Gothicka: Vampire Heroes, Human Gods, and the New Supernatural

by Victoria Nelson

The Gothic, Romanticism's gritty older sibling, has flourished in myriad permutations since the eighteenth century. In Gothicka, Victoria Nelson identifies the revolutionary turn it has taken in the twenty-first. Today's Gothic has fashioned its monsters into heroes and its devils into angels. It is actively reviving supernaturalism in popular culture, not as an evil dimension divorced from ordinary human existence but as part of our daily lives. To explain this millennial shift away from the traditionally dark Protestant post-Enlightenment Gothic, Nelson studies the complex arena of contemporary Gothic subgenres that take the form of novels, films, and graphic novels. She considers the work of Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer, graphic novelists Mike Mignola and Garth Ennis, Christian writer William P. Young (author of The Shack ), and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. She considers twentieth-century Gothic masters H. P. Lovecraft, Anne Rice, and Stephen King in light of both their immediate ancestors in the eighteenth century and the original Gothic-the late medieval period from which Horace Walpole and his successors drew their inspiration. Fictions such as the Twilight and Left Behind series do more than follow the conventions of the classic Gothic novel. They are radically reviving and reinventing the transcendental worldview that informed the West's premodern era. As Jesus becomes mortal in The Da Vinci Code and the child Ofelia becomes a goddess in Pan's Labyrinth, Nelson argues that this unprecedented mainstreaming of a spiritually driven supernaturalism is a harbinger of what a post-Christian religion in America might look like.

Genres: Nonfiction, Horror, Religion, Vampires, Books About Books, History, Literary Criticism

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 23, 2012

Reviews

[Joshua Buhs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is essentially a sequel to the secret life of puppets, arguing that since around the turn of the 21st century the supernatural has been escaping popular culture and beoming a more active force in america, as well as shedding its association with the demonic and reclaiming a lost (like, for 2000 years) positive association. Like secret life of puppets, the book meanders sometimes, shows off its erudition, and includes chapters that don't really need to be there. But good stuff.

Introduction nicely summarizes the secret life of puppets, and says this book will deal more explicitly with the gothic.

[one note: she does not mention nightmare on main street, but she seems to be addressing its final question: what's happening to the gothic.]

second chapter, roots history of american gothic in anticlerical novels dating back to the country's founding. more recent ones, too (dan brown). notes this is backhanded compliment, too: only the catholic church has real power. also, these books start to move toward acknowledging that there is a god or positive force in the universe. connected to New Thought: man created through divinization, so has some godly powers.

chapter three on gothic gods is the clearest writing in either of her two books. narrative history of how fans have found supernatural by creating religion out of lovecraft's gods. but note: gods are demonic.

chapter four: big gothic three: vampire, zombie, satan. quick--not potted--histories of each in american tradition. can see how vampires become positive forces, zombies harder, but some positive. satan is less important, gone from the stories, or secondary to his subdemons which are more ambiguous (think Spawn). All this is thanatos--need eros, too.

chapter five: long and winding a la marina warner. look at gothic romance. there's a male gothic: individuation thru violence, stabilise hierarchy. and a female--quest for love and marriage.

///nb: 99: mystery used to be related to sacred rites--now about imagination.//////

gothic romance was fairly stable until the 1990s--almost 200 years. Then changed--more sex, supernatural explanation real, not dismissed. Romance also intermingles with other genres--science fiction, mystery, etc.


chapter 7 is the heart of the argument--twilight. vampires arrive late in western european tradition. 18th century. same until 20th century--anne rice: now subjects, no objects; removed from christianity; immortal rather than undead. like romance, vampire story mixed with other genres. also, get cultists acting this out. and now that vampires have become gods, the question is, where does the story go?

chapter 8: does for zombies what above chapter does for vampire. in both cases, creature goes from colonized, to postcolonial object, to subject. tells history of zombie in 20th century. zombies also doubles--consumerist and war. also get performances, cultists, secondary worlds, blurring of fiction and non.

chapter 9: gothic thater of halloween. kind of a substitute for statn here, since he's out of story. halloween is odd holiday--dark and pagan. turned into performances, which she looks at--acting out of religious themes. everything had been subjectivized--now coming out again: ideas become objects.

chapter 10: looks at horror movies, for rules. not sure how it fits flow of book. america is Rome--but southeast asia, especially, is producing interestign works, too: some reverse influence. (esp the supernatural female). gothic horror is folk tale--repetition is important. boys like torture porn, which is not true horror, and asserts conventional morality. girls like the more romantic horror--in which the hero visits a dark place and change fate. the underworld can be anywhere.

chapter 11: a look at the work of guillermo del torro. interesting, but connection?

