It was just an egg sitting at the edge of the garden, identical in size, colour, etc. to the ones you'd see in the grocery store. Turned out to have a near term bird embryo in it (and we didn't drop it on purpose).
Still slightly haunted by that. Nearly half a century later, I'm an experienced birder and still can't make much sense of that egg being there.
And THAT lasting emotional effect is exactly what you want to create in fiction. I don't recall which Cormac McCarthy novel it was in, but I do vividly recall his description of a small lizard run over by a wagon and dying as it "dragged its tiny blue bowel". Enormous pathos.
I must be a terrible person because I often care more about the animal dying than the human but as it states here, the sentiment isn't unusual. Patrick Bateman shot, stabbed, axed and beat his way through almost every character he met but taking the puppy out of the movie was absolutely necessary to keep the viewer watching. I often think it's because animals are completely at a human's mercy. They stay loyal without question and when that loyalty and care is used and used to hurt it's awful to even hear about.
Does the kind of animal make a difference, though?
On some reality show (I think it was Fear Factor), they dumped a load of snakes on the contestants, who are screaming and thrashing around. This is all very bad for the snakes. Later on, contestants are biting the abdomens off young camel spiders. Clearly deadly for the spiders, but perfectly fine for TV.
I started thinking how different it would be with more "lovable" animals. Dump a bunch of live puppies onto people who will traumatized and injure them with their reaction, or bite the heads off hamsters.
Herptiles and arthropods are far enough removed from humans that maybe most people don't get the same twinges for them. I guess if the animal is something habitually threatening, too, like a lion.
Do you feel this same kind of double standard exists in fiction? As Denis Leary put it, "We only like the cute animals, don't we?"
Agreed on all points. In 'The Day of the Locust' there's a savage cock fighting scene, and we care much less for the roosters than we would for sparrows or whatnot.
Isn’t killing an innocent, instead of an animal, just as effective? Like a child, elderly or disabled person?
I think the reason I’m turned off to the idea of killing and animal is not just because it’s tricky but because of how awful I felt just reading about it. Stephen King made Patrick Hocksteader have that damn fridge and it still haunts me to this day.
Or is that the takeaway? How effective it was in making me dislike Patrick?
That's a good point, I've often thought the same. For some odd reason in our current cultural moment animals are (somewhat hypocritically) placed on a kind of pedestal even above children, and I can't quite figure it out (and don't get me wrong I'm an absolute sap for cats and dogs). I think people nowadays find it easier to empathize with animals than humans, maybe that's part of it.
To me, though I love dogs and cats, I think it’s a closer crime to murder when someone tortures or harms a chimpanzee or dolphin, even if I’d never want to own either.
But cats, dogs, horses, even cows and pigs, we just love them and breed them to be more and more adorable every generation since the end of the damn Pleistocene.
It's a cultural thing. Although I agree with what you said last. People where I live for instance, find death of children and cruely towards senior citizens more difficult to take, either in stories or day to day life -- Nursing homes in the Arab world are not as full as someplace else.. And you can find a final Covid Vaccine but, you won't find any proper animal shelter.
Love this. Speaking of DF Wallace, did you ever attempt Infinite Jest, and if so, how far did you make it? Did you ever meet him? I tend to share your sentiments insofar as I prefer his non-fiction.
Approximately how many dead cat stories have you read at workshop over the years?
I know the q is for Chuck, but I’ll answer too. I listened to it on audiobook and it was much easier to get through. Before you ask, it does it prompt you to go to the book for the sub and superscripts instead of going there and coming back.
I tried the audiobook as well, still couldn't do it. Got maybe 150 pages in. I do enjoy his short stories, I find his verbal/intellectual density much more palatable in smaller portions. And his essays are brilliant.
Not sure if you remember this, but years ago you came to London to give a talk. It was in an old church, decorated with fancy chairs and dimmed lights everywhere. You sat on stage and started telling stories. The interviewer just crossed her arms and legs listening, hypnotised. So was everyone else. Everyone quiet. In the dark.
You told a story of a married couple who is trying to get rid of a cat. They argued about it. Over and over. They agree that the cat will go as soon as the big bag of cat food is empty. Cat food as a gun. You got everyone hooked. Everyone there, waiting to listen how in the end they’d get rid of the poor kitten. Only the cat didn’t disappear from the story. Instead, it got fatter and fatter, and the bag of food never got empty. The woman bought some spare cat food she kept hidden. When her husband wasn’t around she kept refilling the main bag over and over. Her husband didn’t suspect anything. He had hidden a bag of cat food himself, he used to refill the main bag when his wife went to work in the morning.
