haunted house as an icon of

horror in the world of weird fiction and film. It means that among other

icons of horror a haunted house has appealed and appeased the readers

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while displaying a variety of themes. In horror fiction a haunted house

has become a cheerless and horrific place. As a result of it, the inhabitants

of the house lack love and closeness of relationship. Apart from this, a

haunted house bears so many things. As Mariconda states:

The haunted house story has proved amazingly flexible in

accommodating a wide variety of themes: good versus

evil, science versus supernatural, economic conflict,

class, gender, and so on ( Mariconda 269).

Haunted houses began appearing in the weird fiction since ancient

time. There is clear evidence of it found in Folk-literature. The

Mostellaria (254 BC) is a haunted house tale in Roman comic play by

Plautus. The narrative structure resembles a modern tale. Prior to the

beginning of the story, a guest has been killed or buried on the grounds.

The spirit of the dead guest wanders at night until a brave man arrives to

find the cause of the wandering. He follows the ghost to the spot where

the remains are buried. Following an appropriate burial, the ghost prefers

to rest in the grave.

It is Horace Walpole who first brought the haunted castle with

many secret and bizarre things in gothic novel. The Castle of Otranto

(1764) became famous that Ann Radcliffe in her work The Mystery of

Udolpho (1794) portrayed a remote castle. Clara Reeves The Old English

Baron (1777) serves to be the best example of the haunted castle. In

modern weird fiction haunted houses are replaced for haunted castles. A

short survey of nineteenth and twentieth century horror fiction shows that

an icon of a haunted house flourished in the modern weird fiction.

Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables (1851), Hodgson’s The House

on the Borderland (1908), Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House

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(1959), Robert Marasco’s Burnt Offerings (1973), Mark Z. Danielwski’s

House of Leaves (2000) including Ramsey Campbell’s Nazareth Hill

(1997) are famous novels on haunted houses.

The stories on haunted houses have enriched the horror fiction. The

contributions of E. A. Poe (1809-1849), J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-

1873), Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951), Ramsey Campbell etal have

not only attracted readers but also have increased the level of horror

fiction. Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) is very haunted

house famous story. The house gets haunted by the spirit of the Madeline,

the sister of Roderick Usher who buried her when she was alive.

Blackwood’s The Empty House (1906) is a typical haunted house story

packed with many bizarre and unnatural events which Shorthouse and his

aunt undergo. Campbell’s Ash (1969) shows emerging of supernatural

element from the remains of a woman murdered in the place. His famous

short story The Proxy (1977) is a striking tale about the ghost of the

house.

An icon of a haunted house has attracted film producers and

directors and that resulted in an immense output of horror movies on

haunted houses. The list of movies based on haunted houses is quite long

and the most of the movies are based on horror novels. The Old Dark

House (1932) is one of the best films of this type. The Shinning (1980) is

known as a top grossing film that deals with haunted hotel. It is obvious

that the modern horror novelists and screen writers have presented houses

and hotels as places of demons and monstrous entity. The external ‘other’

has moved from castles and remote places to houses located in the heart

of towns and cities. These modern haunted houses are alive. It is not just

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inhabited by some ghostly presence; the presence that lurks in it is a part

of the house itself. In the words of Aguirre:

The house in modern terror fiction is not a haunted but a

haunting house. It is no longer a human space; it does not

happen to be sheltering a numinous presence, it is the

numinous presence, an otherworldly living space that

craves birth, sustenance growth, reproduction in the

human world. It is another perfect parasite, another cell in

the body of mankind which has been transmuted in to a

part of the Enemy (Aguirre192).

These modern houses do not simply destroy their victims, they

change them. Marian Rlofe in Burnt Offerings gets fascinated by unseen

lady and her house. As the building’s dormant power increases Marian’s

hair becomes gray and her face weakens.

Ramsey Campbell’s two novels The Doll Who Ate His Mother

(1976) and Nazareth Hill (1997) can be grouped as haunted house novels.

According to Stephen King The Doll Who Ate His Mother is a favorite

haunted house novel. Here the protagonist discovers that the villain, the

cannibal Christopher Kelly is the illegitimate child of a Satanist. The

immoral past of Kelly’s home has made him a cannibal. But Nazareth

Hill surpasses The Doll Who Ate His Mother. It is significant to note that

Campbell published Nazareth Hill after his establishment as a well-

known horror fiction writer. He has become a front-headed horror fiction

writer who has begun experimented with novel icons/ elements of horror

such as serial killers and murderers. The novel The Count of Eleven

(1992) attracted readers and changed the scenario of modern horror

novels. It is at this point Campbell dared to handle the traditional

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mechanism/ icon of horror. Nazareth Hill with its haunted house and

modern setting focuses on many things that stunt readers.

Nazareth Hill may seem on the surface as a haunted house novel,

but it is much more than the haunted house novel. It is indeed a portrayal

of supernaturalism that he skillfully handled after The Influence (1988).

But it is also a portrayal of severe domestic conflict that can be found in

any novel of Campbell. The novel arouses horror when a placid and

enjoyable life of a girl turns to be fatal one. It leads her to demise. Thus,

the novel has its theme of family discord and the height of hatred.

2. 2. Nazareth Hill (1997)

A ruined and deserted house, on the Nazarill hill, overlooking the

small town of Patrington in northern England, near Sheffield, is an object

that terrifies a teenager girl Amy Priestly. She calls it: ‘’the spider house’’

(NH14). One day Oswald, her father takes her to the ground-floor of

this old deserted house. Carrying her on his shoulders, he urges her to

look inside; but she gets afraid as she sees the strange entity:

. . . It crouched in the farthest corner, its withered limbs

clenched like a dead spider’s leg around its ragged

scrawny torso, its blackened twigs of fingers digging

into its cheekbones as though it had torn all the flesh off

them (NH 17).

As a result of it, Amy stumbles into the room but she is dragged

out and brought back home. At that night she sees a dream in which her

father appears saying: ‘’your mother’s dead, and you’re mad . . . and

you’re staying here in Nazarill’’ (NH 25). On the very night she decides

that: ‘’she would never again in her life go anywhere near Nazarill’’ (NH

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26). As the novel progresses, the old deserted house is turned into an

apartment and Amy, who has lost her mother in a car accident, comes to

live with her father in a newly built apartment. Amy has become a typical

teenage girl who likes music and her boy friend Rob Hayward whom

Oswald does not like. Campbell shows the disagreement between a father

and a daughter which typically represents universality of such a

relationship.

The placidity and smoothness of life shatters when a cat of a fellow

tenant dies mysteriously. It is found hanging on the huge oak tree which

dark shadows dance on the grass. Later on, Dominic Metcalf, a tenant and

a photographer snatches a group photo of all the tenants in front of the

apartment. When a print is developed, a strange figure appears in the

photo peeping through the window of the photographer’s flat. In a little

while, Metcalf is found dead in his flat. In the meantime, Amy gets

obsessed with the history of Nazarill and she is also troubled by the

strange behavior of her father. Shortly afterwards, a Bible, located by

Amy among the rooted stumps of oak trees that have recently been cut

down, strengthens obsession of Amy as it uncovers the true and hidden

history of Nazarill. There was an ancient mental hospital on the hill. Prior

to it, the hill was occupied by Patrington witches who used to perform

dance before Nazarill was built. Strikingly enough, the information about

Nazarill that Arkwright supplies to Oswald is akin to the information

recorded in the Bible. The place had been offices in the Victorian area. It

became a mental hospital that unfortunately razed to the grounds by the

fire that mercilessly consumed all the staff of the hospital. With the

passing of the time, Amy’s obsession becomes unbearable to Oswald who

grows restless with Amy’s behavior. He decides to remove false and

foolish ideas out of Amy’s head. So, he takes her through the unoccupied

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ground-floor flats of the apartment. But as she is in Roscommon’s

windowless flat, she sees a strange figure:

It was taller than her father, and thinner than anything

except bones could be. . . A mass that looked composed

as much of cobwebs as of hair dangled from its brownish

piebald scalp. Its left eye glittered, or at least the

contents of the socket did, before flying round the head

to the other eye. Even if the figure couldn’t see the Amy,

she could tell it was aware of her, because its right arm

wavered up to gesture at its face (NH 203).

However, the figure escapes through a door, ’’where no door

should be’’ (NH 204) to a neighboring flat before Oswald notices it.

Furthermore, Campbell focuses on the deteriorated relationship of Amy

and Oswald. They are doubtful about each other as if the blood

relationship between them has dried. On his visit to Amy’s school

Oswald feels: ‘’he couldn’t help wondering if this was a show she was

putting on for the school mistress’’ (NH 214). On the other occasion Amy

thinks of leaving Nazarill forever. As she comes out of her flat, she finds

all six doors of the ground floor flats are ajar. Then, a bony hand comes

out of one door and the creature suddenly appears before Amy:

The figure still had some of a face, or had somehow

reconstructed parts of one, which looked in danger of

coming away from the bones, as the scraps of the chest

peeling away from the ribs to expose the withered heart

and lungs, which jerked as though in a final spasm as

Amy’s gaze lit on them (NH 287).

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The mysterious creatures blocks her way and summons its

companion. This whole situation makes Amy run to her apartment; but

she can’t find the keys as Oswald had taken them from her bag. When she

tries to unlock the door with a metal comb, Oswald returns and hurls

Amy into the flat. Furious Amy locks herself in the bathroom and tries to

give message to Rob on the phone as she has taken a cordless phone with

her. But Rob’s mother refuses to help declaring Amy as a mentally

disturbed girl who needs a medical treatment. Enraged with all things,

Oswald locks Amy in her room fixing a bolt on the door. Amy’s efforts to

unscrew the hinges with her metal comb prove to be futile, for a comb

breaks before she can manage to lose some screws. Oswald, in

continuous attempt to control Amy, shuts off all the electricity of the flat.

