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Serial killer novels?
- Thread starter CattiGuen
- Start date
MonkeyCatcher
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Haha - where has he gone anyways? Given up?Stewart said:
Doug Johnson
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MonkeyCatcher said:
Nope. I'm still here. I still believe that more people would enjoy Silence of The Lambs than American Pyscho. I still believe that Hitler enjoyed killing people and that Mien Kampf is written entirely from the point of view of someone who enjoys killing people. Why haven't you read American Psycho?
Doug Johnson
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MonkeyCatcher said:
No, but I am saying that Simon & Schuster refused to publish it and that they know something about the best way to tell a story.
"whose graphic descriptions of sexual brutality led Simon & Schuster to cancel publication at the last minute.
The cancellation, which came after the book had gone through final editing and legal checks, set off a furor, with some people in publishing contending that Simon & Schuster had been guilty of editorial cowardice and even censorship while others said the publishing house had merely shown commendable good taste."
http://www.tabula-rasa.info/Horror/AmericanPsychoFiles.html
I'm also saying that in spite of all the furor it caused, American Psycho still isn't a 100% realistic first person story of a serial killer. It is satirical.
"What's rarely said in all the furor over this novel is that it's a satire, " --Henry Bean, Los Angeles Times Book Review
I think that when Bret Easton Ellis set out the tell the first person story of a serial killer, he discovered what I’ve suggested: the story needs some context, some empathy, a contrasting point of view, some satire or something: some relief from the reality. Otherwise, most people won’t find it enjoyable.
In summary, I’m saying that Simon & Schuster knows something about telling a story and that Mr. Ellis was right not to make his novel 100% realistic.
Doug Johnson
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drmjwdvm said:
Thanks. I like a good debate and I didn't go anywhere. (I just have a wife who thinks I should spend time with her instead of talking about serial killers on the Internet.)
She's probably right, but life is short. You gotta make time for both.Doug Johnson
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Stewart said:
Are you suggesting that there are no similarities between serial killers and mass murderers. That, for example, a clinical paper on serial killers would never cite a clinical paper on mass murders?
Shade
New Member
Doug Johnson said:
I know you haven't read American Psycho, Doug, so I won't hit you over the head with this point, but, although the novel is most definitely satirical, the violence is all presented extremely graphically and unironically. The novel is not a satire of serial killers but a satire of the 1980s me-generation, its obsession with money, status and the surface of things. There is no "empathy" or "contrasting point of view" in the novel: it's all from the POV of Patrick Bateman, written with (from his point of view) great sincerity and directness, and it's really down to the reader to decide, from some clues in the text, what it's all really about.
Anyway this is all so much marsh gas. This all came from my saying on page 1 of the thread that a narrator doesn't have to sympathetic for a book to be enjoyable, just interesting. I'm surprised anyone disagrees with that principle.
Shade
New Member
Doug Johnson said:
Stewart will no doubt respond in his own inimitable way, but for me the reason that mentioning Mein Kampf was risible is because, as I said earlier, it's not a novel, and this is a thread about serial killer novels. Mein Kampf is a bad and misleading 'example' to cite because it's written by someone we know meant everything that he wrote, literally. A novel, on the other hand, we approach knowing it to be a work of fiction, so there is an inbuilt knowledge that the author and the narrator - or the characters, or the acts described, however foul - are not the same thing. There is an essential distance. Mein Kampf has no relevance to this discussion so your question above is a dead end.
Doug Johnson
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My point, which has evolved more into a theme as this thread has wandered, is that when you discuss the darkest, evilest things, there needs to be some perspective and empathy for victims. Otherwise, it’s nauseating.
When mentioning the name of the most evil man ever, perspective and empathy become more important than ever. My point is that sociopaths are psychologically incapable of that perspective and that empathy. (The only reason that I mentioned the most evil man ever is because he is the only sociopath I can think of who was crazy enough to write about his desire to kill. Most realize it’s something they should keep to themselves.)
I believe that it’s possible to discuss Hitler’s personality without being disrespectful to his millions of victims: as long as you have perspective and empathy for the victims. Hitler shared many psychological characteristics with serial killers. Here are three: he enjoyed killing (he was a sadist), he was a narcissist and he had no empathy for his victims.
The narcissism makes the sociopath incapable of perspective. It’s all about him. By definition, the lack of empathy, makes them incapable of empathy. You can see it in Hitler’s title: Mien Kampf, my struggle. In his mind, it’s all about him: which is wrong; his millions of victims need a voice too. In his mind, his victims are obstacles to be overcome, which is not only wrong, it’s nauseating.
So, my point, is that if you want to explore the darkest, most disgusting aspects of human psychology – people who receive sexual gratification from murder – you need perspective and empathy: a sociopath by definition is incapable of both. Since serial killers are sociopaths, there comes a point where listening to them becomes nauseating.