I've always loved that story.
Sometimes even just the idea of killing an animal can be more than enough to trigger a cat food of emotions.
Hah! That was Tammie and Matthew, and their baby is now sixteen years old. I used that dynamic in my short story 'Phoenix.' I'm tickled you remember it. Thank you.
The killing of the bull in Apocalypse Now was very powerful and I think fits into what you are saying. The death of an animal resonates differently in part because animals are not saddled with sin, original or otherwise.
Exactly. Animals are seen to have no agency. These days, even Dr. Laura would insist that abused children had agency and benefited in some small way (attention, pleasure) from their abuse. It was interesting, hearing her radio show, to hear children losing their innocence. Now only animals seem to represent a complete victim hood.
I'm tackling this in a future post. But the greater difference is between the death of a parent and the death of a child. A dead parent = comedy. A dead child = tragedy.
Consider that the death of a child -- if managed poorly -- will alienate readers more quickly than the death of an animal. I know a lot of folks who bailed out of the original 'Pet Semetary' when the truck hit the small child.
This will be a longer upcoming post, but most recent comedy (mostly TV series and films) has been based on family situations in which one or both parents are dead. I mention this in 'Consider This' but don't balance it with how the dead child is always tragic.
The article Offensive Play by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker was excellent. "How different are dogfighting and football?" The descriptions of dog fighting were brutally detailed but I think necessary. Beautiful article that used anima abuse to illustrate and showcase the topic of neglect, death, and head injury in the NFL. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play
It can be slightly difficult if you are told over and over that football does not have any long term effects on the brain and does not cause brain damage later on in life. Players were told that there is no long term effects from tackling for years and the NFL continually denied that their own players were hurt due to concussions. It's beautifully laid out. And no its not a perfect analogy. I'm saying that dog fighting was used to explain the politics of football extremely well in this article. I couldn't stop reading it. I don't like football and I don't like dog fighting and it still is a story I remember.
I've had moments where I was vulnerable, scared, and at the mercy of others and they hurt me in unimaginable ways. I am scared of those moments because of the loss of control and what my own darkness has whispered into me as to what I should do with my tormentors.
Animals remind me of that vulnerable, scared self - anyone hurting them becomes my tormentor.
I imagine other people have that same psychological pull.
Duuuuuuude, Truth is stranger than fiction....when I was about 9 my sister got 2 twin black kittens from her boyfriend. She named them Raven and Redrum (The Shining no fucking lie,100% true) and a few weeks later Raven was found dead outside the window. I was thinking Redrum did it cuz she was jealous until Redrum was found outside the window by me. We lived on the second floor and it was evident from the neck it didn't fall like I was told Raven did and I was beyond devastated. So one of my siblings did it.........
Re: The Girl with Curious Hair, David Foster Wallace — Wow you unlocked a memory for me here. First of all, I’ve never read that story. But what you just described made me come to a realization. In the late 1990s I was an awkward middle schooler who, like many kids, was sent to evangelical Christian camps in the summer. At one such camp a guest minister (a young guy with a bunch of enthusiasm) told a long story about teens killing a puppy. We’re talking about an hour long ordeal here. He described this absolutely brutal torture that ended with them lighting it on fire inside a bag. And then, with all these crying little kids in the sanctuary, he ended the story with something along the lines of ‘and how many of you got more upset about that puppy dying than what they did to Jesus?’ And then all of us felt real horrible after that. That guy totally ripped off David Foster Wallace.
Years later at a different camp another young minister told a horrific rape story that I won’t get into here. It was as stomach turning as any Harmony Korine narrative. But I remember thinking as a little kid how fucked up it was and beginning to question the judgement and intentions of the adults running the show. With those Christian camps it was always this sort of nasty emotional manipulation to prod you into only one conclusion: loving Jesus is your only option. (Right now I’m reading Vonnegut for the first time — ‘But the Gospels actually taught us this: *Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected.* So if goes.’)
The weird thing about summer camps is your parents aren’t around anymore and they don’t know what is actually going on there. They just fill in the gaps and assume it’s not being run by maniacs. Does anyone else here have experience with crazy religious camps? Would love to hear your stories. Summer camps in general have made for some great plots, but I feel like religious fanatics in charge of kids is a storyline that could be tapped into a lot more.
