It's sad that the idea doesn't really work in Poole's hands. I would have thought that he might have had more interest in the authors who did fight in WW1 (Saki, Tolkien, Lewis) and how it influenced the darker parts of their work.
that would have definitely been a better way to go!
or looking at horror tropes in the work of people like Remarque, etc. like, there's various ways to go, but the idea that wwI was the start of the horror genre just doesn't make sense.
the current horror i see/imagine these days comes from reading Octavia Butler this past year or so — precisely because her *Seeds* books seem so plausible from where society is right now. And a less pronounced fear from Cormac McCarthy's *The Road* has stuck.
It's sad that the idea doesn't really work in Poole's hands. I would have thought that he might have had more interest in the authors who did fight in WW1 (Saki, Tolkien, Lewis) and how it influenced the darker parts of their work.
that would have definitely been a better way to go!
or looking at horror tropes in the work of people like Remarque, etc. like, there's various ways to go, but the idea that wwI was the start of the horror genre just doesn't make sense.
Your point on the connection between Lovecraft and Wells, though, got me to thinking- the Old Ones aren't that far removed from Moreau's beasts...
the current horror i see/imagine these days comes from reading Octavia Butler this past year or so — precisely because her *Seeds* books seem so plausible from where society is right now. And a less pronounced fear from Cormac McCarthy's *The Road* has stuck.
I think genre wise those would both be thought of more as dystopia...though there's always blurring at the edges! (and I still haven't read The Road!)
i had wondered if you'd think it derivative from Butler.
Does he even reference "The Great War and Modern Memory"? ... but it wouldn't really support his thesis, so probably not.
He mentions it a couple of times, but doesn’t do much with it.