I’m hardly surprised that horror is associated with various locales and settings. Some places simply
scare us more than others. But I’m intrigued by the geographical pattern of these settings. One might
imagine that horror knows no boundaries, but in practice it tends to observe them with scrupulous
care.
The European horror story usually finds its home at an ancient castle. The Castle of Otranto,
Horace Walpole’s clumsy (but influential) novel published in 1764, set the tone for countless
subsequent gothic horror stories. We find
another such a castle at both the opening
and conclusion of Bram Stoker’s Dracula,
and even though Mary Shelley neglected to
include one in her novel Frankenstein,
Hollywood stepped in to rectify the omission
—indeed, many will go further and claim
that an actual Frankenstein castle near
Darmstadt in Germany inspired her 1818
book.
In the United States, we have no cursed
castles. But horror novels set in the South
or Northeast invariably involved a haunted
house or mansion. Maine stands out as an
especially popular setting for this kind of books, most famously in novels by Stephen King, but
also in stories by Richard Matheson, Jack Ketchum and others. Perhaps the state should consider
changing its Latin motto from Dirigo (I lead) to Deterreo (I frighten).
But out West a different type of horror was required—the kind that takes place outdoors, perhaps
around the campfire, in a secluded gulch or ravine, or at a deserted cemetery. No author did more
to define and refine this archetypal scary story of the Far West than Ambrose Bierce. As even the
titles of his horror stories indicate—tales such as "The Haunted Valley," "The Moonlit Road," "The
Secret of Macarger’s Gulch," "The Difficulty of Crossing a Field"—Bierce may even have suffered
from agoraphobia.
In the latter story, a man disappears suddenly from view while crossing a large open space. Bierce
uses this exact same plot device in "An Unfinished Race." And he returns to it once more in
"Charles Ashmore’s Trail." The nature of the 'horror' in these tales corresponds with exactitude to
the clinical accounts of agoraphobics, who often describe their anxiety in crossing an open space
as a fear that they won’t reach the other side. This is the precise fate of Bierce’s disappearing
characters.
Bierce, too, could write a classic haunted house story, but it is striking how often, even in these
cases, that the haunting takes place outside of the house. In "At Old Man Eckert’s," the horror
assails visitors the moment they walk out the front door. In another story, Bierce reflects on the
apprehension of spending the night in a house with an open doorway. The epicenter of fear is
located not inside the house, but in the empty landscape that surrounds it.
Even Freud, the connoisseur of irrational neuroses, admitted that he suffered from a fear of open
spaces. Robert Burton had described this phenomenon as early as 1621, but medical science didn’t
accept the clinical diagnosis of agoraphobia until the 1860s. Some have seen it as a kind of
existential displacement, others as a response to consumerist society, or as a manifestation of a
displaced Oedipal complex. But in assessing Bierce, I
prefer to draw on the concepts of scholar Paul Carter,
who sees it as an aesthetic stance, a kind of poetics of
rebellion against the dehumanization of modern urban
life. Carter doesn’t cite Ambrose Bierce in his book
Repressed Spaces: The Poetics of Agoraphobia, but
this acerbic critic of American manners—whose telling
nickname was "Bitter Bierce"—practiced precisely that
kind of rebellion in his life and works. For my part, I
find it revealing that Bierce, in his famous Devil’s
Dictionary, defines the word ghost as "the outward
and visible sign of an inward fear."
Yet perhaps a different explanation, biographical rather
than psychological, underlies Bierce's aversion to open
spaces. Around a third of this author’s published short stories deal with war, and draw on Bierce’s
experiences on the battlefield. He served in the infantry for the North, and fought at the battle of
Shiloh, where Ulysses Grant secured a victory but at the cost of more than 10,000 Union
casualties. Here Bierce led his soldiers into an ambush and watched a dozen of them fall in the
ensuing gunfire. During Sherman’s march to Atlanta, Bierce was involved in a disastrous attack on
Pickett’s Mill that led to the death of almost a third of the men in his brigade in less than an hour.
A few days later, at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Bierce got shot in the head. He survived—
although the bullet was permanently embedded behind his left ear. Who can be surprised that
Bierce, in later life, wrote about the anxieties of standing exposed in an open space? We need no
Freudian schemas to explain this phobia.
The editors of Bierce’s short fiction tend to combine them into three broad categories: horror stories,
war stories and tall tales. But these writings are more diverse than such a categorization might
suggest. For example, Bierce anticipates many of the themes of 20th century science fiction in his
tales. "Moxon’s Master" deals with the provocative question of whether machines can think.
Published in 1893, it predates the Turing test by more than a half century. The story also represents
one of the first appearances of a robot (although that term didn’t exist at the time) in literature. In
"The Damned Thing," first published in that same year, Bierce introduces an invisible creature,
and instead of relying on magical or whimsical explanation for the phenomenon, he suggests a
scientific theory based on the existence of colors beyond the capacity of the human eye to perceive.
H.G. Wells would not publish his The Invisible Man for another four years.
And how should we classify Bierce’s most famous story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"?
The editor of Bierce’s collected tales classifies it as a war story, but the suspense and terror infused
into this narrative have no relationship to battlefield heroics or the dangers of combat. Instead,
Bierce mixes quasi-magical fantasy, beguiling memory, and intense realism into a new formula,
more akin to Borges and Kafka than to anything in nineteenth century American literature.
But Bierce’s most provocative story was his first, "The Haunted
Valley," published in 1871. This tale demands attention as one
of the most significant works of nineteenth century West Coast
fiction—and perhaps the most prescient. It includes a searing
critique of racism, exploring the hostility towards immigrants
at a time when almost every resident of California had been born
somewhere else. The story also involves cross-dressing and a
complex love story involving ambiguous gender roles—which
are described with remarkable sensitivity given the attitudes of
the time. And the story is sufficiently open-ended as to invite
multiple interpretations, some of them very rich in psychological
implications.
Bierce’s own story is as mysterious as any of those he left behind
in his books. And readers of his tales may find unintended irony
in them when compared with the concluding chapter of the writer's
biography. Indeed, his fictions foreshadow Bierce’s own death. In late 1913, the author traveled
to Mexico, where he accompanied Pancho Villa's army as an observer. His last letter talks about an
imminent departure to an unknown destination. He was never heard from again, and rumors and
conflicting theories still circulate about the reasons for his disappearance.
Yet how strange that the author who documented, in numerous stories, the dangers of traversing
open spaces should vanish while doing just that! In this spirit, allow me suggest an epitaph for the
grave that Ambrose Bierce never had. It is drawn from his influential story "An Inhabitant of
Carcosa": "For there be diverse sorts of death," Bierce writes, "some wherein the body remaineth;
and in some it quite vanisheth away with the spirit."
But though the body vanisheth, the work remains, and if anything it grows stronger. In the
century after Bierce’s death, the West Coast of the United States would come to dominate the
world of genre fiction. Anyone tracing the lineage of this marvelous blossoming of horror, fantasy
and suspense would find almost every path links back to the originator of West Coast genre fiction
and still one of its greatest masters, the estimable Ambrose Bierce.
Ted Gioia writes about music, literature and popular culture. His latest book is How to Listen to Jazz from Basic Books.
Publication Date: July 18, 2016

