So for me, Rawhead Rex was more of an oddball story of dark humor rather than "Ahh, I am terrified of this monster."
Let's talk about the monster. Rawhead, (and honestly that name made me laugh from the beginning, it's just ridiculous enough that it made me look at the monster like oh, look at that hell demon running around eating children and ponies, and taking a leak on his followers *affectionate chuckle*)...anyway, Rawhead is a big bad demon whom I certainly would not laugh at in real life if I saw him charging through my door, and I'm never really sure what his ultimate purpose is. To destroy the town and eat people? Is that it? I was never sure if he was out to rule the Earth on his own or if he was looking for possible companies of his species to bring back from the dead or Hell or whatever. Mostly there was a lot of blood and gore that grossed me out, so well done there, sir.
Women are written in an interesting light in this story, at least compared to last week's reading of Breeding Ground. Rawhead is afraid of the "bleeding woman," which in a bizarre way made sense to me. He is a destroyer, very much enjoys "childmeat," and is the complete opposite of the woman who can create life. Unlike Breeding Ground where women were basically viewed as giant evil wombs for, well, breeding, the women in Barker's story are portrayed as actual people thank you, who have this amazing ability to create and birth new life into the world. Yes, men are needed for that too, but they don't "house" the potential life-to-be. Rawhead wants to do away with humanity, but his fear of menstruating women shows his vulnerability. Menstrual blood often appears in several different mythologies that attribute it with various powers, sometimes even occult powers. (Dammit, what am I doing wrong? How do I activate those?). And given that Rawhead had some ancient origins, those mythologies could very much be a part of his background. (Or maybe he saw the movie Teeth?)
The thing that would have made this story better for me is if a woman had been the one to find the Venus/fertility stone and wield its power thus defeating Rawhead instead of a well-to-do man who kind of appeared out of nowhere after his son got eaten. Ehh. Yeah. If the premise of a story is that this demonic creature fears the...duhn, duhn, duhn, vagina, then maaaybe a woman should be the destroyer of the evil in the end? Makes sense to me.
Overall, not my favorite Barker story, but I didn't mind reading it either. Monster was gross. I enjoyed the majority of the characters even though they pretty much all died. And the ending implying Rawhead would live again was a bit cliche, but I was fine with it too. Evil never truly dies, right?
I found the term "endless fecundity" endlessly fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI think the man needs to wield the talisman to show the balance. The man recognizes the power of the feminine and is not against it. In a man's hand, the talisman becomes more than mere power, it becomes feminist enlightenment in the hands of a man.
A man must kill the monster because he is a man. The woman is life (the symbol of the talisman,) but the man is death. It turns masculinity on its ear, but in a convoluted way. It's not that women must be spared heroics, it's that, to make this story work, women are forces of life and men are forces of death.
It would have been better had the man stepped up, found a pregnant woman, and drawn the monster to her, a living image of Goddess. That would've made the monster's horror more real.
Yes, that could've been worked better, but it is a neat set of themes to work with.
This is a great point, Victor! I had not thought about the connection between man as death and woman as life before. That definitely can be seen as a way to justify the man holding the fertility stone at the end. But yes, I do think some more connection between seeing a woman in more power at the end might have been cool. Like your example of a pregnant woman emphasizing Rawhead's terror would have been great.
DeleteI think Clive's roaming POV almost helped me sympathize with the poor beast...there he is, unearthed in a society vastly different form his own, and he continues on where he left off. What else can the guy do? I think the concept lends well to 38 pages versus 300. Because, if he had his way and destroyed every living thing in Zeal, I would be wondering "hm, what now?" And maybe there was no intent with Clive, maybe he just wanted to write about a really nasty monster. Death by fire was convenient, as there wouldn't be much evidence left to show the world the monster that just pillaged Zeal, but I guess I bought it. Like you said, not his best, but it was entertaining.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree about the roaming point of view building some sympathy for the monster. We were only with the other characters long enough to see them die, so it was hard to be only empathetic toward the human characters and not see the view point of the monster. Ha! Yes, maybe he did just want to write about a nasty monster pillaging and destroying. Nothing wrong with that. At least not when you're Clive Barker.
DeleteVictor's post on this just blew my mind a little bit and now I'll have to go reread that.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea that Clive just decided to write this gross story about this nasty demon that goes around murdering and pissing on people. I thought it was a fun story, though I will agree that Rawhead is kind of a silly name.
I just read Kourtnea's blog and she said that Barker described Rawhead as "A phallus with teeth." After reading that, the story made so much more sense, especially considering Barker's... personal appetites. I do agree with you about the ending, a woman should have been involved, but seeing a man holding a stone representation of what every woman has was a bit funny. I'd like to picture Barker laughing his ass off as he wrote this one.
ReplyDeleteI'm still trying to process Victor's post. Seriously some good points made. Honestly, for me, I couldn't find much value in it, though I like the perspective that you put it in, Sara. I completely missed the play on femininity and just took the story as "jeez this guy really likes fluids and bodily functions." ...Ok, maybe I read into it a little more than that. In my opinion, however, this was not my favorite. It was probably one of the best written, but maybe not the most complete. I kept feeling like it was missing something--like a theme...but Victor kind of shut down my argument there. Definitely worth a re-read I think.
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