| Author |
Message |
|
| Mariette |
 Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 10:16 pm |
 |
|
|
New Member
Joined: 06 Jan 2007
Posts: 1
|
Hello:
I'm a literary creature who is not very familiar with the theatre world. I'm working on an article about a Cormac McCarthy novel called Blood Meridian. I embarked on a little research project to learn about Grand Guignol, because one of his book reviewers characterized Blood Meridian as a grand guignol and I wanted to understand how that was. I was delighted to have found Mel Gordon's gem of a book on the Grand Guignol as well as this website. (I'm also cursing my relatively young age, because I think I would have loved attending the Theatre Grand Guignol before WWII.)
I'm aware that since the theatre and genre closed in 1962 that "grand guignol" is sometimes used loosely as a literary term for anything deliberately horrific. An example is this dictionary definition of grand guignol:
"Grand Guignol |grä n g?n?yōl| noun a dramatic entertainment of a sensational or horrific nature, originally a sequence of short pieces as performed at the Grand Guignol theater in Paris. ORIGIN French, literally ‘Great Punch.’" It's pretty colloquial.
My question - in the off chance anyone visiting this forum has read Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian - is, was Joyce Carol Oates really correct in characterizing it as a grand guignol, or was she being too flippant about writers she looks down upon as usual? McCarthy *does* make use of theatricality, and I'm split down the middle on the issue at the moment. Not that it's possible that he set out to make his novel exactly like a Parisian horror play, but I have been wondering what it was he was doing in writing this extremely violent (and semihistorical) masterpiece.
Regards,
Mariette St-Simon
p.s. It's off topic but I simply cannot resist offering this NSFW clip as an example of unconscious nouvelle guignol: http://www.glumbert.com/media/sesamestreet. It all comes down to the puppets really. |
|
|
| Back to top |
  
|
| jpickens |
| Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:20 pm |
|
|
|
New Member
Joined: 07 Aug 2007
Posts: 1
Location: weston,wv
|
| To me it is more like a like cross between Grand Guignol and the extremely violent westerns of the late 60s and seventies because there are several scenes that more resemble an early 70s western than Grand Guignol. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Russell Blackwood |
| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:07 pm |
|
|
|
Moderator
Joined: 18 Sep 2003
Posts: 125
|
The phrase "grand guignol" gets broad usage these days. It's a compliment to the theatre company and the genre, I suppose. Not always a literal or an accurate label to be sure. Sometimes it's synonymous with "pure gore" or intended as a dismissive "pooh-pooh". You are right to question Ms. Oates intentions.
Cheers!
Russ |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
All times are GMT - 7 Hours
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB and NoseBleed v1.14 |