12: christian gothic: the shack, etc. influenced by gothic traidtions, so much so not really christian but gnostic, a la bloom. individual is god, is divine. but there's the divinity.

epilogue: a conflicted conclusion. religion has been ignored--or supernatural, and so it has gone into popular culture. now, there has developed an idea of a gnostic, divine self. why? why not a new go? [no answer]. we now acknowledge a reality beyond the material--but no new religion. Is the gothic, then, done, havign discharged its duty? Maybe. Right now, though, it is flourishing

[Frederick Heimbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nelson has done a great thing. This book includes an erudite history of the Gothic in books and film. It also reviews a great many recent additions (and no other book has inspired me to consume so many books and movies reviewed). Most impressively, Nelson offers a tentative prediction for where the Gothic is heading. It's a bold prediction: that the Gothic will lead to the development of a neo-Gnositc American-based world religion in the 21st century.

Nelson really knows the genre, but what's especially impressive is her understanding and sympathy for the whole wide world of religious impulses. She admits to her biases, but I see them very little here; I'm pretty sure she and I disagree, but "my side" gets a rare fair hearing. She truly has the heart of a great reviewer, which always begins with sympathy and enthusiasm for the artist's intent.

For this topic, getting religion right is essential. Nelson understands that "Gothick" is, at heart, a religious venture. I don't share her optimism for the long-term success of Gnosticism--I think it's radical subjectivity is self-defeating--but she's dead-on to see its rise in Gothic (and general American) culture, and I feel like I've learned a lot from her insight. Her theories even explain the otherwise mystifying popularity of Twilight, with its well-known artistic limitations. It fits in the trend, advanced first by Anne Rice, of reforming and sort-of-redeeming vampires and other Gothic monsters.

Finally, I'd just like to mention one more delightful personal detail: I found this book the old fashioned way, by pulling it off the shelf while browsing a library. It wasn't covered in cobwebs, and the library's resident ghost didn't cackle as I touched it, but somehow, that detail seems very right.

Anyone interested in religion, Gothic literature (or really any genre), and modern trends in genre evolution and repurposing, really needs to read this book.

[Mjhancock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nelson's basic premise is that the religious spirituality and belief that used to infuse Western society is resurfacing in modern fandom, and the means of that long process is the Gothic. Essentially, when Protestant England and America reaffirmed its separation from Catholicism, it kept the fascination with the supernatural, dark side of the Catholic faith--demons and witches and so forth. That fascination expressed itself in the gothic, and, as time went on, in the supernatural in general, to today, where we've shifted from a notion that Gothic has to be evil, and settled into using it to express the godlike in humans, from Hellboy to Twilight. And she makes her case over twelve chapters, each of which draw on a different aspect of the Gothic tradition as it's currently reflected. (Well, okay; ten aspects, and starting and finishing chapters that wrap things up.) Topics include: Dan Brown-esque thrillers and the positing of God as an ordinary man; Cthulhu and the worship of fandom; half-demon tragic figures like Preacher, Hellboy, Son of Satan, and Constantine (which is pushing it a bit, but we'll let that slide); Death and the gothic romance as it now appears in books of the Anita Blake vein; the transcendence of Bella in Twilight; Zombies and love beyond death; gothic performance and the Hell House; horror film around the world; and the films of Guillermo del Toro; and the New Christian Gothick as found in Young's The Shack and the Left Behind Books. As that ridiculously long list probably suggests,the great benefit of Nelson's book is the breadth of her examples; by showing all these possible iterations of Gothic (or Gothick,as she calls it), she demonstrates all the ways in which her thesis seems correct. My main criticism is that, as a game scholar, I have to take issue with the way she peppered the book with references to how videogames were part of the Gothic trend, but never went into any detail with a specific example. If you're going to spend pages on religions based on Cthulhu, you can take a bit of time to research games whose users number in the millions. But that's more of a private rant; for th most part, it's a very good book.

