{"id":1304,"date":"2018-10-31T22:48:53","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T22:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-the-words\/?page_id=1304"},"modified":"2024-08-01T21:47:13","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T21:47:13","slug":"the-english-department-spook-tacular","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/the-words-november-2018\/the-english-department-spook-tacular\/","title":{"rendered":"The English Department Spook-tacular!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laura Berglund \u201920<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Halloween may be over, but scary books and the ghost of the Old Main elevator know no season! <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some recommendations from English majors and professors for keeping the Halloween spirit alive and haunting\u2014in case midterms weren\u2019t scary enough.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong>The Haunting of Hill House<\/em> by Shirley Jackson and \u201cBloodchild\u201d by Octavia Butler, recommended by Professor Matt Burgess<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1959 gothic horror novel and 1960 <\/span>National Book Award<\/span><\/a> finalist <\/span>The Haunting of Hill House<\/span><\/i> is the place to start when it comes to embarking on a spooky reading adventure. <\/span>It tells the story of occult scholar Dr. Montague as he and his team seek out an explanation for the house\u2019s mysterious past, but escaping with their lives soon becomes their first priority.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Asimov<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBloodchild,\u201d a short story by Octavia Butler, centers on Gan, a young boy who is part of a persecuted minority. His community flees Earth and begins new lives alongside the Tlic aliens. <\/span>But Gan and his people find themselves in danger once again; the Tlic can only survive if Gan dies.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Burgess told <\/span>The Words<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> \u201c<\/span>I love Shirley Jackson’s <\/span>The Haunting of Hill House<\/span><\/i> because, like all my other favorite horror novels, it projects a character’s <\/span>internal tensions onto an external malevolence, in this case a spooky house. Octavia Butler’s great short story \u2018Bloodchild,\u2019 does the same, with the added bonus of some truly disgusting descriptions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Scary<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark <\/i><\/b>by Alvin Schwartz, illustrated by Stephen Gammell, recommended by Ben LeBlanc \u201920<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published in 1981, <\/span>Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark <\/span><\/i>is the first in Schwartz\u2019s children\u2019s Scary Stories trilogy. It features gory tales of despicable humans, cruel beasts, and the undead of all sorts.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of <\/span>Scary Stories<\/span><\/i>\u2019 greatest claims to fame is its position on the American Library Association\u2019s lists of the 100 most banned or challenged books. The collection was at the top of the <\/span>1990-1999<\/span><\/a> list, and it maintained its top ten position the <\/span>following decade<\/span><\/a>, coming in at No. 7.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding the book, LeBlanc told <\/span>The Words<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> \u201c<\/span>This book nearly gave me a heart attack as a child. I haven’t read it in some time, but the illustrations alone are worth a peek.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"American<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

American Psycho <\/i><\/b>by Bret Easton Ellis, recommended by Ash Ma \u201921<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This 1991 novel tells the story of Wall Street tycoon Patrick Bateman who is a conventional businessman by day and a serial killer by night.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2016 <\/span>New York Times <\/span><\/i>article<\/span><\/a> claimed that many see the book \u201c<\/span>as a transgressive bag of broken glass\u201d and acknowledged the fact that \u201cBateman keeps a copy of Mr. Trump\u2019s magnum opus, <\/span>The Art of the Deal<\/span><\/i>, on his desk. His dream is to be invited on the Trump yacht.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ma recommends this book, saying it, \u201cblurs the boundary of reality and hallucination. It really gives me a chill!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"White<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Monster Calls <\/i><\/b>by Patrick Ness and <\/b>White Dialogues <\/i><\/b>by Bennett Sims, recommended by Zarra <\/b>Marlowe <\/b>\u201921<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Marlowe, the  2011 young adult novel <\/span>A Monster Calls <\/span><\/i>\u201cis a beautifully illustrated story of a young boy coming to terms with the real monster in his life: his mother\u2019s illness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Universal Pictures and Entertainment One Films released a film adaptation of <\/span>A Monster Calls<\/span><\/i> in 2016, available for streaming on Netflix and Prime Video.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marlowe also recommends <\/span>White Dialogues<\/span><\/i>, a 2017 collection of short stories. In Marlowe’s characterization, it<\/span> \u201cconfronts the innate fear of that which we can\u2019t understand in ourselves through a series of thrilling short stories.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirkus Reviews<\/span><\/i><\/a> calles <\/span>White Dialogues<\/span><\/i> \u201ca deft collection of spooky fables that pivots from classic stylings to postmodern irony.\u201d One would expect nothing less from a book that channels both Edgar Allan Poe and NPR. And although the <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i><\/a> argues \u201cthe author\u2019s verbal pinwheels\u201d may not be everyone\u2019s cup of tea, no cup of tea would object to accompanying this book for a late night perusal.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many thanks to the department community for their recommendations!<\/h3>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laura Berglund \u201920 Halloween may be over, but scary books and the ghost of the Old Main elevator know no season! Here are some recommendations from English majors and professors for keeping the Halloween spirit alive and haunting\u2014in case midterms weren\u2019t scary enough. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and \u201cBloodchild\u201d by Octavia […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":0,"parent":1296,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1304","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304"}],"version-history":[{"count":57,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7347,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1304\/revisions\/7347"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}