The Visible Filth: The Basis for the Film Wounds

I often have insomnia around 3am, and will read my Kindle in bed while I wait for sleepiness to return. Last night I took the opportunity to read The Visible Filth.I do not recommend reading the novella in this manner.Or maybe I do, because it certainly primed my brain for this creepy, disturbing tale. I often appreciate weird fiction at an intellectual, rather than emotional, level, but this reached right into my lizard brain and pushed all the “dread” buttons. There was one refuge within the story that kept me from hiding it until sunrise - I really disliked the protagonist, and didn't relate to him much. I think this is a feature, not a bug - fully intended by Ballingrud to allow readers enough space to break the tension . . . then allow it to build again. Will is shallow and selfish, and his life is a million miles from my happy suburban existence. At one point, he practically breaks the fourth wall: “He imagined himself observed and understood by an invisible witness. Would there be room for sympathy? Or would he be damned by it?” For me, the answer was “a little of each.” Will isn't sympathetic overall, but his foibles are so very empathetically human, we can relate to his individual temptations and failures, even if we judge their ultimate accumulation.Enough about Will - you want to know why this scared me, right? The core is that perennial human weakness - the temptation to Look. From Lot's wife and Orpheus right on through Bird Box, this unsettling compulsion to examine forbidden, horrible things resonates throughout human storytelling. (A pause here to recognize the homage to [b:The King in Yellow 32277642 The King in Yellow Robert W. Chambers https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1475221812s/32277642.jpg 52901661], where characters are tempted to read a notorious banned play, despite their knowledge that it drives readers mad. I'm sure the cell phone is yellow for a reason; and what's a better Millennial analog to such a play than the Deep Web?)Ballingrud presents the common experience of this temptation with the perfect blend of implication and disclosure. The characters wonder and investigate, and we get some revelation, but nothing that comfortably reduces the horror to a manageable set of rules. If you hate ambiguity in your horror, this probably isn't for you. But if you agree with Stephen King that Nothing is so frightening as what's behind the closed door. . . . , come right in and make yourself comfortable - I have some insomnia to share with you.