[Ann]

I would like to call Victoria Nelson out on some shit. One of the phenomena discussed in the book is fan formation of spiritual communities out of genre entertainments. Some of these seem to be based on a really boneheaded understanding of the works in question, and VN fails to point this out, and is so weirdly uncritical, so uncritically enthused.

She writes that Michael Aquino, a Satanist disciple of Anton LaVey, "asserts that rites around Lovecraft's monster gods show an egalitarian advance over other religions, " 'The concept of worship is strikingly absent from the Cthulhu mythos.... [the gods'] relationship to their followers is invariably that of teachers to students. Compare the description of a Lovecraftian ceremony to a Christian mass of Voodoo rite and it is clear that the element of servility is lacking in the first.'" (p 65) Now, most of that is VN quoting this Aquino clown, but, again, without any questioning and in a celebratory, valorizing tone.

To which I say: Whaaaaaaaaaaaattt??? How is human sacrifice (the Cthulhu-worshipping swamp people in Louisiana, Keziah the witch in The Dreams in the Witch House, and more! Where there is Others-worship, there are rashes of child disappearances) not servile?

Then also there is a passage I cannot find about how a Klingon-based religion is all egalitarian and utopian. KLINGONS?? EGALITARIAN??

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much wanted to dislike this book for two reasons -- 1. The use of the K -- please. 2. This bit from the preface: "I have made no attempt to survey the present of Gothick scholarship [is there any GothicK scholarship?] and position my own thinking within it, thereby omitting mention of many current key thinking in this vast, rick and exciting field" (xii-xiii).
Um, someone should tell this lady how scholarship usually works. I'm going to go with intellectually arrogant to describe the tone. And, that pretty much remains throughout (although to a much lesser degree).
However, she's got some great observations and is a damn fine close reader. She's clearly familiar with the genre and cultural history and folds them into her arguments quite smoothly (for the most part, there were several spots when the narrative more or less stopped to provide a history lesson). Also, I would really like to see her engage with some of what's out there; Edmundson's *Nightmare on Main Street,* for instance. That discussion could be fascinating.
I really feel like I should reread and think further about her ideas -- particularly where they might mesh with my own (for I, of course, have my own Gothic project). So, in the end I found this well worth the time and intellectual effort.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gothicka is a competent examination of contemporary gothic culture, but it brings little new thinking to the subject. As a primer on gothic (gothick to the author to separate it from Medieval gothic and the goths...but all Victoria Nelson ends up doing is adding to an already noisome lexicon) it is a good entry, but as a deeply engaging work it falls short.

Another weakness is a lack of conclusion:

"I find myself stymied when it comes...to drawing a conclusion"

This might not be a problem for some readers, but for those looking for an articulate examination of the contemporary gothic tradition and its future, this lack of conclusion is deeply frustrating.

Much is given by Ms. Nelson, but more, much more, was hoped for.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Recommended for those looking for an entry point in the contemporary gothic sensibility.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a birthday present from my sister who (quite correctly) judged it as being relevant to my interests. It’s an extensive non-fictional survey of the general state of affairs in what the author calls the world of ‘Gothick’, a term used to describe the stylistic movement originally defined by the novels of Ann Radcliffe and Horace Walpole, in contrast to the original ‘Gothic’ period in the European middle-ages. Across almost three hundred pages the book takes in a very broad range of source material, and it’s clearly been the product of a great deal of time and personal investment on the author’s part. That’s another way of saying this is no dry, theory-heavy treatise: it’s an accessible and enjoyable read, not especially challenging, and I found it a thoroughly relaxing and thought-provoking experience.