In the darkness Amy again sees a figure crouching beneath the level of

mirror. At this point Amy feels she has no way but to terrify Oswald so

she goes on talking constantly about the spiders. In a fury and fear,

Oswald rushes into her room and cuts down his daughter’s tongue. This is

the most loathsome incident Campbell has ever produced in his fiction:

She felt the blades close on her tongue and, with a

considerable effort, meet. She saw them snatch a reddish

object from her mouth and shy it into the hall. Her father

turned away at once, as if he had no further interest in

her, and heaved the door shut after him (NH 359).

The horror of Oswald however, does not end but begins. As he

falls asleep, he sees a dream of spiders. Horror mounds on him when he

wakes up and sees spiders everywhere in his flat. He opens the window

and calls for help but no one is there. He sets fire to the old Bible and

hurls it at the spider poised on the latch. To his horror, an explosion in the

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kitchen befalls on him. The gas oven catches fire spreading across the

flat. It embraces Oswald and lands on his body. Before he attempts to free

Amy, still locked in the room, the fire guts him. In short time, Amy

wakes up and finds doors of the room have razed to the ashes. She comes

to know that Nazarill has become a ruined place. In a purely dreamlike

atmosphere she is guided down by a strange creature. As she moves, she

realizes that she no longer feels her footsteps. When she comes down, a

mysterious figure takes her hand and soars with Amy to the peak of the

hill. The final chapter reveals the truth: Amy and Oswald were consumed

in the fire, and the spirit of Amy joins those of Patrington witches.

Nazareth Hill is a fine amalgamation of supernatural and non-

supernatural horror novel. The locus of the novel is the old deserted

house with some malignant entity. Its awful performances link the novel

with many haunted houses novels. But Campbell’s meticulous depiction

of human abnormal behavior renders the novel an identification of non-

supernatural horror novel. The supernatural background of the house

enhances the atmosphere of weirdness that serves as a backdrop to the

tragic story of Amy Priestly. The malignant history and its weirdness

reflect in the appearances and disappearances of images that abruptly

consume human lives. Even a hanged cat to the huge oak tree seems to be

a supernatural manifestation. The final transformation of Amy into a

witch is suggestive of supernatural power over human beings. Thus, the

novel’s supernatural background, cumulative mystery and suspense, and

most of all the hints and bad omens of supernatural world typify the novel

as a supernatural horror novel. Moreover, the house itself remains

relatively passive, the haunting nature of its supernatural occupant and

tendency of some inhabitants turn the house into a prison. When the

family of Oswald enters the house, it comes to life again with a full force.

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It is clear that prior to the arrival in the apartment, the Oswald family had

no problems within the family except the death of Mrs. Oswald. The

tragedy of the family begins after the arrival in the house.

The conflict between Amy and Oswald provides the novel with

domestic horror as well as non-supernatural horror. Both get obsessed as

the novel progresses. Amy’s obsession can be explained in terms of her

witness of the entity but Oswald’s reaction to the whole situation is

ambiguous and baffling. His initial action to take Amy to the deserted

house demands many explanations. The prime purpose behind this action

has not been clarified in the novel. Nazareth Hill can be counted as a dark

weird fiction in which the internal ‘other’ gets strengthened as the novel

progresses. Campbell’s examination of complex human nature in a

seamless fashion exposes the internal ‘other’ that occupies a human mind.

The domination of the internal ‘other’ on Oswald manifests brutally and

gets reflected in his behavior with Amy:

‘You devil,’. . . ‘You’re mad, and you’re staying here in

Nazarill.’

He grasped her shoulders, bruising them . . . she felt as

small and helpless as she had been then. Before she could

make up her mind to struggle he’d dragged her across the

hall. . .

She was about to duck free and dodge around him when he

spoke. ‘Whatever must be done,’ he said, and drawing back

his right fist, ``drove it into her face (NH 302- 303).

This is the powerful manifestation of the internal ‘other’. The

juxtaposition of the external ‘other’ with the internal ‘other’ makes the

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novel a powerful horror novel. Amy becomes victim of the double threat;

the threat of the creature hovering around her, and the threat of her manic

father. Oswald is like Campbell’s other villainous characters who play

with the life of innocent children. Oswald should have preferred a gentle

way like a kind father to divert Amy but he prefers to be a dictator and

treats Amy like a criminal. Earlier, at one point in the novel he proves to

be a loving father. His comment passed on Amy after death of her

mother, ‘’it wasn’t Amy’s fault’’ (NH 63) shows him as a sensitive and

an overprotective father. But he changes gradually. It is tragedy that Amy

fails to denote a change that has taken place in Oswald. His strange

behavior exposes his psychic nature evoked by his obsession of

supernatural entity. Jack Sullivan underlines interest of Ramsey

Campbell:

Campbell is more concerned than ever with the

psychology of the supernatural encounter and that his

grimmest phantasms often spring as much from the

psyches of his doomed heroes as from a malignant

cosmos: the threatening apparition is all the more deadly

in that it leaps from both places at once (Sullivan 27).

In this connection, Nazareth Hill underlines what Grixti says: ‘’the

belief that human beings are rotten at the core, that there is a beast within

us which causes us to commit evils . . . ‘’ (Grixti 86). Oswald resembles

Peter Grace for; they both play with the life of children. The beast in

human beings rises to destroy and deform human beings. Even domestic

relationship and humanity lies far beyond their animalistic world.

Oswald fails to control himself and becomes the source of non-

supernatural horror. Thus, in Nazareth Hill there is an exquisite balance

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between external and internal horror- the horror of supernatural and the

horror of a disturbed mentality. As it is said earlier, Campbell’s works

with their weird, moral, social and autobiographical touch render a social

touch to his work. In a beautiful prose style Campbell focuses on the

theme of loneliness that occurs in his every novel. His characters are

lonely. Their supernatural, domestic and eccentric backgrounds make

them either withdrawn or lonely. The focus of this rich, touching and the

atmospheric novel is Amy Priestly, Campbell’s most beautifully

sketched portrait of the motherless, love and sympathy-starved school

girl. Her life becomes a chain of loneliness; the encounter with the

supernatural entity isolates her from others. Even she does not get along

with his father. This passage denotes the parted relationship between

them:

She gazed at him… and saw a furtively anxious old man

in an out-of- date grey overcoat and black scarf. His face

seemed to have devoted its recent years to producing

more of itself, its lower cheeks bellying on either side of

the jaw and pulling down the corners of the mouth, while

the underside of the chin had settled for adding itself to

the throat. His eyebrows had always been prominent, but

their greyness made them appear heavier, and to be

weighing down his eyes (NH 171-172).

Moreover, the school plays a vital role in nourishing loneliness of

Amy. In one of the incidents Campbell focuses on the tendency of severe

punishment followed from generation to generation by human beings.

One of the teachers recalls what her parents did to her to divert her from

evil thing (Actually, it seems that she gives advice to Oswald): ‘’I was

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locked in my room until I swore on the Bible never to go anywhere near

him again’’ (NH 216). Later on, Oswald follows the advice of the teacher

making Amy a prisoner in her own house. Schools have become no more

places of education; they seem to have only role of rebuking or neglecting

such students. A deep survey of Campbell’s novel reveals the negative

role of schools they play in the life of their students. Equally, the people

outside the family neglect Amy’s loneliness. Rob’s mother refuses to

help when Amy is very near to the danger. In short, Campbell examines

loneliness of the character on the large social scale. The mysterious death

of Dominic Metcalf, the encounters of Hilda Ramsden and Donna Gouge

with the ghostly entities make the readers aware of the supernatural

nature of the phenomena. Unfortunately, the glimpses of the weird are

seen by Amy appear to be unmistakably genuine but nobody seems to

believe in them not even her father and her friend Rob. She is left alone

and her sad demise symbolizes Campbell’s concern for children. Amy

Oswald is Campbell’s most troubled and tortured child character. Her

apparent exploitation by her father draws sympathy of readers. Her final

transformation, as the mysterious creature leads her to the unknown land,

maintains the atmosphere of horror, bitterness and tragedy that the novel

initiates from its beginning. Thus, the theme of child as a victim works

most powerfully to sustain the atmosphere of horror. Furthermore, the

employment of supernatural phenomenon can be interpreted in many

ways. One thing is certain that Campbell employs it as vehicle to observe

individual psychological state and individual’s relationship with others or

with his surroundings. When these things are found abnormal or

shattered, there emerges the Campbellian theme-human being as a victim.

In Nazareth Hill Oswald is a victim of the supernatural phenomena and

his own psyche. In short, Nazareth Hill handles pure supernaturalism,

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pure non-supernaturalism, domestic conflict, child as a victim, and

chilling portrayal of psychosis as themes.

Nazareth Hill suggests continuity of horror and also expresses the

basic fact that horror is implacable. Horror lurking beneath the surface of

life is a fatal one and it leads to a horrible grisly death. Campbell draws

reader’s attention to the bitter truth that the civilized man has not only

inherited the barbarism of supernaturalism but also has let him to be

transformed into it. Thus, a civilized man has become symbol of living

barbarism and supernaturalism.

Nazareth Hill is a lengthy novel and it is remarkable for its vivid

characterization. Many characters appear and disappear but only two

characters, Oswald and Amy can be remembered for a long time. Even

Rob Hayward, although significant to the evolution of the plot, remains a

minor figure. The alternative narrative techniques are effectively

employed by Campbell. Many incidents are narrated as they are seen by

characters eyes; the death of Metcalf is seen through his own eyes. In the

similar way, the encounters of Hilda Ramsden and Donna Goudge with

ghostly entities are seen through their eyes. Moreover, in the final stage

of the novel, the alternations of narrative perspective between Amy and

Oswald create horror as well as depict a height of domestic conflict when

both are in the shadow of horror.

