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eschoeps 's review for:
Unexplained: Real-Life Supernatural Stories for Uncertain Times
by Richard MacLean Smith
A "non-fiction" collection of "real-life supernatural stories for uncertain times." The non-fiction adjective describes where this book can be found in a library or bookstore, and the "uncertain times" description on the front of the book hints that this author will be trying to explain how the spooky tales in this book can relate to our inner lives, technological advancements, scientific developments, ETC.
The stories themselves are spooky and fun. The horror devotee in me was pulled in by the stories themselves; Smith did an adequate job researching them, providing fun, flavorful language to spice up the structure of how he received the stories. What isn't fun is the steadfast serious tone of how he sticks to the stories. There is no room for skepticism or concrete explanation within. Only the scariest, most implausible explanation is what Smith will explore. And certain aspects of these stories (heck, most aspects) can probably be waved away as coincidence or fanciful imagination. Instead of acknowledging this at all, Smith plunges onward with a straight face.
Which might be tolerable and amusing, but then Smith uses the spooky tales to give meaning to our everyday reality. A story of reincarnation becomes an excuse to quickly sum up scientific experiments and then mold them to fit as a justification for how reincarnation can scientifically be plausible. Scientific findings shouldn't be presented and molded like this; it's a bold-faced lie and exaggeration to try to make these stories scarier. He then also delves into literary and cinematic criticism to lend further credence to supernatural happenings. Smith doesn't actually use the literary and cinematic criticism to further interpret the spooky story, test the boundaries of the spooky story, reimagine the spooky story (i.e. interesting and expansive). He more just references popular media to say, "look, it happened here too; so, it could happen in real life. There is no irony, no backpedaling, just a serious collection of "here's a story and the evidence to go with it," with the story being an enjoyable scare and the evidence as a loosely-compiled collection from wherever, as long as it vaguely relates to the scare.
Deeply unfocused, vague, and unfun.
The stories themselves are spooky and fun. The horror devotee in me was pulled in by the stories themselves; Smith did an adequate job researching them, providing fun, flavorful language to spice up the structure of how he received the stories. What isn't fun is the steadfast serious tone of how he sticks to the stories. There is no room for skepticism or concrete explanation within. Only the scariest, most implausible explanation is what Smith will explore. And certain aspects of these stories (heck, most aspects) can probably be waved away as coincidence or fanciful imagination. Instead of acknowledging this at all, Smith plunges onward with a straight face.
Which might be tolerable and amusing, but then Smith uses the spooky tales to give meaning to our everyday reality. A story of reincarnation becomes an excuse to quickly sum up scientific experiments and then mold them to fit as a justification for how reincarnation can scientifically be plausible. Scientific findings shouldn't be presented and molded like this; it's a bold-faced lie and exaggeration to try to make these stories scarier. He then also delves into literary and cinematic criticism to lend further credence to supernatural happenings. Smith doesn't actually use the literary and cinematic criticism to further interpret the spooky story, test the boundaries of the spooky story, reimagine the spooky story (i.e. interesting and expansive). He more just references popular media to say, "look, it happened here too; so, it could happen in real life. There is no irony, no backpedaling, just a serious collection of "here's a story and the evidence to go with it," with the story being an enjoyable scare and the evidence as a loosely-compiled collection from wherever, as long as it vaguely relates to the scare.
Deeply unfocused, vague, and unfun.