Apologies, as I'm coming to this a million years late and you've probably completely forgotten about posting the comment I'm replying to by now. (I signed up for this Substack when it first started, but life happened...and I'm only now catching up on all the posts.) I won't say much here, since I don't know how all this works and I don't know if you'll even get a notification and see this -- but if you do, I can totally commiserate about the crazy religious summer camp stuff! "Nasty emotional manipulation" is exactly right. I have a few "what were they thinking" stories of my own for sure! (That dog torture story is beyond the pale, though. Yeah, I DO feel worse about that fictional dog than I ever did about Jesus. Not sorry!)
What about the movie "Of Mice and Men?" Lennie never knew his own strength and killed a bunch of animals. A mouse, a dog. But since of his mental disability, we couldn't really hate him for killing those small animals.
But there was one scene with Candy and his dog. People kept telling him he had to put him down because he was so old. And he eventually let someone else take him outside to put down.
Later on in the movie, Candy confesses to George that, "I shouldn't of let no stranger shoot my dog. I would've done it myself." And that line ties in to what happens at the end.
I believe the main character in Welsh’s ‘Maraboustork Nightmares’ actually kills the dog sadistically using tape and fireworks. And, if I recall, it’s not even the same dog that attacked him in his youth—it’s a dog of the seem breed and name.
For curiosity’s sake, what about narratives in which an animal is the antagonist, e.g. ‘Jaws’, ‘Cujo’? I can believe some sympathy being felt for the st Bernard whose been infected with rabies, but the shark? Nae. “Smile you son of a bitch...”
Lot of emotionally charged anecdotes in there. I was reminded of the classic joke about the cat and the mother-in-law on the roof, but in reverse.
http://www.irossco.com/comedy/joke86.htm
It was just an egg sitting at the edge of the garden, identical in size, colour, etc. to the ones you'd see in the grocery store. Turned out to have a near term bird embryo in it (and we didn't drop it on purpose).
Still slightly haunted by that. Nearly half a century later, I'm an experienced birder and still can't make much sense of that egg being there.
And THAT lasting emotional effect is exactly what you want to create in fiction. I don't recall which Cormac McCarthy novel it was in, but I do vividly recall his description of a small lizard run over by a wagon and dying as it "dragged its tiny blue bowel". Enormous pathos.
Outer Dark, Sir.
I must be a terrible person because I often care more about the animal dying than the human but as it states here, the sentiment isn't unusual. Patrick Bateman shot, stabbed, axed and beat his way through almost every character he met but taking the puppy out of the movie was absolutely necessary to keep the viewer watching. I often think it's because animals are completely at a human's mercy. They stay loyal without question and when that loyalty and care is used and used to hurt it's awful to even hear about.
Does the kind of animal make a difference, though?
On some reality show (I think it was Fear Factor), they dumped a load of snakes on the contestants, who are screaming and thrashing around. This is all very bad for the snakes. Later on, contestants are biting the abdomens off young camel spiders. Clearly deadly for the spiders, but perfectly fine for TV.
I started thinking how different it would be with more "lovable" animals. Dump a bunch of live puppies onto people who will traumatized and injure them with their reaction, or bite the heads off hamsters.
Herptiles and arthropods are far enough removed from humans that maybe most people don't get the same twinges for them. I guess if the animal is something habitually threatening, too, like a lion.
Do you feel this same kind of double standard exists in fiction? As Denis Leary put it, "We only like the cute animals, don't we?"
Agreed on all points. In 'The Day of the Locust' there's a savage cock fighting scene, and we care much less for the roosters than we would for sparrows or whatnot.
Isn’t killing an innocent, instead of an animal, just as effective? Like a child, elderly or disabled person?
I think the reason I’m turned off to the idea of killing and animal is not just because it’s tricky but because of how awful I felt just reading about it. Stephen King made Patrick Hocksteader have that damn fridge and it still haunts me to this day.
Or is that the takeaway? How effective it was in making me dislike Patrick?
That's a good point, I've often thought the same. For some odd reason in our current cultural moment animals are (somewhat hypocritically) placed on a kind of pedestal even above children, and I can't quite figure it out (and don't get me wrong I'm an absolute sap for cats and dogs). I think people nowadays find it easier to empathize with animals than humans, maybe that's part of it.
To me, though I love dogs and cats, I think it’s a closer crime to murder when someone tortures or harms a chimpanzee or dolphin, even if I’d never want to own either.
But cats, dogs, horses, even cows and pigs, we just love them and breed them to be more and more adorable every generation since the end of the damn Pleistocene.
We’re all suckers.
It's a cultural thing. Although I agree with what you said last. People where I live for instance, find death of children and cruely towards senior citizens more difficult to take, either in stories or day to day life -- Nursing homes in the Arab world are not as full as someplace else.. And you can find a final Covid Vaccine but, you won't find any proper animal shelter.