Nazareth Hill can be compared to the first haunted house novel The

House on the Seven Gables (1851) by Nathaniel Hawthorne as per as

mysterious incidents are concerned. In both novels supernatural beings

powerfully manifest their powers. The death of Dominic Metcalf reminds

one of the death of Colonel Pyncheon in The House on the Seven Gables.

The difference is that the Colonel mysteriously dies on the opening day of

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the house whereas Metcalf mysteriously dies after his living in the flat for

some days. These two mysterious incidents typify the existence of

supernatural elements mounding horror on readers. Another source that

typifies the existence of supernatural elements is the employment of the

mysterious book. Campbell is not the first writer to employ it. Earlier,

Hodgson employed it in his novel The House on the Borderland (1908).

A bound but mysterious manuscript, located by two characters, records

all horrors that happened recently in and around the house. In Nazareth

Hill the Bible found by Amy records the horrible history of Nazarill.

On the background of supernatural and domestic horror Nazareth

Hill resembles the novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959). Both the

houses are located on the respective hills occupied by the powerful

supernatural elements. The former novel presents the encounters of a

motherless girl with the strange creatures. The latter presents the

possession of lonely and troubled woman by the supernatural entity. Amy

Priestly and Eleanor Vance are unfortunate victims who are brought to

the respective houses. The misshapen incidents occur before them after

they began living in the house. In both these novels supernatural

manifestation is extraordinarily subtle and effective. Bizarre and grisly

incidents that take place in the novels evoke supernatural horror. Both the

protagonists die at the end of the novel. Eleanor meets a car accident in

the premise of the house whereas Amy is killed in the house. The

Haunting of Hill House is purely a supernatural horror novel whereas

Nazareth Hill is a fine blending of supernatural, non-supernatural, and

domestic horror. The novel along with the supernatural threat gives a

message that it is very difficult to be good and moral human beings when

obstacles encompass on human beings from all sides. It is this philosophy

of Campbell that makes his novels worthy of moral and social literature.

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In short, Nazareth Hill has proved on every degree the best horror novel

ever produced in the history of horror fiction.

2.3. Similarities and Disparities:

To Wake the Dead and Nazareth Hill through their atmosphere

creates a sense of menace and gives readers a sense of foreboding. Both

these novels introduce evil early on in the story and the story line makes

use of supernatural monsters. Sudden death, violence, unexpected and

mysterious incidents, haunted and shattered individuals, and unresolved

endings make these novels powerful horror novels. It can be said that

both novels fall under the category of visceral horror. In this type of

horror the evil is introduced early on in the story.

To Wake the Dead and Nazareth Hill have urban settings. The

former novel is set in Liverpool and the latter one is set in Patrington in

Northern England. These novels show a journey of supernatural beings

from remote, deserted places to cities and towns. Both these novels keep

at the background deserted houses, with supernatural beings, with their

malignant history that lead life of respective female protagonists towards

grisly disaster. It is significant that both the girls are brought to the

deserted houses where the ‘other’ occupies the houses. In To Wake the

Dead the ‘other’ allows Rose to grow but she is controlled by it whereas

in Nazareth Hill the ‘other’ does not allow Amy to grow. Thus, these two

novels present women as sufferers. The female protagonists in these

novels either lead a miserable life or they are led to death. Rose Tierney

belongs to the first category and Amy belongs to the next one. The

difference is that Rose is a victim of supernaturalism developed by Peter

Grace. But Amy is a victim of supernatural and non- supernatural horror.

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Nazareth Hill and To Wake the Dead suggest the growing power of

supernatural elements in the lives of human beings.

To Wake the Dead shows a supernatural being’s longing for

afterlife and Nazareth Hill shows its interest in populating the place with

witches. In this context Nazareth Hill can be compared to Bram Stoker’s

Dracula in which Stoker shows Dracula’s interest in populating the

country with fellow vampires.

Nazareth Hill and To Wake the Dead on their spectral background

manifest horror powerfully. But Nazareth Hill grips readers than To Wake

the Dead. In the former novel a chain of bizarre incidents sends shivers in

spines of readers whereas the latter one seems to be somewhat lacking in

doing the same. It offers a sense of enjoyment and relief when Rose

begins to enjoy her flight. Rose is saved from time to time when she is

caught in critical situations but Amy is pushed into the critical conditions.

Rose experiences somewhat loneliness at the end of the novel while

loneliness sticks to Amy from beginning to end. Naturally, Nazareth Hill

seems to be more powerful horror novel than To Wake the Dead.

Mystery, suspense and horror go hand in hand in both novels.

There are mysterious incidents employed in the novels. The employment

of mystery is powerful in To Wake the Dead. The mugging experience of

Rose and the presence of cosmic entity remain mystery throughout the

novel. The similar feature of these two novels is the unhappy endings

suggesting the continuity of horror in human life. In this regard,

Campbell’s novels differ from T. E. D. Klein’s (b. 1947) novels.

Campbell differs from Klein in his philosophical view of horror. On one

hand, Klein’s happy ending is suggestive of restoration of moral order

and a defeat of evil by good. On the other hand, Campbell’s unhappy

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ending is suggestive of a defeat of good by an evil and destruction of

culture and moral order.

In a number of late twentieth century horror novels, the heir of

gothic castles and mansions is the bourgeois house itself, the setting in

which chaos is most likely to explode with shocking effects on it owners

certainties and values. Modern houses located in suburban district can

prove as daunting as echoing corridors, dark towers, and misty

graveyards. Ramsey Campbell’s haunted houses depicted in these two

novels are not exceptions to it.

Non- supernatural horror with its historical reference plays a vital

role in To Wake the Dead. It appears in the form of Hitler, Peter Grace

and many other characters. A fine technique of mingling past and present

makes To Wake the Dead the most shocking as Campbell suggests the

inevitable return of the past to destroy any hope of quality in living, now,

and in the future. What makes Nazareth Hill different from To Wake the

Dead is the treatment of period. The former novel exposes the present

with a hideous past lurking beneath it.

Ramsey Campbell has been praised for his superb quality of prose.

His prose style is multi- layered as it evokes thrills, tensions, mysteries

and horrors- supernatural and non-supernatural. He has, indeed, a

fondness of evoking all aforementioned states through ordinary objects.

Oswald experiences the states at one moment:

The cage of branches seemed to flex itself towards him.

He stepped beneath one which had rooted its tip in the

ground as though the oak was trying to drag itself into the

earth, and a smell closed around him: old wood, decaying

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vegetation, and an odour far less pleasant, suggesting that

some animal had voided itself under the tree. . . He was

trying to locate what he’d glimpsed and to avoid treading

in the source of the stench when he realized where, and

hence what, the movement had been. Of course, it was the

length of rope attached to a high branch; only that morning

he’d seen Amy and the girl from the next apartments taking

turns to swing. . . He spied the vertical line of the rope

cutting through the tangled silhouettes of branches, and

took hold of it to throw it over a branch too high for the

girls to reach. Just as he realized that the rope weighed

more than it should, the object at the end of it swung into

his face (NH 65).

Here is one of the examples of Campbell’s use of language which

creates horror and suspense as he describes the plight of the girl suddenly

imprisoned in the dark, deserted house in To Wake the Dead:

The dark closed around the young girl, like the embrace

of fever. The door shook as shoulders thumped it, but held. .

Behind her something dropped softly to the floor. She could

neither turn nor cry out, but she knew without turning what

the sound was: the fall of bedclothes. Had something else got

down from the bed? (Dead 17)

Apart from this strong supernaturalism and the external ‘other’,

internal ‘other’ or ‘other’ in human being dominates these novels. Oswald

is more dangerous and horrible than Bill Tierney. Oswald is a villain

character with powerful internal ‘other’ which Campbell most powerfully

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exposed in his forthcoming novels. But Campbell’s fascination to H. P.

Lovecraft and his cosmic horror cannot be neglected.

2. 4. Cosmic Horror:

Cosmic horror, flourished and developed by H.P. Lovecraft, the

famous American horror fiction writer, allured so many writers including

Ramsey Campbell that resulted in the emergence of the Lovecraftian

School of cosmic horror. Surprisingly, the school emerged after the death

of Lovecraft. He has been widely and repeatedly imitated in the field of

horror fiction. Lovecraft’s early writing, which dealt with conventional

stories of macabre, displayed the influence of Poe and gothic novelists.

However, his discovery of Lord Dunsany’s work in 1919 proved a

turning point in his literary career. As a result of it, Lovecraft began

writing stories woven around cosmic images. These stories stressed on

human insignificance in the vast cosmos. Lovecraft believed and formed

his theory on the assumption that human life can be threatened at any

moment by the cosmic ‘other’ who ruled the universe once upon a time.

In his famous book on Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927)

Lovecraft speaks of the literature of ‘cosmic fear’ as distinguished from

the literature of ‘physical fear and mundanely gruesome’. Apparently,

cosmic horror appears as a substitute term for supernatural horror. But it

is a part of the supernatural horror. According to Lovecraft the roots of

cosmic horror are very ancient. It covered a wide scope from folk

literature to modern horror fiction. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of

Madness (1936), a cosmic novel, exposes horrific ruins lying beyond a

range of mountains. The novel effectively unfolds the nature of

macrocosm. The significance of Lovecraft’s work lies in the discovery of

a protagonist about his helplessness in the vast cosmos. In this connection

Brian Stableford states:

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Lovecraftian fiction is, in essence, a kind of fiction in

which horror arises from knowledge that is too much to

bear; the ultimate knowledge of that kind is, indeed,

related to ‘unplumbed space’ rather than the shallows of

the human evil and to ‘assaults of chaos’ rather than the

pedestrian traffic of commonplace apparitions and curses

(Stableford 66).