When mentioning the name of the most evil man ever, perspective and empathy become more important than ever. My point is that sociopaths are psychologically incapable of that perspective and that empathy. (The only reason that I mentioned the most evil man ever is because he is the only sociopath I can think of who was crazy enough to write about his desire to kill. Most realize it’s something they should keep to themselves.)
I believe that it’s possible to discuss Hitler’s personality without being disrespectful to his millions of victims: as long as you have perspective and empathy for the victims. Hitler shared many psychological characteristics with serial killers. Here are three: he enjoyed killing (he was a sadist), he was a narcissist and he had no empathy for his victims.
The narcissism makes the sociopath incapable of perspective. It’s all about him. By definition, the lack of empathy, makes them incapable of empathy. You can see it in Hitler’s title: Mien Kampf, my struggle. In his mind, it’s all about him: which is wrong; his millions of victims need a voice too. In his mind, his victims are obstacles to be overcome, which is not only wrong, it’s nauseating.
So, my point, is that if you want to explore the darkest, most disgusting aspects of human psychology – people who receive sexual gratification from murder – you need perspective and empathy: a sociopath by definition is incapable of both. Since serial killers are sociopaths, there comes a point where listening to them becomes nauseating.
Doug Johnson
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Shade said:
It's risable, because he was the most evil man ever. Without perspective and empathy for his victims, the mere mention of his name is nauseating.
Which, is of course, my point. With the proper perspective and empathy, anything can be discussed. Without it, some things are inherently nauseating.
Doug Johnson
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Shade said:
There's a difference between "graphic" and realistic."
Via google
He tortures and kills his victims in a variety of ways which are often outrageous, using a wide variety of implements ranging from guns and knives to power tools and live rats, amongst others.
"Outrageous," isn't realistic. Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy etc. had favourite ways of killing, which they thought about over and over, practised, refined, etc. They never bounced around from knives, to guns to "rats." In fact, the method of killing is part of the signature, what they find arousing and receive sexual gratification from. They wouldn't change, unless they thought something different would provide even more gratification.
So I still believe that when using a serial killer narrator, there inevitably comes a point where the writer must:
1. change perspective
2. be unrealistic
3. or nauseate people.
Personally, I have no interest in being nauseated or an unrealistic serial killer. That's why I recommended, and still do, not worrying too much about a story 100% from the serial killer's point of view.
Doug Johnson
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Shade said:
I don't disagree, and didn't realize that my book recommendation would be analyzed word for word like the Da Vinci Code.
If I had, I would've worded it more accurately: there needs to be some sympathy for innocent people who are murdered, and serial killers are psychologically incapable of providing that.I'm actually writing a book where about 2% is told from the serial killer's point of view. Hopefully, the other 98% provides what is missing from the 2%. I guess we'll see.
Bountyhunter
New Member
Intensity by Dean Koontz
The serial killer is an interesting individual, and it's from his POV a lot of the book.
The serial killer is an interesting individual, and it's from his POV a lot of the book.
MonkeyCatcher
New Member
Doug - your posts seem to be wandering all over the place, but I will try and get my head around them in order to reply.
I have it on my TBR list actually, I just haven't gotten around to reading it. Horror isn't really my thing - I find most horror to be boring and cliche.Doug Johnson said:
This is probably the weakest arguement that I have seen from you yet. There are dozens of examples of excellent, much-loved literature that publishing houses refused to print at first because of their controversial nature (such as Lolita and Animal Farm). Just because a publishing house refuses to publish something for fear of the wrath of the extremists in a population, it does not immediately mean that the novel is horrible or would not appeal to a majority of people.
... I thought that I had already proved that this is not the case using the example of American Psycho. Or are you just going to ignore that it was a bestseller?
Simon & Schuster can be the most qualified story-tellers in the world for all I care - the fact of the matter is that they will be kicking themselves for not publishing such a smash hit.
I'm not arguing that it may be nauseating for some, but that most people wouldn't find it overly detestful, but would rather that a book be interesting than that there be empathy.
I have to take objection to the "most evil man ever" statement. That is purely subjective. I personally don't think that Hitler was nearly half as bad as some of the other people who have roamed this Earth. Even Stalin and Mao Zedong were more "evil", IMHO.
But again, this book is a work of /fiction/. It is not necessary to have empathy for the victims of a fictional serial killer because they don't exist. We need to be repestful to Hitler's victims because they were real people - your point has absolutely no relevance if we are taking about a novel, something which Shade has already pointed out.
I'm not so sure that he enjoyed the killing, but more that he felt that the killing was necessary. He was actually a staunch animal rights activist, and would not stand any form of animal cruelty. The fact that he only killed the people who did not fit into his dream society shows to me that he felt that the killings he ordered were needed to purge his domain of the "unclean".
For some, sure, but not all (for reasons already stated).
MonkeyCatcher
New Member
Doug Johnson said:
But the second part of that statement is in direct opposition to Shade's statement. That's disagreeing