That makes sense. It was the same for my European grandparents. Western consumer culture?
Consider that it also depends on the animal. The factory-farmed cow doesn't get a lot of sympathy. Maybe in 'Charlotte's Web'.
Was that the fridge that ate the seagull? Damn I loved that.
Lol. No. The fridge in the woods he put small woodland animals in to let them die a horrible death by starvation or suffocation.
Ima go brush my teeth now.
Yow. I'm glad I missed that one.
Love this. Speaking of DF Wallace, did you ever attempt Infinite Jest, and if so, how far did you make it? Did you ever meet him? I tend to share your sentiments insofar as I prefer his non-fiction.
Approximately how many dead cat stories have you read at workshop over the years?
I know the q is for Chuck, but I’ll answer too. I listened to it on audiobook and it was much easier to get through. Before you ask, it does it prompt you to go to the book for the sub and superscripts instead of going there and coming back.
I tried the audiobook as well, still couldn't do it. Got maybe 150 pages in. I do enjoy his short stories, I find his verbal/intellectual density much more palatable in smaller portions. And his essays are brilliant.
Not sure if you remember this, but years ago you came to London to give a talk. It was in an old church, decorated with fancy chairs and dimmed lights everywhere. You sat on stage and started telling stories. The interviewer just crossed her arms and legs listening, hypnotised. So was everyone else. Everyone quiet. In the dark.
You told a story of a married couple who is trying to get rid of a cat. They argued about it. Over and over. They agree that the cat will go as soon as the big bag of cat food is empty. Cat food as a gun. You got everyone hooked. Everyone there, waiting to listen how in the end they’d get rid of the poor kitten. Only the cat didn’t disappear from the story. Instead, it got fatter and fatter, and the bag of food never got empty. The woman bought some spare cat food she kept hidden. When her husband wasn’t around she kept refilling the main bag over and over. Her husband didn’t suspect anything. He had hidden a bag of cat food himself, he used to refill the main bag when his wife went to work in the morning.
I've always loved that story.
Sometimes even just the idea of killing an animal can be more than enough to trigger a cat food of emotions.
I've heard Chuck tell that story as well, maybe in an interview or something. I agree, it's great.
And it resonates because it echoes the lamp in the Temple of David that burned despite limited oil.
Hah! That was Tammie and Matthew, and their baby is now sixteen years old. I used that dynamic in my short story 'Phoenix.' I'm tickled you remember it. Thank you.
The killing of the bull in Apocalypse Now was very powerful and I think fits into what you are saying. The death of an animal resonates differently in part because animals are not saddled with sin, original or otherwise.
Oh that's a good one!
Exactly. Animals are seen to have no agency. These days, even Dr. Laura would insist that abused children had agency and benefited in some small way (attention, pleasure) from their abuse. It was interesting, hearing her radio show, to hear children losing their innocence. Now only animals seem to represent a complete victim hood.
Thanks for the tips.
So, what's worse, depicting the death of a child or a pet?
I'm tackling this in a future post. But the greater difference is between the death of a parent and the death of a child. A dead parent = comedy. A dead child = tragedy.
Consider that the death of a child -- if managed poorly -- will alienate readers more quickly than the death of an animal. I know a lot of folks who bailed out of the original 'Pet Semetary' when the truck hit the small child.
Sorry to ask more Chuck but, can you please elaborate a little bit on why a dead parent is comedy?
This will be a longer upcoming post, but most recent comedy (mostly TV series and films) has been based on family situations in which one or both parents are dead. I mention this in 'Consider This' but don't balance it with how the dead child is always tragic.
The article Offensive Play by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker was excellent. "How different are dogfighting and football?" The descriptions of dog fighting were brutally detailed but I think necessary. Beautiful article that used anima abuse to illustrate and showcase the topic of neglect, death, and head injury in the NFL. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/19/offensive-play
"How different are dogfighting and football?" One is entirely voluntary, the other is not.
It can be slightly difficult if you are told over and over that football does not have any long term effects on the brain and does not cause brain damage later on in life. Players were told that there is no long term effects from tackling for years and the NFL continually denied that their own players were hurt due to concussions. It's beautifully laid out. And no its not a perfect analogy. I'm saying that dog fighting was used to explain the politics of football extremely well in this article. I couldn't stop reading it. I don't like football and I don't like dog fighting and it still is a story I remember.