Furthermore, Stableford beautifully summarizes the philosophy of

Lovecraft in the light of cosmic horror. He puts:

The fundamental thesis that Lovecraft developed in the

cultivation of cosmic horror is that technological and

social progress since Classical times have facilitated the

repression of an awareness of the magnitude and

malignity of the macrocosm in which the human

microcosm is contained—an awareness that our remoter

ancestors could not avoid (Stableford 66-67).

Thus, cosmic horror exposes cosmic fear of human beings. They

are prey to the race of hunter from the outer space. The destruction of

human race is not a hunter’s goal but it strives for the domination of the

world. The cosmic ‘other’ has a keen eye on human society. Cosmic

horror fiction writers deal with a threat to the society, to the earth or to

the universe at large.

Campbell’s first Lovecraftian pastiche appeared in 1964 titled as

The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants. This story

collection explores forbidden knowledge of human beings and their

struggle against vast forces of the universe. Campbell, after this story

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collection, temporarily deviated from Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

However, he turned to deal with it fully in his mid-career of writing

(except the novel To Wake the Dead). The Lovecraftian cosmic horror is

reflected in the novels The Hungry Moon (1987) and Midnight Sun

(1990).

2. 5. The Hungry Moon (1987)

The Hungry Moon is not listed or praised by critics as the

compelling horror novel. According to critics it is a satire on

fundamentalism rather than a horror novel. However, the novel is a

horror novel that compels readers as it blends many things together; the-

age long fear of cosmic horror and entity, the intrusion of the past in the

present, the insignificance of human life in the vast cosmos,

fundamentalism of religion, paranoia of people, and a lack of rationality.

Moreover, the supernatural excuse people find for their deeds and the

incurable metamorphosis of Godwin Mann rank The Hungry Moon as

one of the best horror novels. The strange metamorphosis of Godwin

Mann underlines the fact that human beings cannot escape horror. This

aspect renders the novel the highest quality of everlasting horror.

Campbell has effectively used the Lovecraftian icon of topography to

depict a haunted England centered upon the fictitious town Moonwell

which is like other fictitious cities of Campbell – Brichester, Temphill

and Goatswood.

The Hungry Moon is set in the small town Moonwell located in the

north area of England in the Peak district. This placid and serene town

gets disturbed when Godwin Mann, an evangelist from California arrives

with the band of his followers. The people of Moonwell have been

practicing an ancient ritual of decorating the cave: ‘‘it was really a

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pothole, fifty feet wide at the mouth and surrounded by drystone wall’’

(HM 21). Man opposes the ritual condemning people’s practice of

decorating the cave with a figure made of flowers:

A truly Christian community can’t keep a pagan

tradition alive. . . I want to ask you a favour on God’s

behalf. Will you think about living this cave as it is this

year, not decorating for it once? (HM 54)

As the novel progresses, Mann becomes a powerful authority of the

town. Most of townspeople join his crew and accept his Christianity.

However, he is opposed by few individuals- a school teacher, Diana

Kramer, a postman, Eustace Hill, and a book store owners, Jeremy and

Geraldine Booth. They are ill-treated and excluded from the community.

But restless Diana Kramer, who has returned to her town from America,

feels that the cave ritual has some ancient religious background. A blind

and an old citizen of the town, Nathaniel Needham reveals the history of

the cave when Diana approaches him. Needham has written a pamphlet

which narrates the history of the Moonwell and the cave. Druids

summoned the monster from the moon when they felt unsafe from

Romans and began worshipping the monster. Furthermore, they started

appeasing the monster with a human sacrifice. Unaware of the history of

the cave, Godwin Mann, with his obsessed ideas, now meddles with the

situation. Perhaps, he is not aware of the incurable danger existing in the

cave. As one of the characters says:

What’s down there in the cave is older than Satan… I

looked down into the cave last night and I heard

something laughing’’ (HM 166).

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But Mann climbs down the cave to show: ‘’whatever is there is no

match for God’’ (HM 147). He believes that his spiritual power will drive

the monster out. But Mann undergoes a change, very difficult to

eradicate. His transformation into heinous entity is horrible and

dangerous. Soon the darkness covers and settles over the town.

Telephones and clocks cease working; no food or papers arrive in the

town. Surprisingly, the outside world has forgotten Moonwell. Those who

attempt to flee from the town are driven back to it. The townspeople try

to explain logical reason behind things. For them, it may be the weather

that causes all things. When they feel something bizarre, they say that the

dark is coming out of the cave. The darkness thickens but thin silver light

emerges from Mann’s room. The whole situation is uncanny. Now bizarre

violence rules the town. The Catholic priest, Father O’ Connell and the

police man are killed violently. The father is brutally killed by his own

dogs whereas the policeman is killed by three unknown dogs. In addition

to this, loathsome and strange creatures begin to manifest themselves and

abruptly appear before people. To his horror, Craig Wilde, who is caught

in the town during the visit to his daughter, sees a strange thing in the

hotel room Mann is occupying:

It was naked. That shocked him so badly that at first it

was all he could comprehend, and then he tried to deny

what he was seeing. It couldn’t really look like a gigantic

spider crouching in the nest of the bed, thin limbs drawn

up around a swollen body that was patchy as the moon.

The patches resembled decay, but they were crawling

over the bulbous body, over it or under the skin… The

smallness of the hairless gibbous head in proportion to

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the body made the shape look even more like a spider

(HM 296- 297).

Craig is shocked when he sees a strange creature with a Mann’s

face on the body. In the meantime, Diana is held prisoner in Mrs.

Scragg’s house for opposing Mann and his preaching. While there, she

happens to see a strange vision as she watches a picture of the moor

bathed in the moonlight. A huge entity on the moon waits hungrily for

the life on the earth. It may be the same entity that is lurking in the cave.

Over the years it has lost its strength but now it is revived by Mann with

whose body it has in fact occupied. Diana feels that this entity will use

nearby missile to destroy the life on the Earth. But how can Diana being a

small human being face this cosmic calamity? It has emerged to violate

human life through darkness and violence. The only way is to remove the

darkness and to bring the light of the sun in the town. Diana begins to

sing a song in the town square:

And then the black sky burst into flames.

It was the sun, but it was like no dawn she had ever

seen. The orange light seemed to tear the blackness

apart, to flood the sky like flames on oil, turning

whiter as it claimed the sky, putting out the moon

(HM 418).

The hideous entity creeps back to the cave. At last Moonwell is

saved but many people turn blind. The darkness, which settles over the

town for a long time, reminds readers of W. H. Hodgson’s novel The

Night Land (1912). The novel depicts the condition of the earth after the

death of the sun and how a few living being witness tremendous

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darkness. In The Hungry Moon people are pitilessly bathed in the

darkness.

The Hungry Moon follows the notion of Lovecraftian fiction

which revolves around the theory of intrusion of cosmic ‘other’ into

human life. Readers can see the theory reflected in Diana’s vision of the

nebulous entity:

The moon was already dead, she saw. Water and

atmosphere had evaporated, and the globe seemed dry

and hallow as a husk in a spider’s web. Meteors still dug

into the surface, causing it to erupt in huge volcanic

craters. The bursting of the surface made her think of

corruption, life growing in decay, hatching. But that

wasn’t what terrified her, made her struggle to draw back

from the moon while there was still time. She sensed that

however dead the globe was. It harboured awareness. The

earth was being watched (HM 314).

And also she sees:

The sight of the bloated body, white as only something

that had passed all its hideous life in darkness could be,

that heaved itself over the rim of the moon… the body that

was bigger than the moon seemed to pour itself into its

tendrils, which were already merging with the moonlight.

Diana saw the light stream down to the earth, saw it touch

the ground and take shape (HM 316).

The employment of the numinous book made Lovecraftian fiction

a purely cosmic horror fiction. Such books are introduced to unlock the

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door of the ‘other’ domain. In The Hungry Moon the pamphlet by

Needham serves the purpose. It discloses history of the cave and the

‘other’. It is also observed that cosmic horror presents the darker side of

nature. The birds of the air, the beasts of the field and even pet animals

like dogs will seek the extermination of a man. The mysterious death of

the Father by his dog is shocking for, the dog gets haunted by the cosmic

‘other’. The death of a policeman by three mysterious dogs from

mysterious places evokes horror. They might be the three infernal dogs

who accompany the moon– goddess Hecate. What is horrific and worried

is the interest of the ‘other’ in shaping human beings into a hideous form.

The ‘other’ is not interested in killing human beings. It no longer loves

death. It loves life. It does not enjoy deformity but by dwelling on

deformity. It shows the miseries of the damned. It helps us to discover

smaller joys of our own lives. It draws not our blood but anxiety. This

truth, which is exposed in the novel, evokes horror. The modern horror

novelists have effectively presented this new emerging nature of horror

by metamorphosis of characters. It has been effectively presented in

Bram Stocker’s Dracula that shows metamorphosis of Lucy. In The

Hungry Moon Brian Bevan’s metamorphosis is more dangerous and

horrible after he comes into the contact of Mann. The notion of monster’s

interest in reproducing and redoubling their legacy arouses horror.

Moonwell is full of strange figures:

She noticed she was being watched… She saw the eyes

and teeth first, the jaws ripping at a piece of meat as read

and bloody as the lolling tongues… the three heads

began to snarl in unison, baring their gums like charred

gray plastic, their stained yellow teeth… they flinched

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back, whimpering and fled down the allay (HM 156-

157).

What makes The Hungry Moon a compelling read is the

employment of suspense and mystery. Campbell has skillfully interwoven

mysterious incidents to arouse horror. The incidents like death of the

Father and a policeman, the spirit of unborn child of Craig, the hideous

transformation of Bevan and his death seem to gripe the readers.

