In the beginning there was darkness
Hi welcome to my blog. And thank you for getting this far
Let me begin by saying It should be of no surprise to anybody at this point as to where my interests are, or as to what the subject of this opening post will be after all the name surely gives that away, so best I should just begin.
It started for me many years ago as a child when I read my first Pan book of Horror Stories” For those of you who do not know the books I am referring to they were a series of paperback books 30 volumes in all published from 1959 to 89 written by some of the great fiction writers of both past and present, containing a collection of what must be the most original and ground breaking horror stories ever told.
They were at the time a most welcome Christmas present and not knowing their content, but being seduced by the gory cover, I started reading and found myself drawn In to a world of the supernatural, or at least the promise of the supernatural, a world of dark mystery, a world of antiquity and horror where nothing was quite what it seemed. After reading the first book, I was hooked, and.unbeknown to me I had discovered the door that would lead me into the world of Gothic literature and from there into a new and exciting Goth world. A world that existed and still does alongside the more conventional and boring world in which we all find ourselves on a day to day basis.
The word Gothic conjures up many images, and has many meanings, depending on whom you talk to and depending on which side of the fence you are standing.
The first use of the word Gothic as we know it today derives from a novel written by Horace Walpole in 1764 in which he used the word as a subtitle to his book The Castle of Otranto “A gothic tale” where it had the meaning to be almost barbarous and to have come from the Middle Ages. His book was the first of many that were to be published in the following years, to fuel the appetite for this new literary fashion that he had uncovered, as this new fictional genre went on to grip its reader like never before.
Today to follow the Gothic movement or be a Goth is thought to be all about lifestyle and culture, about how you dress and what music you like, but in fact it goes much deeper and always has. It has always been about how you perceive life and how you live it rather than just how others see you. There have always been and there always will be people who have a gothic soul, people who manage to see life from a different perspective they are the ones who will see beauty that is not visible to others, and find enjoyment and happiness were others only see darkness, these Goths stand out as individuals that seek to break away from the pack and express themselves in their own bold style, rather than just follow the crowd.
The Goth subculture as it is seen today in clothes and fashion comes out of England from the 1980s following on after the decline in the punk movement It comes in the form of a natural fashion evolution that has over the last nearly thirty years developed into a multi-layered series of goth styles and trends all of which have their own avid following. These various Goth fashions have developed in different ways in different countries along with the varied music that accompanies them and although they are all unique in their own way, Goths can instantly recognise each other through a shared collective identity.
For me what makes the word Goth so special is that it somehow implies the awareness and belonging to another world, a world parallel to the one of mere mortals were you never really know what you are seeing, it opens up the possibilities to so many things that maybe just maybe are more than just fiction.