I've had moments where I was vulnerable, scared, and at the mercy of others and they hurt me in unimaginable ways. I am scared of those moments because of the loss of control and what my own darkness has whispered into me as to what I should do with my tormentors.
Animals remind me of that vulnerable, scared self - anyone hurting them becomes my tormentor.
I imagine other people have that same psychological pull.
Not a productive comment, but I LOVE this post! Thank you!
Thank you. I need the strokes. Back soon, off to get a haircut.
You'd better keep your mask on the entire time, Big Brother is watching.
Duuuuuuude, Truth is stranger than fiction....when I was about 9 my sister got 2 twin black kittens from her boyfriend. She named them Raven and Redrum (The Shining no fucking lie,100% true) and a few weeks later Raven was found dead outside the window. I was thinking Redrum did it cuz she was jealous until Redrum was found outside the window by me. We lived on the second floor and it was evident from the neck it didn't fall like I was told Raven did and I was beyond devastated. So one of my siblings did it.........
I can write about broken lives, smashed faces, even child abuse. Anything but critters in distress. Well, bugs are sorta OK but there are limits.
Re: The Girl with Curious Hair, David Foster Wallace — Wow you unlocked a memory for me here. First of all, I’ve never read that story. But what you just described made me come to a realization. In the late 1990s I was an awkward middle schooler who, like many kids, was sent to evangelical Christian camps in the summer. At one such camp a guest minister (a young guy with a bunch of enthusiasm) told a long story about teens killing a puppy. We’re talking about an hour long ordeal here. He described this absolutely brutal torture that ended with them lighting it on fire inside a bag. And then, with all these crying little kids in the sanctuary, he ended the story with something along the lines of ‘and how many of you got more upset about that puppy dying than what they did to Jesus?’ And then all of us felt real horrible after that. That guy totally ripped off David Foster Wallace.
Years later at a different camp another young minister told a horrific rape story that I won’t get into here. It was as stomach turning as any Harmony Korine narrative. But I remember thinking as a little kid how fucked up it was and beginning to question the judgement and intentions of the adults running the show. With those Christian camps it was always this sort of nasty emotional manipulation to prod you into only one conclusion: loving Jesus is your only option. (Right now I’m reading Vonnegut for the first time — ‘But the Gospels actually taught us this: *Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected.* So if goes.’)
The weird thing about summer camps is your parents aren’t around anymore and they don’t know what is actually going on there. They just fill in the gaps and assume it’s not being run by maniacs. Does anyone else here have experience with crazy religious camps? Would love to hear your stories. Summer camps in general have made for some great plots, but I feel like religious fanatics in charge of kids is a storyline that could be tapped into a lot more.
Apologies, as I'm coming to this a million years late and you've probably completely forgotten about posting the comment I'm replying to by now. (I signed up for this Substack when it first started, but life happened...and I'm only now catching up on all the posts.) I won't say much here, since I don't know how all this works and I don't know if you'll even get a notification and see this -- but if you do, I can totally commiserate about the crazy religious summer camp stuff! "Nasty emotional manipulation" is exactly right. I have a few "what were they thinking" stories of my own for sure! (That dog torture story is beyond the pale, though. Yeah, I DO feel worse about that fictional dog than I ever did about Jesus. Not sorry!)
Evangelical camps for youth and youth group stuff in general is INSANE!
Truly! But as you said, great material for extremely disturbing stories.
What about the movie "Of Mice and Men?" Lennie never knew his own strength and killed a bunch of animals. A mouse, a dog. But since of his mental disability, we couldn't really hate him for killing those small animals.
But there was one scene with Candy and his dog. People kept telling him he had to put him down because he was so old. And he eventually let someone else take him outside to put down.
Later on in the movie, Candy confesses to George that, "I shouldn't of let no stranger shoot my dog. I would've done it myself." And that line ties in to what happens at the end.
Likewise, the baby bunnies that are killed in 'Jesus' Son' and the dog killed in 'The Grapes of Wrath.' Killing an animal is powerful.
I believe the main character in Welsh’s ‘Maraboustork Nightmares’ actually kills the dog sadistically using tape and fireworks. And, if I recall, it’s not even the same dog that attacked him in his youth—it’s a dog of the seem breed and name.
For curiosity’s sake, what about narratives in which an animal is the antagonist, e.g. ‘Jaws’, ‘Cujo’? I can believe some sympathy being felt for the st Bernard whose been infected with rabies, but the shark? Nae. “Smile you son of a bitch...”
Yeah, I tried to soft-pedal it, here.
Not on my watch. Pedal to the metal.