Campbell appears to be enjoying his toying with these incidents allowing

the readers to think of them. Though The Hungry Moon utilizes

Lovecraftian elements of horror, it has been infused with Campbellian

elements which make the novel a distinctive one. Paranoid world with

paranoid people is a major concern of Campbell. It furnishes his novels

mundane horror. Godwin Mann with his narrow, dogmatic and

fundamental Christianity creates a world which seems to be paranoid. All

people except few individuals sweep into this world. A comment by one

of the characters, ‘’God sent Godwin Mann to show us where we’d gone

wrong’’ (HM 114) illustrates how people have accepted Mann blindly.

The individuals, who do not fit in this paranoid world, are dishonored.

Diana is fired from her job when she refuses to sign a petition of teaching

moral and religious lessons specified by the headmaster. Germy and

Geraldine are stigmatized for selling books that supposed to be unfit in to

the paranoid world created by Mann. The postman Eustace Hill is

prohibited to perform his comedy as it is about Mann. The school

teachers have the feeling that Mann has come to the town to wipe out the

evil. The interpretation of darkness by one of the characters, ‘‘it’s a sign

that there are still a few people in Moonwell who aren’t on his side’’ (HM

235) confirms deep rooted paranoia. The religious paranoia of the people

reaches to a height when death of Father O’ Connell is commented as:

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‘’Maybe God wouldn’t have let him die that way if he’d supported

Godwin’’ (HM 208).

Undoubtedly, the amalgamation of cosmic horror and the paranoid

world, which emerges following the arrival of Mann in the town, offers

the novel a mystic as well as realistic touch. Campbell’s criticism on

human behavior renders the novel a realistic touch. The Hungry Moon

serves as the best example of Campbell’s criticism on the tendency of

inventing the supernatural as an excuse for what they do or want to do

themselves. Campbell displays this in the behavior of Mann and his

followers who abdicate responsibility for their actions by professing to be

doing God’s work. This human tendency is more dangerous than a

missile. The misuse of religion or the religious madness serves as theme

of the novel. Campbell attacks on fundamentalism or pagan attitude of

characters. He does not attack them directly but condemns them through

their utterances and deeds. The episode of burning the books belonging to

Germy’s shop by Godwin Mann and his followers speaks of Campbell’s

condemning attitude:

The evangelist picked up the largest pile of books

and led out his helpers. As soon as they’d dumped the

books in the gutter outside the shop, he emptied a tin of

lighter fuel over the books and set fire to them (HM

106).

Mann is a threat to a civilized society because of his dogmatism,

intolerance and a fanaticism. It is said that Campbell got bored with the

numerous television evangelists that rose at his time. The Hungry Moon is

the outcome of Campbell’s disgusting attitude towards evangelists.

Campbell has skillfully interwoven supernatural element with the

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religious hysteria in the novel. Mann and his followers are as

blameworthy as the supernatural evil that has invaded the town. Godwin

Mann’s arrival and blind response of the townspeople make readers

difficult to distinguish the nature of good and evil. The novel is an

account of the group of people caught up in the world where everything is

not what it appears to be. Even people of the town cannot distinguish

good and evil. Is a ritual of the cave good? Is Godwin Mann evil? Are

townspeople who are blinded evil as well? It is this deceptive nature of

good and evil makes the novel horror one. The people simply go blind at

the end of the novel because they are unable to face the truth. As the

deceptive nature of good and evil stunt readers, the focus on the children,

who are the constant victims of natural or supernatural attack, renders the

novel a different thematic approach. One of the themes, which peep

through every work of Campbell, is child as victim. The Hungry Moon

reflects the theme powerfully. The character of Andrew Bevan draws

sympathy of readers as his life gets crushed under paranoid society. The

juxtaposition of the innocent world with the paranoid world is effective.

Campbell’s children characters have to face weird and horrible situations.

They are very much aware of what goes on around them but they are

helpless. Andrew, who notices the change in his father’s behavior, is

helpless:

Whatever was wrong with his father, it had something to

do with the cave. He had seen his father creeping up there

in the moonlight, he’d felt his father growing tense when

Mr. Mann went down the rope (HM 198).

As this is not enough, Andrew happens to see a metamorphosis of

Mann that drives him to death. The depiction of Andrew’s upbringing

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that covers much part of the novel shows Campbell’s concern for children

and their upbringing.

In spite of its unmatched qualities, the novel has some limitations

and lacunas. It has been criticized by scholars and critics for its flaws. It

is commented as: ‘’a flawed work in its complexity of its plot and the

many characters Campbell has created’’ (Crawford 56). The episode of

Diana singing a song seems to be a flawed scene in the novel. The song

illuminates the whole town with the sun light and it drives the entity back

to the cave. A song is used by the novelist as a weapon to drive away the

horror element. This device seems to offer soft ending to the novel. The

Hungry Moon with its puzzling incidents arouses horror from its

beginning. Moreover, the episode of the policeman killed by three dogs is

a climax of horror. Campbell’s skill of arousing horror reflects in the

following passage:

They were dogs-mad dogs, to judge by the sounds of

snarling and cloth tearing. . . Nick saw them bring the

policeman down, one slavering red mouth burying its teeth

deep in his thigh, another ripping at his fist as he tried to

defend himself. The man screamed once, and there was

only an agonized gurgling. The next swing of the flashlight

showed the third dog on top of him, paws on his chest,

worrying is throat like a rat. He must have been as good as

dead when his free leg kicked out, his boot smashing the

flash light against the wall. Then there was darkness in the

main room, and the sounds of panting and snarling and

teeth ripping flesh (HM 288).

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Concisely, Campbell has succeeded in generating a nightmarish

and horrific atmosphere from the beginning but it seems to be collapsed

with a song of Diana. Confrontation with a horror element is one of the

powerful aspects of horror novels. The final confrontation with a

supernatural power in Campbell’s some novels seem to be mild one. It

tends to make the end shallow. The Hungry Moon, The Nameless (1981)

and The Influence have shallow endings. In an interview with the

researcher Campbell has accepted the fact:

I think it’s true of the first two – in particular I think

the ending of The Nameless is too contrived in its

resolution (and I liked the ending of the film for being

starker). But the final sentence of The Influence are

pretty bleak, I think – certainly ambiguous. The

endings I most like are the more recent ones, where I

haven’t known what the ending would be until very

late in the book – I’ve grown fond of letting novels

grow organically of themselves and not plotting in

advance (See Appendix).

While stating his opinion about the end of his novels, Campbell has

stated the important fact of horror fiction. He also talks of the qualitative

aspect of horror fiction, particularly, the horror novel. The latter part of

the statement reveals Campbellian style of writing. He has frankly

expressed that he allows novel to grow purely. It is significant that he

does not keep the novel in control so he cannot predict the end ‘until very

late’. What makes Campbell the supreme horror fiction writer is his point

of view towards horror novels. It is his approach towards his novels

naturally fulfills one of the aspects of horror novel. The unpredictable end

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is one of the distinctive characteristics of a horror novel. It is this

characteristic of the novel allures readers. One cannot predict the end of

the horror novel. In this respect horror novel differs from romance and

mystery novel in which readers can often predict the ending after the first

few pages. In horror novels the endings themselves are often vague,

sustaining the menacing atmosphere.

It is true that in some horror novels horror has been beaten or

defeated temporarily but it is not dead. The evil forces flee to lurk, to

return to attack. In Campbell’s aforementioned novels the uncontrolled

entities are fled but not destroyed. Campbell speaks of lacuna of strong

human power or he simply believes in simplicity and poignancy of

humanity. These simple devices seem to be more affecting to Campbell

than any powerful blood- shedding missile. If Campbell had ended these

novels in different ways readers would have enjoyed more horror in the

novel. Apart from these limitations, the novel is praised by S. T. Joshi:

Campbell slyly alludes to a number of classical myths as

the novel develops: the three dogs who tear apart the

town’s chief police can hardly fail to make us recall

three-headed Cerberus; the feast of human flesh that the

moon entity possessing Mann’s body serves up to the

townsfolk recalls the many such banquets in Graeco-

Roman myth; and when an already blind man gouges

out his eyes as he feels himself near the horror, we

immediately think of the blinding of Oedipus when the

truth of his actions dawns upon him (Joshi 172).

The Hungry Moon is praised for its comic situations and ambiguity.

Some scenes in the novel are laughable; the sudden religious hysteria that

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the townspeople undergo, the guilt of Brian Bevan, the leadership of

Diana all play off one another in an amusing manner. Crawford puts it in

best words:

The Hungry Moon, while admittedly a difficult novel to

read, is indeed a subtle, witty and often hilarious novel

that presents a sidelong glance at religion and nature of

good and evil, which are as ambiguous and deceptive as

the white tentacled spider that weaves his spell over the

blind people of Moonwell (Crawford 58).

In short, The Hungry Moon is one of the finest cosmic horror

novels Campbell has ever written. It might be less compelling for some

readers but the horrific effects the novel thumps on the readers are

everlasting. The following passage depicted in the novel compels readers

evoking a sense of cosmic horror:

Meteors still rained down, but caught fire in the

atmosphere. Huge continents were splitting, drifting apart

as storms picked at the world. Mountains reared up, seas

flooded into gaps that were beginning to outline continents

she could almost recognize . . . Life on earth was what the

watcher on the moon was waiting hungrily for (NH315).

The entity affects various characters and shapes them into

loathsome, spiderlike creatures whose ultimate goal is to mutilate human

race. Thus, The Hungry Moon with its peculiar dreadful atmosphere,

(something exists deep down in the cave generates horror) its theme of

religious fundamentalism, the etching of Godwin Mann’s character,

(Mann’s character is based on Billy Graham) the prevailing darkness, (it

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might be a metaphor for the mental darkness of fundamentalism) the

strange violence, and strange spiderlike creatures go on adding horror to

the novel which title is itself horrible.

Campbell’s Midnight Sun has drawn the attention of scholars and

critics as the story of the novel is woven in a strange way. The novel,

written in a flowing, rich prose style, is a superior horror novel.

