Just a few days ago I was in Waterstones (a leading book shop) in Belfast on a whim that I might find something that interests me. I haven't been reading a lot lately, and perhaps that is because with the volume I have to read I have come to wholly not enjoy reading, but I guess I had some time to kill and wanted to see if I could find something I liked.
When leaving the store I noticed an Island in the middle of the shop floor - Islands comprise of a double sided unit full of books. This section was called "Misery", which I found kind of strange. On having a closer look I found to contain books like "A Child Called It" and a squillion ilk, fiction or not.
It got me to thinking. Who actually goes out of their way to buy and read this? Personally, I consider myself to have a rather strong stomach, having watched many a surgery and saw many an infection, but to go out of your way to disgust and titilate yourself gleefully by reading a tale of someone elses torture? Personally, it's a little sickening.
Perhaps it comes down to the fact in this day we have been brought up around an exponential degree of violence - whether it be on the news or in entertainment. While that is not necessarily a bad thing. The public obsession with the Austrain cellar fiasco, almost voyeuristically delighting people as more lurid details came to light. Excuse the pun. Why did we need to know? Being shocked didn't force us to condemn anything, or governments or social services - it simply gave us something to entertain us while shaking our heads in faux disbelief.
Which brings me to this. This week saw the conviction of of two men and the mother of a child who was beaten to death over a period of 17-months. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7708398.stm ). The crime alone was shockingly distasteful, and not something I would purposefully seek to read about. The graphic detail seemed to drive people to dispair, but that wouldn't explain the demand for details of torture and images of the child pre-death that the newspapers have been churning out over the past few days. Can I not imagine a childs injurys without being shown a 3D render? Is a photo of a happy child, whose face was obscured at the beginning of the week, really needed on the front page unblurred accompanied by headlines of torture?
When we fork over squillions of good money to pay for books like A Child Called It it shows our appetite for suffering and torture which is no longer satisfied by fictional TV shows or Novels. It's sometimes hard for me to stomach the increasingly perverse nature of society, and the mentality of those who are entertained by such salacious details of agony. The only people that need this sort of material is a Judge and Jury, otherwise it risks just becoming another entertaining modern Penny Dreadful.
</high horse>
When leaving the store I noticed an Island in the middle of the shop floor - Islands comprise of a double sided unit full of books. This section was called "Misery", which I found kind of strange. On having a closer look I found to contain books like "A Child Called It" and a squillion ilk, fiction or not.
It got me to thinking. Who actually goes out of their way to buy and read this? Personally, I consider myself to have a rather strong stomach, having watched many a surgery and saw many an infection, but to go out of your way to disgust and titilate yourself gleefully by reading a tale of someone elses torture? Personally, it's a little sickening.
Perhaps it comes down to the fact in this day we have been brought up around an exponential degree of violence - whether it be on the news or in entertainment. While that is not necessarily a bad thing. The public obsession with the Austrain cellar fiasco, almost voyeuristically delighting people as more lurid details came to light. Excuse the pun. Why did we need to know? Being shocked didn't force us to condemn anything, or governments or social services - it simply gave us something to entertain us while shaking our heads in faux disbelief.
Which brings me to this. This week saw the conviction of of two men and the mother of a child who was beaten to death over a period of 17-months. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7708398.stm ). The crime alone was shockingly distasteful, and not something I would purposefully seek to read about. The graphic detail seemed to drive people to dispair, but that wouldn't explain the demand for details of torture and images of the child pre-death that the newspapers have been churning out over the past few days. Can I not imagine a childs injurys without being shown a 3D render? Is a photo of a happy child, whose face was obscured at the beginning of the week, really needed on the front page unblurred accompanied by headlines of torture?
When we fork over squillions of good money to pay for books like A Child Called It it shows our appetite for suffering and torture which is no longer satisfied by fictional TV shows or Novels. It's sometimes hard for me to stomach the increasingly perverse nature of society, and the mentality of those who are entertained by such salacious details of agony. The only people that need this sort of material is a Judge and Jury, otherwise it risks just becoming another entertaining modern Penny Dreadful.
</high horse>