I'VE JUST finished reading a book, aimed I would say at young adults, which featured many innocent people having their throats cut by a serial killer, who then went on to set young women on fire.
The book, based on the fine television series Fringe, was written by a woman. Also recently, I encountered another novel which included made-up war atrocities. I've been trying desperately ever since — unsuccessfully — to erase it from my Kindle. The very memory upsets me.
I've only rarely thrown books into the trash and the last one featured further horror. Supposedly a harmless piece of fun kung fu fiction, it began with the rape and murder of a child on her birthday. I hurled that one across the room in a fury. If I'd got hold of the author I'd have committed further atrocities that, doubtless, would make the basis of another violent novel.
Roughly speaking, I am five years and two months ahead of the mob or zeitgeist. Don't envy me. It's more curse than blessing.
I've campaigned for ages against sordid violence in our fiction and films, not least in the Girl with the Wotsit Tattoo series, and Nordic Noir generally, because its atrocities against women are unspeakable and the product of warped literary minds.
Liberals, who support free expression in everything, taunt: "What are you going to do, ban it?" Er, yes. Banning is the basis of civilisation. We ban murder, rape, theft etc. Banning is good and right.
Admittedly, I haven't thought this through, as I'm far too busy for that sort of thing. But at least we could create a moral climate in which sadism for entertainment is discouraged and shunned, instead of being ubiquitous.
Liberals — apologists for dictators the world over — will hate this. It is they, often enough, who write such stuff, which is why Hollywood bad guys, having immolated families and threatened the world willy-nilly, are always let off with a stern warning and three months' community service.
Well, at last, the world has had enough. There are complaints about TV shows such as Game of Thrones and doubts raised about Nordic Noir.
Writers on the über-liberal Guardian even raised questions recently about the old rabbit-based cartoon Watership Down, and its online readers about Mary Poppins (albeit tongue in cheek). The backlash against horror has at last begun. And it's going to get nasty.
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