2. 6. Midnight Sun (1990)

Midnight Sun appeared only three years after the debut of The

Hungry Moon on the horizon of horror fiction. The novel is welcomed

and praised as it expresses Campbell’s fascination for bizarre ghosts. The

story woven around the ice-entity compels readers. The entity, which

dwells in the deep forest, evokes horror. Campbell is a master of creating

mazes of horrors both for characters and readers. The mazes are dark,

deep and dreadful. Once entered, there is no way out and, once out, their

surreal and dreadful atmosphere linger. The aftereffects of Campbell’s

novels stick readers like a burr. Midnight Sun can be praised for its

aftereffects. One wonders when Campbell addresses the novel as: ‘’an

honorable failure’’ (Campbell 04). However, the novel ranks as the

superb horror novel as it unfolds many things under the light of cosmic

horror; a powerful depiction of the ice-entity, the insignificance of human

life, the awfulness of cosmic other, mysterious but dreadful incidents, and

visionary horror. The novel for these aspects is widely discussed.

Midnight Sun is a significant novel because it shows Campbell’s

temporary deviation from Lovecraftian cosmic horror to non-supernatural

horror.

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The first part of the novel (The Seeds) introduces an orphaned

child, Ben Sterling whose parents have recently died in a car accident.

Ben now stays with his aunt. One day Ben runs away from his aunt’s

home to Stargrave to visit the grave of his parents. Ben is brought back

home but he seems to be lost in the past of his family and in the book, Of

Midnight Sun written by his great grandfather, Edward Sterling. The book

is a collection of folk stories based on his great grandfather’s journey of

the world. Ben’s aunt dislikes the book calling it: ‘‘Nasty fairy tales, like

of those Hans Andersons, only worse’’ (MS 16). Possessed with the idea

that the book may affect Ben, she offers it to some charity. But this does

not stop Ben to conceal his interest in the book:

He lay staring up, trying to recall what he’d failed to

grasp. Surely this wasn’t yet another of the mystery

which had to wait until he was old enough. That

reminded him of Edward Sterling’s last book, of Ben’s

grandfather telling him that in order to finish it Edward

Sterling had ventured so far into the icy wastes under the

midnight sun that he’d had to be brought back more dead

than alive from a place without a name… What did he

find? Ben had wanted know (MS 19).

In addition to this, a story- Ben tells at his friend’s house during a

Halloween celebrations- underlines his impressions of Edward Sterling’s

book. The story -about remote people who try to keep away the ice-entity

by burning the fire continuously- is from Edward Sterling’s book. Ben

concludes the story with the entity invading the world after quenching of

the fire: ‘‘so that’s one story about what happens when the ice comes out

of the dark . . .’’ (MS 36).

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In the second part of the novel (Thing Overheard) Ben appears as a

successful writer of children. He is living happily with his wife Ellen

(who illustrates his books) and two children, Margaret and Johnny. The

death of the aunt takes Ben and his family to Stargrave to take the

possession of the aunt’s house located near the forest. The big house,

with immense forest at its back, is a thing of attraction for Ben. As Ben

visits the house and the forest, he grows thoughtful, isolated and

withdrawn. It seems that he has developed his interest in something. On

his second visit to the house Ben happens to see a strange scene from the

attic of the house. At this point Ben learns that his great- grandfather died

in the forest. He was found naked in the snow. Since that time the forest

has consumed many lives of trespassers. As his children have increased

their interest in the house, Ben in short time moves to live in the house.

In the third part (The Growth) of the novel the Sterling family

except Ben seems to be leading a happy life in their new house. Ben has

lost himself in the thought of the forest. The whisper of the forest makes

him feel that he and the forest have some secrets to share. As a result of

it, Ben is unable to write anything. Soon Ben finds the glade in the forest.

This must have been a place where Edward Sterling had died. This

incident offers Ben a story idea which he shares with his wife and

children:

Suppose that in the coldest places on earth the spirits of

the ice age are still there in the snow and ice, waiting to

rise again.

Not much chance of that, the way the climate’s going.

It isn’t the climate that keeps them dormant. It is the

sun.

I expect it would.

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The midnight sun, I mean. It shines so many nights

each year that they can never build up enough power to

leave the ice.

So how do they, if they do?

They do I promise you. L am not quite sure how, but I

know I have something in here… if I can just bring it

out into the open (MS 155-156).

The story idea shows his fascination towards the ice-entity that is

continuously chasing him in one or other forms since his visit to the

graveyard. Meanwhile, something during the winter awakes in the forest

that claims human lives; an unknown tourist is found frozen to death on a

Crag. Later, a postmistress mysteriously dies in the forest behind

Sterling’s house while attempting to control her dog:

She had no words to fend off her sense of the presence,

which stopped to her, a presence so cold and vast and

hungry that her blind awareness of it stopped her breath

(MS 179).

The sense of cosmic presence and its cruel appearance move Ben

to feel that something that has caused the death of Edward has awakened:

Edward Sterling’s death had been only the beginning.

The forest concealed what his death has liberated – what

had accompanied him beyond the restraint of the

midnight sun. (MS 210)

Obsessed by the forest, Ben develops into a different person. Ellen

finds Ben as distinct, frightening and psychologically disturbed. A

Christmas story told by Ben to the children moves Ellen with Fear.

Sensing danger from Ben, she decides to leave children at neighbor’s

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house. As they walk in bitter cold to the house concerned, they see a

horrible sight through the window of the house:

A thick pelt of forest covered the furniture, the carpet,

the books on the shelves… Kate and Terry and the

children were kneeling in the space between the chairs…

She wanted to believe they weren’t her friends and their

children at all, or even human… she couldn’t see their

faces (MS 300).

Ellen and children have to return home. The whole town is frozen

and deserted. Ben now realizes that his return to the Stargrave has

reawakened the entity that made him to run from Norwich to Stargrave; it

first emerged in the graveyard to summon him. Then, suddenly, Ben

changes and decides to confront the entity: ‘‘the only light he wanted to

see now, too late, was the light in Ellen’s and the Children’s eyes’’ (MS

319). He walks into the middle of the forest with two containers of gas oil

and pours the oil over himself, and lights a match.

The epilogue of the novel exposes concealed things. More than two

hundred people died following the death of Ben. Ellen and children have

escaped the disaster and now attempt to carry on with their lives. The

epilogue also suggests that Ellen is confused about the whole affair and

the cause of Ben’s scarification. It becomes clear that the ice – entity has

been defeated or has taken shelter where it had concealed.

Midnight Sun, for Campbell, is a Lovecraftian fiction. In an

interview with David Mathew Campbell stated: ‘’Midnight Sun was

going back to Lovecraft’s roots rather than my own: that cosmic vision

was something that I found in Lovecraft.’’ (Campbell 04). Midnight

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Sun becomes a powerful and haunting novel as it exposes cosmic

‘other’ in a Lovecraftian manner. In a letter, which S. T. Joshi cites in

his book, Lovecraft has pointed out the principle lying at the root of his

fiction:

Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise

that common human laws and interests have no validity

or significance in the vast cosmos at- large… To

achieve the essence of real externality, whether time or

space or dimension, one must forget that local

attributes of a negligible and temporary race called

mankind, have any existence at all (Joshi 23).

Thus, Campbell tuning his voice with Lovecraft’s speaks of

vulnerability and insignificance of human race which is a prey of

cosmic ‘other’. Campbell’s concern of human vulnerability and

insignificance is reflected in the expression of Ben:

Ever since we’ve believed, we’ve progressed beyond

our ancestors because they thought the darkness hid

something so alien that they peopled it with gods and

monsters and demons… But sooner or later it had to

waken, and then--- (MS 283).

There are a number of incidents in which cosmic other shows its

existence in one or the other form. On one occasion Ben sees a figure at

window of his room:

The figure which had risen from the forest had lifted a

pale hand and was pointing at him… and its hand

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disappeared into the snow… the face breaking out in

patterns like frost. . . (MS 313).

Campbell here speaks of the historicity of horror and its

inevitability in the present. Ben’s obsession can be understood in terms of

familial association of horror. The repressed ‘other’ emerges in a still

more bizarre and dangerous form and Ben’s return to the town causes it

to erupt in a still more explosive manner. Something, which is beyond

human control, enacts so strongly that the whole town comes under its

possession. As Ellen experiences:

It showed her more of the deadened landscape, the

deserted square, the darkened shops sealed by ice, the

tangles of footprints like a memorial to the townsfolk,

preserving the pattern of a dance… (MS 302).

This passage displays mysterious, loathsome performance of the

cosmic entity. Horror coated with mysterious incidents and events arrest

the attention of readers. Along with this, the employment of mystical

books dreadfully exposes the onset of cosmic other. The book, Of

Midnight Sun by Edward Sterling reminds readers of the Pamphlet by

Needham. It seems that Campbell is still interested using Lovecraftian

device of mythical books. The book exposes the forth onset of ‘other’

which has long been waiting to mutilate human race. The stories in the

book mostly expose human defeat by cosmic ‘other’. However, the end of

the novel is different than that of the story depicted in the book. At the

end of the novel Ben uses fire as a weapon to vanish the entity. He has to

sacrifice for it. This shows Ben’s transformation and it seems that he

sides with human race. Throughout the novel he has been on the side of

ice – entity which possesses him. Then suddenly, he frees himself from

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its influence and sides with human race. Campbell’s many characters,

which are possessed by supernatural elements, are either hostile or

indifferent to mankind. Christopher Kelly in The Doll Who Ate His

Mother Godwin Mann in The Hungry Moon and Jane in Claw (1983) are

infatuated by supernatural elements. They go against welfare of mankind.

