Gothic Silk

Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin Beginning with the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631, an event so powerful it created a new landscape and inspired the desolate and savage paintings of Salvator Rosa, Richard Davenport-Hines traces the evolution of the gothic imagination. This revelatory history ranges through art, architecture, gardening, literature, photography, filmmaking, music, and clothing design, and takes in artists and creations as various as Byron, Horace Walpole, Goya, Frankenstein’s monster, Edgar Allan Poe, Jackson Pollock, David Lynch, The Terminator, and The Cure.
Customer Review: Gothed
Subtitled “Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil, and Ruin,” this book is not what one should buy for your weird teen goth nephew who wears a nose ring, black fingernail polish, listens to Marilyn Manson, and hangs out at the food court at the mall.

Davenport-Hines’ book is strictly a historic work, tracing gothicism from the middle ages to today. While most of the book is interesting, the field is so big that the author can only bring surface examples to light without probing them too deeply. He has a section on the music of the Cure, and the literature of Poppy Z. Brite, but chose not, or just could not, interview either one of them.

The author’s biggest mistake is the amount of pages spent on gothic architecture. The first half of the book is full of castle names, earls and dukes, and is of little interest to those who want to read about the gothic lifestyle.

The author does deconstruct the literature of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne rather well, in addition to a myriad of British authors whose names I am not familiar with, but might be interested in now. His coverage of gothic art is average. The book includes photographs of many pieces of art, but the author must resign himself to describing pieces he could not include in the pictures, leading to reader frustration.

I do slightly recommend this book, but do not be fooled by its dark cover. This covers four hundred years of gothic HISTORY, not four hundred years of your nephew hanging out at the mall and listening to Marilyn Manson (who is not covered here).
Customer Review: more about tim burton?
The book was great until it started getting to the last part of the 20th century. There he forgot a lot of current gothic works in the areas of comic books and film. I think Tim Burton was only mentioned ONCE in the whole book for his work on the first Batman movie. He should have further explored Tim Burton’s work on Batman, as well as talked about Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands, The Crow, etc. He also could have explored horror films with dark themes like Rosemary’s Baby. And he forgot to talk about Batman comics, Sandman, and maybe even Spawn.

edgar allan poe, richard davenport hines, horace walpole, four hundred years, gothic imagination, poppy z brite, black fingernail polish, jackson pollock, gothic lifestyle, nathaniel hawthorne, gothic architecture, gothicism, marilyn manson, salvator rosa, british authors, clothing design, nose ring, gothic art, art architecture, eruption of vesuvius
edgar allan poe, richard davenport hines, horace walpole, four hundred years, gothic imagination, poppy z brite, black fingernail polish, jackson pollock, gothic lifestyle, nathaniel hawthorne, gothic architecture, gothicism, marilyn manson, salvator rosa, british authors, clothing design, nose ring, gothic art, art architecture, eruption of vesuvius