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Similar to Dan Simmons' Song of Kali?
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While only peripherally a horror story,
by Joseph Conrad certainly conveys what can happen when someone "goes native".I know I've read dozens of horror stories involving culture clashes but I'm blanking. The old pulps were full of tales like that.
Perry,Thank you so much. You are right about Heart of Darkness. I came across a review article just yesterday on desire in postcolonial studies and the title itself referred to Kurtz's "the horror, the horror."
Thank you!
If anything else comes to mind, please shoot me a note if you have the time.
Upon reflection, the opening and closing chapters of DRACULA (and Dracula's Guest) are a culture shock for Jonathan Harker...All of the Allan Quatermain stories are about culture clashes and many of them involve supernatural horror...
Lovecraft's "Arthur Jermyn"...
"The Candy Skull" by Ray Bradbury...
A bunch of stories by Robert E. Howard...
And every mummy movie ever made...
But I think you'll find many more examples of something, often an object, brought from a foreign culture, which then wrecks havoc, a la "The Monkey's Paw".
Perry, yes, there is travel at the beginning of Dracula. I can't recall the ending, but I'm going to reread it. Allan Quatermain. Definitely! Thank you for your help. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.Given that there's absolutely no lack of examples, I'll have to begin categorizing. Your point about objects from foreign places is a good one. It's interesting to me that some "shock" happens back home with souvenirs (of a sort) and others happens out in the foreign country itself. Mummies, too, create their shock in the tourists' home country. But maybe not always.
(I've researched travel in Egypt by Brits in the 19th c. before and it was somewhat common for them to be duped into buying "mummies" that were actually only the recently departed. They'd be wrapped up in tea-dyed material and then on the ship home, begin to smell. So they'd have to be tipped overboard. One tourist story was about a man who unknowingly bought a fake mummy and it began to rot while in his hotel room. So he just ran away back home and the proprietors had to find it and deal with it!)
Cathie, that's a great one. I've only seen the movie, but I will get the book now. Thank you!
Organizing them by geographic location is a good place to begin, too. I wonder if certain countries or regions "inspire" certain types of horror tales. Seems like they would. Though it might change from century to century.
Try Elizabeth Hand's 'Waking the Moon'. I read it a couple of weeks ago and thought it was the best horror I'd read since Song of Kali.
Thank you, Bettina. I look forward to checking it out.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Ruins (other topics)Heart of Darkness (other topics)
I'm looking for books that are similar to Dan Simmons' Song of Kali. So, horror novels (or, actually, short stories or even movies) that depict travel and/or cross-cultural exchange. It could be Westerners going East or the reverse. Or even in-country. Thank you for any help you can offer. I appreciate it!
Melissa