These possessed characters fail to understand humanity, sympathy and

love. Jane attains the height of cruelty when she smashes her own baby’s

head on the wall. It is significant to note that Ben is the only character of

Campbell that undergoes the positive transformation. He does what the

remote people in the story had failed to do. Ben ignites himself to quench

the entity. Thus, Campbell shows Ben’s transformation from cosmicism

to ground realities. Godwin Mann’s transformation from normal to

abnormal physical state is a supernatural threat for human beings. Ben

twice undergoes transformation; he gets possessed by the entity and sides

with the entity. Hence, he is not pleased with his family’s futile actions

and continues to urge them to prepare for the imminent transformation

that is to overtake them if they yield to the ice-entity. Suddenly, he feels

sympathy for his family members and he confronts the entity to immolate

himself.

Midnight Sun shows Campbell’s inclination towards Campbellian

fiction. It seems that Campbell has shown his inclination to mundane

horror. Human psyche and abnormal behavior always draw attention of

Campbell. Consequently, human beings with paranoia and abnormal

behavior have proved themselves as shudder-mongering icons of horror

in Campbell’s fiction. It shows Campbell’s interest in men than in

monsters. According to S. T. Joshi the immolation of Ben stands for two

things; the rejection of ‘chilling cosmicism’ by Campbell, and

‘declaration of independence from Lovecraft’:

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It is clear that Ben’s conversion is really Campbell’s

own. Perhaps, then, Midnight Sun in a sense represents

Campbell’s final declaration of independence of

Lovecraft: he uses Lovecraftian cosmicism as vivid

imagery, but comes down firmly on the side of humanity

when all is said and done. The ice – entity Ben Sterling

wishes usher in to the world is the fatally alluring but

chillingly remote cosmicism that Campbell has finally

rejected (Joshi 41).

However, in an interview with Michael McCarthy and Mark

McLaughlin Campbell has admitted that he is still under the influence of

Lovecraft and his cosmic horror:

He remains one of the crucial writers in the field. . . Few

writers in the field are more worth reading; certainly I

find different qualities on different occasions. I recently

read ‘The Outsider’ to my wife to both our pleasures. I

still try to capture the Lovecraftian sense of cosmic awe

in some of my tales… (Campbell 02).

It becomes clear that Campbell has still fascination for

Lovecraftian cosmic horror. It is true that Joshi’s statement of Campbell’s

deviation from cosmic horror is based on the novels published up to

2001. It is also true that after Midnight Sun Campbell did not handle

cosmic horror in his novels published up to 2001. But the novel The

Darkest Part of the Woods published in 2002 shows Campbell’s

inclination to Lovecraft and his cosmic horror. The Darkest Parts of the

Woods centers on the Price family and the story of the novel is set in the

imagery town of Brichester located within the Severn Valley. Lennox, the

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author of the scholarly work, the Mechanics of Delusion, comes from the

United States to study a strange outbreak of dementia in the area. But

Lennox gets fascinated with the dense wood. He is killed but the forest

continues to fascinate the Price family. It has something secretive

initiated by supernatural power and it appears to manifest itself in a

bizarre form. Sam, a grandson of Lennox, while walking in the forest,

comes across a bizarre scene awaking horror:

He limped between the gesticulating trees and stepped

into the open. At once the glittering mass stirred and then

surged into the air. It was a multitude of insects that

swooped and darted in patterns so intricate he was robbed

of thought and breathe. . . Then the tree across the clearing

swayed together covering much of the sun, and the swarm

soared back over the mound and into the depths of the

woods. As he lost sight of them he thought they were

shining brighter yet with colours he’d never seen, even in

dreams (Woods 39-40).

Ben also experiences the strange thing when he goes to the forest:

Snowflakes luminous with moonlight were dancing

beneath the trees.

How could it be snowing there and not above

the forest? . . . It seemed to him that the silent

luminous dance was constantly about to form a

pattern in the air… and there was no sign of snow in

the air (MS 103).

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The Darkest Parts of the Woods bears some resemblance to

Midnight Sun. In the former novel the name Selcouth refers to one

Nathaniel Selcouth, a sixteenth-century magician. He built an abode in

the Brichester woods as he wanted to create a servant who would mediate

between him and the limits of the world, both spiritual and physical. This

mission of Selcouth is somewhat similar to the mission of Edward

Sterling who went into the dense forest to find out ice-entity. In short,

both have attraction for things obscure and astonishing and have written

books that unlock the door of the ‘other.’ Both the novels present

character’s journey in the depth of the woods either to carry out or to

prevent the sinister plans of the cosmic ‘other’.

The comparison of these two novels- despite the wide gap in their

dates of publication- focuses on Campbell’s fascination for Lovecraftian

cosmic horror. It becomes clear that Campbell has not deviated from

Lovecraftian cosmic horror. It is still a thing of fascination for Campbell.

He has also employed cosmic horror in his novels published after 2006.

In an interview with the researcher Campbell stated:

I think there are hints of it in Thieving Fear – the

Victorian sorcerer Arthur Pendemon in this novel

attempts to conjure up cosmic forces by a variety of

means – and quite a few readers have found echoes in

Creatures of the Pool of Innsmouth, although

reconceived in a very Liverpudlian setting in terms of

Liverpool history (See Appendix).

It can be pointed out that Ramsey Campbell is a versatile writer of

horror fiction. He is not restricted himself to the particular type of horror-

supernatural, non-supernatural and cosmic horror. His enormous horror

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fiction produced up to the date is a laboratory with old and new icons of

horror. The field of horror fiction is, for Campbell, a field of joy. The

following statement, which Campbell made in an interview with the

researcher, shows his interest and contribution to the field: ‘’I do often

return to themes if I think I have more to say about them’’ (See

Appendix). It also becomes clear that cosmic horror and its icon is not a

shunned case for Campbell.

Midnight Sun powerfully blends many themes around the

mechanism of cosmic horror; a life of modern man under the shadow of

horror, conflict between family members, the inevitable struggle of a

modern man to understand and to fight against supernatural influences.

What makes the novel so lively is his employment of middle class

characters. Moreover, Campbell’s characters are from urban life with

dignified professional background such as writers, critics etal. They are

gradually drawn under the shadow of the supernatural power. The power,

which is lurking dull in the deserted places, comes to life as it possesses

them. As a result of it, the protagonist loses his ability. Ben’s possession

is so powerful that he cannot write:

As he sat at the desk each morning and gazed into the

forest, he felt as though an inspiration or a vision

longer than he could imagine was hovering just out of

reach (MS 136).

The predicament of Ben Sterling is similar to the predicament of

Alan Knight, the protagonist of the novel Claw published in 1983 under

the pseudonym Jay Ramsey. This supernatural horror novel is the story of

a family; Liza and Alan Knight and their daughter Anna. The horror in

the novel really begins when a crime novelist, Alan Knight brings a

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crafted metal claw (actually given to him by the anthropologist, David

Marlow from Nigeria) to England with him. Knight had been warned by

Marlow to hand over the claw to the Foundation for African studies.

Since the Foundation feels no urgency in the matter, the claw is kept in

the house of Knight in Norwich. As an effect of the claw, Alan’s writing

does not proceed. He, who went to Africa for the background of his next

novel, finds himself unable to give documentary vision to his perception:

Alan sat at his desk and gazed out of the window. A

steamy whitish sky pressed down on sea, trapping the

heat in his room. . . Half a mile away he could see a strip

of beach, and on it what was either a reddish piece of

driftwood or someone badly sunburnt. The stereo

speakers on either side of his desk were playing the

Goldberg Variations, but despite the glittering stream of

music, he felt restless. He couldn’t write (Claw 31).

Like The Hungry Moon, this novel focuses Campbell’s

philosophical and social views. In Midnight Sun the supernatural basis is

only a rather a crude reason for the display of increasing tensions between

family members. Broken human relationship acquires a special space and

place in the fiction of Ramsey Campbell. The broken and parted

relationship of Campbell’s parents serves as the backdrop for his fiction.

In Nazareth Hill father-daughter relationship turns into enmity. In

Midnight Sun Ben’s behavior shatters the loving and warmth familial

relationship turning it cool and distant. The following passage skillfully

etches the familial broken relationship:

Ellen swung around and almost went sprawling. He was

only a few faces behind her. As soon as their met, he

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gave her an apologetic smile whose tentativeness made

into a plea, but how could she respond to that when the

trail of his footprints indicated that he had been dancing

behind her. Weaving a pattern of steps in the snow? She

was furious with herself for having failed to be aware of

his approach (MS 296).

Campbell is wholly and avowedly concerned with human

relationships. The supernatural is, for Campbell, a cause for human

beings reactions to each other and to a society.

To sum up, Midnight Sun will be remembered as a memorable

horror novel as it is enriched with fluidity of prose, sensitive

characterization, and speed technique of narration. Moreover, the

shudder-mongering incident of Ben’s scarification makes this novel

unique one in the history of weird fiction. What makes the novel more

memorable is the evocation of the natural landscape, emerging of horror

from the ancient world, and a background of cosmic horror against which

the characters appear to struggle in vain. Everything in this lengthy novel

is remarkable. Language, style, events, and incidents contribute to arouse

horror that Campbell weaves around a human-eating form of primitive

snow. In short, both Midnight Sun with the ice-entity and Leiber’s novel

Our Lady of Darkness (1977) with the smoke ghost have surely enriched

the modern horror fiction.

2. 7. Similarities and Disparities:

The Hungry Moon and Midnight Sun are purely cosmic horror

novels as they both introduce cosmic ‘other’. Mysterious events,

unexpected incidents, unresolved endings, possessed protagonists,

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explicit violence, violent Nature, and over all insignificance of human

beings make these novels cosmic horror novels. Campbell introduces the

cosmic evil not at the beginning of the novel but somewhere middle in

the novel. But his story line offers a sense of evil and foreboding from the

beginning of the novels.

The Hungry Moon and Midnight Sun have modern settings on the

background of cosmic horror. The former is set in Moonwell and the

latter in Stargrave. These two novels demonstrate Campbell’s ability to

exploit the narrative benefits of small towns. The names of the respective

cities are fine blending of the space and the earth. The Moon and Star

stand for space whereas well and grave associate with human beings. In

an excellent manner, Campbell exhibits conflict between space entities

and human beings. Though these towns are imaginary, they are far more

advanced than the ancient towns of Lovecraft. They represent the modern

world with phones, cars, newspapers, and hotels. Apart from cosmic

horror, these novels present the small town horror which Stephen King

practiced in his horror fiction. Moonwell and Stargrave appear to be

menaced on several fronts. These towns become victim of the pre-

existing menace and display human feebleness. In short, Campbell has

joined the array of horror writers who use the small town as a setting for

mechanism/icon of horror.

Campbell observes the role of women as they roll in the nest of

horror amid the possessed, obsessed and neurotic people. Significantly,

they either lose their consciousness or preferred to be rolled in the stream

of horror or they oppose to it standing firmly on the ground of humanity.

Diana Kramer and Ellen Sterling are women of consciousness. They act

as normal human beings in the crucial and horrific situations. As the

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situation around them worsens changing everybody and everything, they

remain firm. Diana saves the town and its people by driving back the

entity to the cave where it had been crawling. Ellen Sterling tries her

utmost to keep her children away from possessed Ben. Campbell’s chief

women characters now stand as protectors. Thus, Campbell shows a

change that take place in women – a change from preys to protectors.

Midnight Sun presents visionary horror that appears in the work of

Algernon Blackwood. Omnipotent and Omnipresence of visionary horror,

which is quite different from real horror of being pursued, is dispersed in

Midnight Sun. Although there is no sign of snow in the air, Ben sees the

dance of snowflakes. It is the perfect example of visionary horror.

However, the mysterious but cruel and disgusting events in The Hungry

Moon arouse horror. The incidents of merciless deaths of the priest and

the policeman send a chilling pain in the hearts of the readers.

Campbell shows a transformation of character on the background

of horror. The transformation is twofold; the physical transformation and

the psychological transformation. Godwin Mann and Andrew Bevan

undergo physical transformations. It is their heinous form, in which they

appear after coming into a contact of supernatural power, evokes horror.

Additionally, the transformation of Amy Priestley into a witch is the

climax of horror suggesting the power of supernatural over human

beings. What worries Campbell is the second type of transformation

which some of his characters undergo. This is most horrific

transformation as it denotes a change in the psyche of a character. Peter

Grace, Oswald Priestley, Ben Sterling and countless other characters

change from men to monsters. It is their monstrousness adds to the horror

novel a dark color of macabre. The only positive transformation is the

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transformation of Ben Sterling. He travels from negative transformation

to positive one. His final confrontation with the cosmic power and his

scarification draw sympathy of readers.

Campbell’s employment of language is outstanding as it creates

horror. His language is not informative just to denote what happens to his

men and women and how they are victims of horrors. It is an image-

evoking language. In other words, an image- loaded language creates

everlasting effects of horror. The Hungry Moon abounds with such a type

of language:

The van swung round the curve, and both she

(Geraldine) and Jeremy cowered back in their seats,

gasping, as the headlights lit up what was standing in the

middle of the road, thrusting forward his white eyeless

face that bore a gaping smile, its outstretched arms

touching the trees on both sides of the road . . . its long,

oval body the colour of a dead fish, its penis dangling like

a withered umbilical cord down one fleshless leg. It only

smiled more widely, a smile that totally devoid of

emotion on the flat, shiny, featureless face, and let go of

the trees, ready to reach for the van with its huge splayed

hands (HM 222).

Though Campbell is gifted with an image-loaded language, his

mere ability to frighten readers through a simple language proves his

mastery over language. Campbell does it very effectively in Midnight

Sun:

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Perhaps he (Ben) was seeing only ice and snow . . .

Certainly, thick snow was dancing just within the

glade, though it appeared to be rising triumphantly

from the ground rather than falling from the sky, which

it bolted out. Within the snow, or forming from it, or

both, something else had taken shape . . . He could see

that it was perfectly symmetrical, it must have eyes on

every side to see the world into which it was emerging.

All this was only hint of its nature, he thought numbly.

It was using the snow to hint at himself (MS 211- 212).

This passage is a fine amalgamation of atmospheric, cosmic, and

supernatural horror. It evokes a sense of existence of paranormal element

waiting to emerge more powerfully in the human world.

2 .8. General observations:

A close and deep reading of these novels highlight certain things

that may help to place Campbell in the legacy of horror fiction. Firstly,

Campbell follows the pattern of horror novels. Prologues, epilogues,

haunted and shattered but vulnerable individuals carry on and maintain

horrific atmosphere throughout the novels. Secondly, the idea of horror

conventions and icons- spirits, ghosts, monsters, witches and cosmic

icons-have been borrowed by Campbell from earlier horror literature,

mainly, from gothic and Lovecraftian fiction. Graphic and strong

violence depicted in the novels enhance the effect of the supernatural

power. Thirdly, a chain of supernatural events Campbell set in the novels

add to horror and it also speaks of his closeness to the traditional gothic

and horror fiction.

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But what differentiates him from gothic novelists is his modern

setting of the novels. This modern setting is utilized to focus on the

matter of reality and to denote the philosophy of Campbell. Reality is, for

Campbell, an illusion, Thus, Campbell’s novels express his philosophy of

horror making him a perfect and suitable living horror fiction writer who

has a keen eye on evil things and who longs for social welfare. Thus,

horror fiction is, for Campbell, not an escapist fantasy; it is a social

history.

A general study of horror fiction denotes its interest in main three

themes; incest, insignificance of human life, and social concern. In a way

or other horror fiction deals with these themes so as to link itself with

psychological and social concern. Campbell handles the theme of incest

in the novel To Wake the Dead effectively thereby linking himself with

psychological concerns which gothic, post- gothic and modern novelists

have put before readers through familiar icons of horror. Insignificance of

human life and depiction of distorted human life also remain at the core

of these novels. Thus, Campbell prefers to amble within paved compass

of horror fiction at the earlier stage of his career as a novelist.

In the midst of supernatural entities and events Campbell’s chief

concern of people’s paranoia peeps through the novels. His paranoid

protagonists frequently occur in the selected novels except in Midnight

Sun. The reader is left uncertain whether their paranoia is original or

rendered by supernatural phenomena. Certainly, his paranoid protagonists

and antagonists offer the novels non-supernatural horror Campbell’s

inclination to the internal ‘other’ is exhibited in the novels and paranoia is

an incarnation of the internal ‘other’. It can be understood that

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Campbell’s mind was shifting from supernatural horror to non-

supernatural horror.

Campbell’s technique is very cinematic. A sudden shift from image

to image resembles quick cutting of cinematic narrative. Each sentence

conveys one or more images in a rapid succession: ‘’There was

something in the dark. Don’t think I’ve gone mad, Diana, but it spoke to

me’’ (HM 259). And: ‘’Oswald’s toecap lifted a fragment of gravel,

which clattered ahead of him and was extinguished like an ember. At that

moment, up beneath the oak tree that was fingering its own darkness on

the grass, something moved and then was motionless’’ (NH 64). What

all these suggest that Campbell deals with pre-existence of the ‘other.’

It can be stated that has linked himself to the new theme which

rested in the world of horror fiction around or shortly after 1945. The

theme of the invasion of the ‘other’ into the human world and human

body dominated the world of horror fiction after 1945. Horror fiction

during this time showed a withdrawal of human beings into nothingness

pointing out that the human world is at the mercy of the ‘other’ and it is

not at all safe. The existence of the ‘other’, its silent waiting for a prey, a

chain of mysterious events, and appalling endings make these novels the

best horror novels. His characters and protagonists are normal human

beings who find horrible mental and material universe in and around

them. Campbell has become successful to take his readers back to the

gothic world and the world of Lovecraft.

Campbell’s concern for a modern man gets strengthened as his

writing progresses. Though Campbell deals with supernatural horror, the

four novels discussed in this chapter suggest Campbell’s interest in

internal ‘other’ and it is reflected in characters like Godwin Mann and

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Oswald Priestly. It is significant to note that Campbell moves from

cosmic and supernatural horror to mundane horror. Campbell presents

this shifting distinctively and powerfully that distinguishes him from his

contemporaries and his mentor Lovecraft. In Lovecraftian fiction

phenomena plays more important role than characters whereas for

Campbell the human characters are the sole focus of the horrific

situations. Campbell tends towards depicting horror which is based on

human activities of middle class people. It seems that Campbell is taking

interest in crudely physical horror emerges from the mutilation done to

human beings.

The novels discussed in the next chapter arouse horror revolving

around a single character. Paranoid and mentally disturbed serial killers

appear in the fictional world of Campbell. These serial killers are

perfectly modern as they have accustomed to progress of the world.

Moreover, they utilize the invented devices for their cruel purposes.

Paranoid serial killers associate their cruel deeds to the cause of social

and family welfare. Such killers appear in The Face That Must Die

(1976) and in The Count of Eleven (1990). But the most dangerous serial

killer appears in recently published novel Secret Story (2006). Thus,

Campbell has utilized serial killers as icons of horror thereby linking him

to the modern and post-modern horror fiction writers. Campbell

brilliantly and beautifully vivifies any mechanism/icon of horror that

appeals to him. The urban horror is not an exception to this. The One Safe

Place (1996) focuses on urban horror exposing the bitter reality with

which human beings are quite familiar. Thus, Campbell’s temporary

deviation from the traditional concept of horror, his imagination,

elements, and mechanisms/icons of horror root into the new path of

horror emerged and became popularized during 1960 with the publication

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of Psycho. Hence, the next chapter deals with Mundane Horror. The

novels selected for discussion in the next chapter have Campbell’s own

voice.