This is my year of horrible reading.
I am reading the classics of horror fiction
during the course of 2016, and each week will
write about a significant work in the genre.
You are invited to join me in my annus
horribilis. During the course of the year—if
we survive—we will have tackled zombies,
serial killers, ghosts, demons, vampires, and
monsters of all denominations. Check back
each week for a new title...but remember to
bring along garlic, silver bullets and a
protective amulet. Ted Gioia















Were Ambrose Bierce's Ghost Stories Inspired by Undiagnosed Agoraphobia?
|
To purchase, click on image
By Ted Gioia
The nature of the
'horror' in these
tales corresponds
with exactitude
to the clinical
accounts of
agoraphobics...




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Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
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Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Blind Assassin
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barker, Clive
Books of Blood, Vols. 1-3
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Bierce, Ambrose
The Complete Short Stories
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Butler, Octavia E.
Fledgling
Campbell, Ramsey
Demons by Daylight
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chambers, Robert W.
The King in Yellow
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fowles, John
A Maggot
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hill, Susan
The Woman in Black
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Houellebecq, Michel
Submission
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Jackson, Shirley
The Haunting of Hill House
James, Henry
The Turn of the Screw
James, M.R.
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Ketchum, Jack
Off Season
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
King, Stephen
Carrie
Krilanovich, Grace
The Orange Eats Creeps
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Levin, Ira
Rosemary's Baby
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Lovecraft, H.P.
Tales
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mandel, Emily St. John
Station Eleven
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
I Am Legend
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Poe, Edgar Allan
Tales of Mystery & Imagination
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Rice, Anne
Interview with the Vampire
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Clark Ashton
The Dark Eidolon
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
Stoker, Bram
Dracula
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
The Dragon Masters
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Vance, Jack
The Languages of Pao
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vollmann, William T
Last Stories and Other Stories
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
My Year of Horrible Reading
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
The Most Secretive Sci-Fi Author
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
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An author's fears may have spurred a major innovation in horror fiction...and anticipated his own later disappearance
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