• About
  • Biography
  • Black – From the Book: Colors
  • Children’s Fiction
  • Clean Slate a Very Short Story by Jay Magidson
  • Excerpt from the book – “Threshold of the Mind”
  • Fiction
  • Gauze – Excerpt from “Colors”
  • Nonfiction
  • Poetry
  • Videos

Jay Magidson – Author

~ Books by Jay Magidson

Jay Magidson – Author

Category Archives: distopia

The Light Shines Brightest in the Dark

02 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by Jay Magidson in books, discovery, distopia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

dark fiction, edgar allan poe, heart of darkness, lovecraft, overcoming fear

My friends are sometimes surprised by the darkness of my writing.  I guess I seem reasonably happy and modestly well-adjusted in person (which seems very strange to me).  But I love the darkness, gloom, and sometimes hopelessness, of the best fiction and poetry.  As a child, I loved reading Edgar Allan Poe.  I was often disappointed by the happy Hollywood endings of the movies my parents took me to.  The characters in the Tale Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado didn’t have happy endings.  They died miserably and got what they deserved.  Dark, I know, but oh so satisfying.

Image result for gates of hell by rodin

So I asked myself, why is that.  Certainly, I can’t be alone.  Dante, Poe, Lovecraft, King, etc. have been writing tales that millions of people love and keep loving.  Many, like Poe and Lovecraft don’t give much, if any hope in their stories.  The darkness overwhelms the reader, yet he plods on through the dim corridors, deeper and deeper into the impenetrable mist.  Perhaps it’s like a roller coaster, the controlled fear, knowing we are basically safe, but scared into gratitude that we are alive, heart pounding in our chest, but alive. Maybe it’s schadenfreude, sharing someone else’s misery, but happy that they have it worse.  Or maybe it’s something deeper, something fundamental.

Why we Fear and Love the Dark

It is primal to fear the unknown, the darkness that shrouds the dense forest.  Do you have a pet, a cat or dog?  Why do they put their noses into dark holes in the ground?  They might smell an animal down there, but could just as easily get an eye poked or worse.  They’re curious.  And so are we.  It’s built into our DNA; we have to know what’s under that log (rattle snake, probably), in that cave (rabid wolf, most definitely), or in the abandoned mental institution (vindictive ghosts, of course).

Image result for dore adam and eve snake

We go into the dark to shine our light into it, to expand our lives by testing our fear, pushing our own boundaries a tiny bit.  The worst thing God did for Adam and Eve was to make life too easy.  So he gave them a talking snake, pretty scary, right.

The Gift of Darkness

All decent stories have a problem, a challenge for the protagonist to overcome.  The darkest stories make that challenge insurmountable, tearing the fool’s eyes out for sticking his face into the fox hole.  One of my favorite books of all time is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.  It’s written with such mastery that the reader is drawn inexorably into the deepest gloom imaginable, unable to pull free until its black conclusion and Kurtz’s dying words: “The horror, the horror.”

Image result for heart of darkness kurtz

Is it hopeless?  I don’t think so, at least that’s not the message I get from these stories or the ones I think of in my own writing.  We need the dark so we have a place to put the light.  Shine your flashlight on a summer day – nothing.  Then do it in a subterranean cave.  Fear is a limitation, a doorway into the unknown, and the only way to expand is to cross the threshold.  Otherwise, we stay on this side of the Garden of Eden, naked and stupid.

Image result for thx 1138 final scene

Share this:

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Recent Posts

  • Yellow Raft – a Poem
  • A Dark Poem for Saturday
  • Art is Not Elitist
  • Inspiration’s Muse
  • Sleep Well My Dear Friend

Archives

  • December 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • March 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • November 2014
  • July 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • August 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • August 2012
  • July 2012

Categories

  • art
  • Aspen Art
  • audio books
  • audiobooks
  • book reviews
  • books
  • colors
  • criticism
  • death
  • discovery
  • distopia
  • drowning
  • ebook
  • Explore Booksellers
  • fear
  • fiction
  • Gauze
  • Haleakala
  • Hawaii
  • Horror
  • humor
  • ideas
  • In the Image of God
  • ipad
  • Jeff Clarke
  • kindle
  • Madness of the Muses
  • Maui
  • mensa
  • N. A. Noel Gallery
  • Nancy Noel
  • Nausea
  • new release
  • poetry
  • Rabinow
  • Reviews
  • sandpaper
  • Sartre
  • Science Fiction
  • self-publishing
  • stratumentis
  • Threshold of the Mind
  • Time Machine
  • Virtual Reality
  • writing

Blogroll

  • Get Inspired
  • The Enigmatic Art of Ingrid Dee Magidson

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Jay Magidson - Author
    • Join 56 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Jay Magidson - Author
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: