Monday, 5 March 2012

Portrait of a Madman

I always find when I have a lot of work to do I always seek out something else. So, in the midst of 20,000 words, an essay on nineteenth century literature and a script to write I rummaged around in my drawer and found the stack of notes on the novel I want to write Cupid's Obsession. With this project - I believe anyway - there demands a lot of research. One of the characters is obsessed with the Marquis De Sade thus I have to read a lot of him. My lecturer, Catherine, informed me that in order to be considered for the MA course I wish to do after University I have to a) get the grades (of course! which I won't do unless I do my freaking work!) and b) know everything about the genre I'm going into which is literary horror. There's also little things. My roommate, Joe, told me of how Chuck Palahniuk went to meetings about survivors of horrific incidents to help his book Survivor, he went to sex addict meetings to hear the details of people's darkest desires to feed into his novels. Although that sounds fascinating I'd be petrified to enter the room and then, when turned to, make up a story - of course I could make up a story but keeping a straight face would be difficult. I, therefore, have sought other alternatives.


The main character of Cupid's Obsession is a retired porn star. I know nothing of a porn star's life style and find it interesting. How can someone who does the 'physical act of love' as some say go home and lead a normal life? Is it not isolating to do something that people dream of doing? Acting out their fantasies? The best way to find this information out, I have found, is by looking at porn star's blogs. Only just know was I reading one where it came across that the porn star in question was severely depressed and had a problem with drugs and alcohol. In the pictures he is smiling but behind he seems to be harboring this dark secret. It's the classic question - what goes on behind closed doors? And what happens when somebody snaps? These two questions are addressed in Cupid's Obsession which follows four main characters and their lives. There is a grotesque scene that goes well with the music of Thomas Newman from Little Children is something I plan on writing next, it fits well - in my mind more perhaps - with a scene I wrote in my last horror story Til Death Do Us Part where the main characters hangs his dog. This, along with the ending of Cupid's is a 'thank you' or homage to Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat. 


Edgar Allan Poe came into conversation when I was having Sunday dinner yesterday - made by my exquisite friend Vicky who piled the food on our plates like we were at our a carvery -  and my other roommate Dom informed me that he had only just read The Tell-Tale Heart and that was the only piece of Poe's work he had read. I was shocked to say the least. Poe is a huge influence on me. Yesterday - while rummaging through my notes - I found a foreword I wrote for Cupid's - I like keeping a reference of what I was doing and thinking at the time of writing stories - and I noticed just how much Poe's madness - both in his stories and life - helped me. Madness is something that I am really interested in - on that note I have a book about madness I need to review for Bookgeeks! The question: is the madman truly mad or does he see the truth? Is this madman seeing something we are all too afraid to see? It's fascinating, no? 


Reading the blog of certain porn star's makes you think - well me at least - is something as obscure as leading a life like that - something that pulls you out of 'normality' and stops you from leading a 'normal life' make you mad? Metaphorically mad anyway. Madness is a wall between you and the world - when you're mad people stop listening to you, it's nonsense. You no longer fit into society, you're not normal. So, by that logic, are the lonely, tragic figures not just mad also? Are they not pushed out of society? 


Talking about this has formed my main character perfectly in my head and my research shall continue, along with the mountain of writing and reading I have to do. It's also got me thinking of one of my favourite novels Revolutionary Road and how April and Frank were looked at as insane. They were never called it but the idea of running away from a normal life, throwing it all away for a dream seemed to be insane. Are some people called insane because they shake what we perceive to be normality? 


I really like this image of Frank and April - Winslet and De Caprio - on the set of Revolutionary Road - brings back memories and new thoughts. 

No comments:

Post a Comment