The list for now only has the books, no extra information. I may add a few words on each book if I find the time (everyone is welcome to write a few words about any of the books, and if someone wants to have editing privileges for the list, just let me know). I’ll also add page numbers, as I think length may play a role in deciding.
I’m thinking of trying something different this time with the poll. Instead of curating the nomination list to keep it at 20 books at most, we’ll include everything, and make as many polls as needed. People will be allowed to vote for every book if they so wish (but please don’t, or there’s on point) instead of having a vote limit.
How about 近畿地方のある場所について | L36?? as a nomination? I’ve seen it around a lot on social media, and it seems like it could be sufficiently creepy! I enjoy books about paranormal spots, so I’m intrigued.
Please vote for any and all books you would be happy to read this August, however many they are. No restrictions in this poll (well, two polls, but no matter)
I wonder if that’s a good idea. I guess we’ll see..
I’d also like to take this opportunity to discuss something that’s been on my mind regarding Japanese horror. It’s been the general consensus that Japanese horror (literature) doesn’t feel like western horror, and is generally more subdued and less scary. I haven’t read much western horror to compare, to be honest, but I know I used to be afraid to read Japanese horror and now I find myself desperately seeking the novel that will finally make me feel scared.
How do we even define horror? Wikipedia says “Horror is a genre of fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten or scare.” I’ve found several non-horror books disturbing and spine-chilling, but I can’t say I’ve felt frightened by any horror book so far. A feeling of suspense or brief foreboding at most. And I have a sense that the Japanese will label almost anything with a supernatural element as horror, even if it’s mostly wholesome.
So why not rate the books we’ve read on their horror-ness? (horror-ity? You know what I mean.) As a club we’ve read two books here, and three more in this club’s predecessor on WK (many of the same readers). We could start with rating those. I’m not sure how to go about it though. We could rate with stars, zero for no horror, five for totally horror. The problem with this approach is that what everyone regards as horror may be subjective. Or we could give descriptive qualities, like “spine chilling”, “couldn’t read at night”, “felt more like a mystery”, “suspenseful but tame”, etc. The problem with this approach is that there’s too many descriptions we can come up with, and it may be hard to quantify into an easily recognizable scale.
Long post to just say I’d like us to try and rate horror books we’ve read on their “scariness”. Thoughts?
I think it’s an interesting idea. (Says the person who’s read a total of 0 of the club’s picks so far.) Might be you’ll just need to gather data/impressions first on previously-read books, then create a rough scale from there based on how people’s thoughts tend to align? And then further refine it as more horror is read.
So rate from 1-5 on all these qualities? That’s an interesting thought, I like it.
I wouldn’t have thought of campy as a characteristic of horror, but why not.
Creepy crawlies? Do you mean bugs specifically, or the associated feeling?
I wonder how easy it is to tell a tense, unpleasant atmosphere from a sense of dread/foreboding.
I could have sworn I had come up with one or two more as I was typing this reply, but they’re gone
I’ll edit to add if and when I remember.
Creepy crawlies I consider things like bugs, leeches, snakes, etc. Creatures that many people are uncomfortable with and used to that effect.
Tense/unpleasant atmosphere could be something like emotional tension between characters whereas a sense of dread/foreboding is broader and could be like ‘something bad is gonna happen even if I don’t know what’.
To give a concrete example, the relationship between the visitors and the villagers in 予言の島 I’d consider tense, but the fear of the 怨霊 would be the sense of dread and foreboding, if that makes sense?
My list is just off the cuff though, and totally open to edits
I think things like gore or creepy crawlies are more like descriptive tags (and very useful in their own right), but don’t give a sense of how horror-ish a novel/story really is. I feel that qualities like sense of dread/foreboding, eerie atmosphere and sense of fear/discomfort that extends beyond the page are closer to what I’m looking for. Without a good dose of these, I feel like books labelled horror are more suspense, mystery, or mild ghost stories than horror as I understand it.
All body horror is gore but not all gore is body horror, imo. Someone can be tortured and their (for example) nails pulled out, but that’s torture, not body horror. Likewise a corpse described in detail is gore, but not body horror. A person having their limbs replaced by doll parts is body horror though.
Just a heads up that on top of the 50% coin back currently on on Bookwalker, one of our nominations is currently 50% off for both volumes, until July 22:
I think I’m with cat here, though I’ll confess I never thought of body horror as a subtopic of gore. For me they’re two entirely separate things: gore is bloody (emphasis on the blood here), sometimes over-the-top violence. Body horror is the (typically unwilling) transformation of someone’s body /body parts. Sometimes it’s, like cat said, replacement of body parts (without killing the person immediately), sometimes it’s something more Junji Ito-style where body parts get twisted, misshapen, or otherwise painful-looking.
Body horror could be gore as I typically consider it if, for example, someone’s limbs were systematically removed and you emphasized both their feelings about it and all the blood that would probably result.
I agree with your general thoughts, but want to advocate we keep these into the ratings somehow. I feel like I’m going to have a difficult time comparing average foreboding from one novel to another, but I can sure tell you which one was full of cockroaches.
I still feel things like bugs would be better suited for regular tags, not a poll. First of all, anyone who’s read the book can tell you if there are spiders or not, it’s not a matter of opinion. Second, If we include body horror and gore and creepy crawlies, where do we stop? We need to include vampires, zombies, ghosts, monsters, dolls, clowns, who knows what else. The list is probably endless.
Hmmm. I see what you’re saying, but removing something like body horror or gore feels really bizarre to me. Perhaps we could have a wiki post that contains the polls for other aspects of the horror experience, but still let it be user-editable so any other noteworthy features can be added? Like in a bullet point list or something.
If we end up starting to compile a Great Database of Japanese Horror Novels, I can definitely see adding relevant tags under the “scariness” rating of the book, yes. That’s on top of the scariness rating though, and for now we can still deal with this aspect via tags I think?
(Says the person who’s read a total of 0 of the club’s picks so far.) Might be you’ll just need to gather data/impressions first on previously-read books, then create a rough scale from there based on how people’s thoughts tend to align? And then further refine it as more horror is read.
