Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn

I chose to read some stories from Kwaidan this week. I read The Story of Mimi-Hashi-Hoichi, Diplomacy, Of a Mirror and a Bell, Jikininki,Mujina, and Rokura-Kubi. While I do my best to stay away from horror in any form, (novel, movie, haunted houses) from what I have seen and read it seems that most horror stories today try to scare people more through disgust and gore than through suspense and an actual scary story line. These short stories however did not use gore to try and scare the reader at all. This may be attributed to the fact that these stories were merely meant to be a recording of Japanese horror stories not to actually scare anyone. I can imagine when these stories were actually being told in their original setting that they may have been more "gored up" to get the point across more effectively.

My favorite story from the ones I read was Mimi-Hashi-Hoichi. Even though these stories lacked in any super descriptive details and were just bare stories, this particular story seriously freaked me out. The idea of being blind(extremely vulnerable) and thinking that you are performing music for a room full of hospitable people when in actuality you are sitting outdoors in a cemetery surrounded by glowing flame spirits who want to hurt you is terrifying. The ending where the spirit comes and rips the ears off of the old man while the old man just sits there meditating was the scariest scene out of any of the stories I read in my opinion. 

Another one of the stories that I really enjoyed was the Rokura-Kubi. I have a vietnamese friend who had told me about these creatures that have detachable heads that we had seen in a movie, so actually reading the story for myself was really exciting.

Monster Island by David Wellington

I chose to do the alternative reading this week which was David Wellington's Monster Island.
I have never read a novel in this format before and it was an interesting experience. Because each "chapter" is written separately as a blog post, each chapter seems to be a short story by itself. This makes for a fast paced book that really keeps your attention.

Although I only had time to make it through the first two sections I was very intrigued and will certainly be going back to the rest of it. While it certainly isn't a super well written literary piece it is fun to read. There is constant action and lots of intertwining story lines. It will jump from one character to another with no evident connection, but the story lines slowly come come closer until the 2 characters are interacting with each other. This happened with the main character and the half human half zombie character.

This half human half zombie character has without a doubt been my favorite part of this story so far. It is a point of view that I have never encountered before. The point of view of a zombie story is always a human who is caught in the middle of spread of zombies, slashing through them without question. While that more common point of view is found in the story and the mind of zombie character is not technically completely zombie it was still sort of refreshing to get a new perspective in scenario I've heard a hundred times.

I also found it interesting that some of the story takes place in Africa. Every zombie story I have ever heard or seen has either taken place in the US or in Europe somewhere. In the story in mentions that the third world nations who had already been in turmoil and civil war were the only ones who were prepared for what happened. Theses countries already had large stockpiles of guns and ammunition, and were used to constant combat in there own backyards. I had honestly never thought about what would happen in other areas of the world during a zombie apocalypse.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I attempted to read this book in high school and remember losing interest within the first 2 chapters. I was expecting the same experience this time but was surprised. Frankenstein was one of the original Gothic horror stories. Its has all of the archetypes of a gothic novel including  the virgin maiden (Frankensteins adopted sister), the tyrant (Frankenstein's creation), and of course the hero (Frankenstein).

 I found the relationship between Frankenstein and his creature particularly appealing. I have heard the basic story of Frankenstein 100 times and in my mind I always pictured Frankenstein's creation as the heartless, dumb, monster; and pictured Frankenstein as a victim. After reading the story I realize this is not the case at all. Frankenstein creates a living creature that is so hideous that no one will even give him a chance to be a good person, and then on top of this Frankenstein refuses to give love to, communicate with, or acknowledge  his creation in any way besides condemning him.

This book makes you question what really defines a monster. Is a monster just someone/something that is physically inhuman, ugly, or gross? Or maybe a monster is someone who is more emotionally and psychologically inhuman and ugly.

The creation is always referred to as the monster because of his appearance and his arguably understandable response(murder) to the way people are treating him. It seems to me though that Frankenstein is far more monster like; he gives life to something and refuses to give the creature any chance of living a happy or at all satisfying life. Even when he has the opportunity and is in the process of making a mate for the creature he changes his mind at the last moment. He has basically created a creature to be tortured and miserable for as long as it lives.

Something else that I noticed different in the book than from what I have always heard was that Frankenstein's creation was not only capable of speaking, but was extremely well spoken. I have always pictured the creation in my head as a grunting fool who couldn't form any words, and this was certainly not the case in the book.