The thesis is that many of the most popular current trends in Gothick media are characterised by a number of very similar elements. These include a tendency towards balancing the traditional dark and horrific elements with characters that exemplify hope, power and light; an element of truth-telling or conspiratorial theorising; and (perhaps most importantly) they provide a kind of spiritual plenitude in the audience. On this latter point, the author identifies the popularity of authors like Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer with a readership seeking personal gnosis and self-knowledge through alternative religious systems. The ultimate model of this is William P. Young’s novel ‘The Shack’, a parable which combines some fairly traditional bits of horror fiction with a peculiar mixed-up version of post-Protestant personal enlightenment.

Whether all this manages to be entirely convincing in the matter of its arguments is another matter. There's a tendency towards over-ambition, and the books suffers from a tendency towards generalisations that seem more certain than they really are. The author has clearly read far and wide in the many flourishing sub-genres of Gothick, and the effort to be comprehensive as well as extensive often leads the integrity of the individual elements to suffer as a result.

This is not fanservice, and it isn’t intended as such. I’m sure devout fans of Guillermo Del Toro or Twilight will find much to argue about here. I myself began to wish that the author had left video games out of the picture altogether; the mentions are so fleeting as to be inconsequential, and there’s at least one or two references which are simply incorrect. Other points were drawn from some fairly unusual sources, or simply had me scratching my head in disbelief: is it really true to say, for example, that more children in the world today know the story of Harry Potter than they do Jesus? And if so, what would that prove?

The final suggestion - that fictional media could actually provide a viable alternative to traditional religious systems - is pretty radical. But it's ultimately dismissed by the author with something of an uncertain shrug. Turns out we just don't know where the next great world religion will emerge from! But it is enough, perhaps, that these strange little sects exist in their current state, even if they only flower for a brief time. And I did like that the author generally avoids casting moral or qualitative judgment on the nature of these sects; the only negative suggestion is that placing too much power in the hands of individuals unprepared to manage it might be a dangerous thing. For all its flaws, I really did enjoy reading and thinking about this book. As a passionate portrait of a medium in flux, it just works.

[Leif · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading a mostly positive review of this ages ago, I finally picked it up intrigued by some of the chapter titles. Bland or idiosyncratic – sometimes both – I didn't find a lot that was helpful to me here. The writing was, however, fluid and assured; the topics could have been fascinating on their own rights. It just wasn't what I wanted to read from the review and the topics listed. Ah well.

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic, in many senses of the word. Picked this up at City Lights in San Francisco, what a great find! Nelson provides a well researched, insightful analysis of the Gothick in today's popular culture. I have added to my "to see" list many movies, and increased my appreciation of comic and fantasy genres.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great analysis of the current trend toward all things undead in pop culture.
The point that resonates most with me is that in the loss of institutional religion, audiences are hungry for the supernatural. In their hunger they will devour anything with a hint of forever attached.

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great introduction to the various art forms (mostly literary, some film, but even comic books and video games!).

One of the central proposals by the author is that the human need to find transcendence never went away. People just look for it, and sometimes find it, in media outside of the realm of the Western (Protestant) Church. Ironically, much of that media looks to themes and motifs, with pre-Modern and Medieval sensibilities that are surprisingly resilient.

I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series, the chapter analyzing the Gothic themes and patterns in horror films, an analysis of Guillermo del Toro, and finally even a chapter on The Shack by William P. Young. A fascinating blend of literary analysis, sociology, and even theology!

Some of the chapters went a bit long on subjects I was not as familiar or interested in. So the first half of the book was a bit of a slog at times.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is essential reading for anyone who loves the Gothic and its traditions/roots in literature, and contains very useful analyses of everything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Twilight to Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, Poppy Z. Brite and beyond. There are chapters devoted to zombies, to how the Gothick ethos has bled into cities, a chapter devoted to Guillermo del Toro (which is phenomenal), and more. I absolutely devoured this book, particularly for its analysis of why the dominant themes of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre have endured in popularity and continue to play out in current fiction and films.

[Rain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gothicka starts off a very insightful survey of early Gothick lit, and contextualizes those important books in their religious, political, and global history. Soon enough, though, it becomes a catalog of lists and descriptions of books, movies, and other spooky media.

