Cruel Stories — Donald Tyson

This book is extreme horror and appropriate for adults only. The cruelty that human beings impose on each other, or upon themselves, is more horrifying than anything suffered in the natural realm. Nature is impersonal; in all of Nature only mankind is cruel. But cruelty is not the sole province of humanity. In the realm of the supernatural exist other entities which, like us, possess a capacity to torment. Gods, demons, wraiths, djinn can also be malicious. A single scarlet thread runs through these stories - the cruelty imposed upon men and woman both by the unnatural of this world and supernatural of the worlds that lie beyond. The conte cruel (cruel story) is a subgenre of horror fiction defined by French writers during the decadent fin de siècle of the 19th century. Its seminal exponent was the writer Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, who in 1883 published a collection of short stories under the title Contes Cruels. As the name implies, it was characterized by terror and suffering inflicted by one person upon another, variously motivated by such things as hatred, revenge, lust, greed, ambition, or sheer sadism. The addition of a supernatural element to this genre elevates it to the cosmic level. The suffering inflicted is not only physical and emotional, but spiritual and transformative. Spiritual horror strips away the comforting conventions of our shared reality to reveal what lies naked and beating beneath the skin. Those who suffer must confront the final and terrifying awareness of their own frailty. Suffering is a mirror - when we gaze into it, we see ourselves as we truly are, emptied of all illusions. This is the ultimate horror, which all of us at some point in our lives must face.