|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
A Metaphysical Unease
| Article
# : |
19184 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1991 |
3,245 Words |
| Author
: |
Gail Regier
Gail Regier teaches creative writing at the University of
Central Florida in Orlando, and writes frequently for
Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, and the American Scholar. |
FEAR
L. Ron Hubbard
Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, 1991
188 pp., $16.10
Stacked on my desk are some seminal texts of the literature of the supernatural: Henry James' Turn of the Screw; Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House; Peter Straub's Ghost Story; books of stories by Harlan Ellison and Robert Bloch. Though less well known, Fear is a classic of this sort, a web of themes and techniques that echo many forerunners and descendants. (Of course, there is a way to interpret the book that makes it not supernatural at all--but that too is a tradition in this genre.) Fear begins with scenes and characters so ordinary and unthreatening as to be banal, then gradually, almost imperceptibly, infuses them with the macabre.
James Lowery, the hero (and villain, in a sense) of Fear, holds a chair of anthropology at a small private college. As the novel opens, he has just returned from an ethnological expedition and published an article on the superstitions--as he calls them--of primitive peoples. He is happy to be back again in the small college town he grew up in, and all seems right with the world. But it seems that Lowery has insulted some primitive spirits or demons by writing his article, and their curse may be upon him--at least, that is what his best friend, Tommy, believes. In short order Lowery loses his job and, in a way he cannot recall, his hat and the memory of four hours. He finds a scarlet rabbit shaped mark, like a brand or tattoo, on his arm, but has no idea how it got there.
Though warned by Tommy to forget about these oddities, Lowery finds that he cannot. Instead, the drive to discover what has happened to those four hours becomes an obsession. His search leads him into a strange (and strangely humorous) underworld of vision and doubt, and to confrontations with invisible, nonhuman beings who secretly control the destiny of the world. Of course, it may be that these beings do not exist except in Lowery's imagination, but the evidence keeps mounting. In desperation Lowery turns to the two people closest to him, his beloved wife, Mary, and his friend Tommy. But these two have begun to behave in an oddly sinister manner--or so it seems to Lowery. Sometimes he thinks they are laughing at him behind his back, or eyeing each other in a sexual manner. And sometimes they seem to have small, vampiric fangs. But when he looks straight at their faces the fangs are gone.
Throughout
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