I like bold theses in books like this, whether or not I ultimately agree in the end. I hope for the author's insights and conclusions. This felt like "I had a great time at Sitges" until the book ran out of pages and it then was "I don't know what to make of how Gothick has changed, but it has changed while being alive and well." All in all a pleasant conversation, but I hope for more crunch from my lit theory.

[Geri Hoekz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting insights into a number of subcultures of which I have only passing familiarity but have been curious about. I found it comprehensive enough (and she points out in the intro that she couldn't include everything); however, since I'm not deeply involved in any of the tribes, fandoms, etc., I'm probably more detached than some more critical readers would be. I'll note that like Christianity, "witchy" culture, including what I've noticed in Neo-Pagan and Wiccan friends, seems to be a very big tent. Some of the objections to the book that I've read in various reviews don't necessarily apply to all practitioners.

[Mak Hoeksema · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️ 8/10 - This book is great for those interested in the gothic culture via the media. The book, movie, and tv show references really give a clear picture to the history the gothic supernatural subculture, both where it started and where it is now (as of 2012). It was a great read, took me a bit longer than normal, but was fascinating. I am haunted that I will never see the Skin & Bone/Flesh & Fire performance art piece in real life, but I have a few more movies on my watch list now.

[Catherine Siemann]

This book has many merits -- interesting readings on a number of subjects, including a delightfully snarky one of Dan Brown, something about Twilight that had me actually thinking rather than automatically dismissing, a take on Garth Ennis's Preacher, one of the few comics series I actually followed all the way through -- as well as references to a number of texts, films, etc. with which I was unfamiliar and am interested in learning more about. There's a take on Catholicism vs. Protestsantism and the Gothic which is worth the price of admission alone. There was a wonderful reading of Pan's Labyrinth.*

Very early on, there was a reference to The Exorcist's author as William Henry Blatty -- I read it when I was 12, and *I* remembered it was William Peter Blatty -- surely someone should have caught this? (I double checked; I'm right.)** Certain subjects that I have a fair degree of familiarity with (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Goth subculture, fanfiction) are addressed briefly, sometimes dismissively, and not with the greatest accuracy. That undermined the book for me to a degree.

*I found the movie almost unbearably sad; apparently I (along with most mainstream viewers and critics) assumed the underworld was a dream/fantasy. del Toro is on record, I now know, of saying the film was set up to be deliberately ambiguous, but that he felt the underworld was real -- which means that her return at the end could be seen as true, and not necessarily her simply comforting herself as she died . . .

**My elderly great-aunt, the only Catholic in our family, let me have her copy -- which she had bought and read out of genuine theological curiosity -- I hid it from my parents for a year or two, before I realized that actually they trusted my intellectual curiosity.

[Lydia Peever · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I dug into this with massive optimism, I wasn't ready for the dissection and regular return to Dan Brown's work throughout. Enjoyable and interesting reading for authors, horror readers and film fans, Gothika unfolds the 'gothic' lurking under many contemporary fan faves. Even if I liked the idea more than the contents, it will still be lent to a few academics that will also enjoy the ideas that Nelson mulls over.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is horror our new religion? Nelson's fascinating and fabulously erudite work explores the places our urge for the supernatural may be taking us, dancing lightly through points drawn from as delightfully diverse a spread as Walpole, Stephenie Meyer, Dan Brown, and Lovecraft. So good you'll even be reading the footnotes.

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who's entranced by the Gothic spirit. A smart, well-written, and challenging account of supernatural culture. See more at: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book both engrossing and easy to read. Before I read this book, a colleague and and I were discussing the surge in popularity of "monster-of-the-week" tv shows and the obsession with zombies, etc. I found the author's overview interesting. Highly recommended.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

learning why supernatural and fantastical ideas are so popular and through what tradition was very interesting. i enjoyed this book because it propelled my interest in such genres. there were two chapters i may have been confused by but that is most likely my fault as i read the book on and off.

[Mills College Library]

700.415 N431 2012

[Helen Mears · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book. Victoria Nelson considers the Gothic as a potential location for a new spirituality. A wide ranging study that includes religion, plays, books and films.