3+1 BOOKS THAT WERE WRITTEN OUT OF SPITE
You could have never thought that the spark of creativity could be hidden behind a feeling of spite and resentment, yet it is so.
If you are also waiting for the enchanting muse to show up in front of you in the nights in front of the blank screen, do not wait any longer.
You already have what you need to restore your imagination and it is spitefulness.
That wave of unhealthy pique you feel when you see your neighbor move the car back on your driveway or that ill will that you have when you see That companion at work grinning every day, it is all you need. At least it worked for someone.
It was enough for these authors to create literary masterpieces that captivated and fascinated us, and that were born from that worldly feeling.
So let’s see what burned the hearts of these writers so much that they made a book out of them.
1) “FRANKESTEIN” BY MARY SHELLEY
Let’s start with one of the best known. You will certainly know the story, but I am curious to know how many know this interesting aspect.
In that period where literary Gothic ruled in England, everyone was busy writing stories with a dark and gloomy atmosphere, and many of the most famous writers of the time gathered to tell terrifying stories drinking tea.
It is said that it was in one of these meetings at the home of the Shelley couple, that on a stormy day, came to one of the acclaimed writers, Lord Byron, intent on evening chat, the idea of launching a challenge to his literature colleagues to write the most chilling story than they could imagine.
A talented writer as she was, Mary Shelley was well aware that she lived up to, if not more than, her literary colleagues and her husband who was also a writer, but she also knew that, being the only woman in the group of writers, they were guilty of a bit of presumption, somewhat sexist. And not only them but also the society itself was afflicted by it, consolidated in an obtuse and arrogant patriarchy that prevented and diminished the rise of women, especially in the most renowned literary and scientific fields that at that moment were very popular, for fear of being eclipsed.
So that she, motivated by a feeling of payback in wanting to teach all these men who judged without criterion or value, had the great idea of uniting that vision of the”invincible” man and capable of going beyond the science of the time, with all those scientific experiments that were becoming very popular. All this, in a story with a deeply grim and gothic background, where man’s arrogance in wanting to challenge every rule given by nature (even that of death), leads him to suffer the punishment of a failed creation, living proof of the failure of a proud man: the Doctor. Frankestein, also known as the true monster of the story.
The latter, in fact, will reject the creature with contempt and horror, motivated only by the refusal of his inability to recognize his limits, forcing the being to turn against the crowd and against him for having betrayed him.
A tragic story now famous to all, whose real meaning, however, is often lacking in the paraphrases of the story, too caught up in the symbolisms of life and death.
2) “THE LORD OF THE FLIES” BY WILLIAM GOLDING
The context behind the making of this book is one of the most singular, and therefore most exhilarating in a certain sense, especially if you compare it with the hard and profound plot that it has.
Professor of Literature and English in a male institute, William Golding was delighted in his profession, if only for the enormous passion and respect that he had for the subject, but of one thing he soon became fed up, and these were the pupils to which he taught.
Patience failed him when those unruly teenagers filled his classes with screams and laughter, and who could not give him reason to experience that unique annoyance and profound exasperation that only children can give.
After a few years of living in irritation, he reluctantly had to leave his professorship to join the navy for war. There he saw all the infamous and disdainful acts which men are capable of doing by instinct and by will.
Back again, he began writing a book based on what he understood about man, his true nature and his dark potential. And how not, together with this he have to unleash his grudges against those troublesome children who beset him so much. He portrayed them completely in what had been his personal experience and in fact all the characters who live the atrocious narrative of the story, are based on the boys of his class.
With a terrifying simplicity, Goldling renders the perspective of human civilization without filters, where a sample of society (mainly dominated by males) turns out to be the greatest of horrors, just to report all those problems that persist in our society and that still we do not fixed it.
Besides, the book, in addition to being a splendidly distorted “caricature” of the usual juvenile genre of adventure, with much more depth than the majority of these, is also a huge and powerful response to previous literature that depicted young boys in particular british as the symbol of reason and civilization, pure creatures not yet contaminated by the irrepressible growth process. When instead, he himself had witnessed how little that idea of perfection and morality approached the true nature of those boys without brakes and controls and at the mercy of their stupidity.
3) “THE DIVINE COMEDY” BY DANTE ALIGHIERI
This work is so full of controversial and equally interesting facets and themes that we would spend entire articles talking about it. But I will try not to get lost.
As for Alighieri, certainly his forced exile by his beloved Florence pushed him to write with such fervor this complex manuscript full of metaphors and allegories but above all of numerous quotes and real references to past and contemporary people of his time.
In this regard, Dante does not hold back at all in unleashing his anger against everyone: those who have kicked him out or have done him harm in some way, direct and indirect acquaintances, past characters of whom he had read and / or heard, harshly denouncing thus many members of high society, clergy, politicians and known personalities.
And what better way to take revenge than to condemn them to an eternal existence of pain, thus sending them “literally” to Hell? (at least in his imagination)
That’s it, for those unfamiliar with the Divine Comedy, the work deals with a mythical journey that brings the author himself together with his travel companion of other times Virgil, to travel together inthe otherworldly realms ofthe Hell, Purgatory andfinallyin Heaven.
So that not only does he report and punish those who have wronged him or those who have simply disliked by condemning them in his personal hell, but he even creates a specific law, the so-called “Law of Contrappasso”(“Legge del Contrappasso”), determining that the sin that a soul has committed in life will be “twisted” against them in death, in an ironically sadistic punishment that only a person full of resentment and too many free hours could invent.
In a long dialoguing prosopope, packed with religious references and political and social denunciation, Dante Alighieri has the opportunity to judge them openly and unscrupulously as it had not been possible in reality for the power and social status they possessed, bringing the whole concept of spite to another level.
4) “THE WAR OF THE WORLDS” BY H.G. WELLS
Many will remember the movie transposition of this book, starring actor Tom Cruise, intent on saving his family from a sudden alien attack that brings panic and death into the city.
Still, what might have seemed an impetuous story about the threat of an alien invasion affecting a quiet town and the birth of those fleeting heroic and human acts in life or death moments, is quite hilarious if we think it was born when George Wells one day, walking through the streets of his city, quite miffed and irritated for some time of his neighborhood where he and his probably annoying residents resided, he began to fantasize about how “fun” it would be if the whole city was wiped out and destroyed.
And so he began to imagine with increasing enthusiasm and in the details of that landscape disfigured by the rubble and his neighbors and acquaintances killed and massacred in the most bloody ways by ruthless and aggressive extraterrestrials, thus creating from those weird ideas, the cruel and vivid plot of the famous book later made a popular sci-fi movie.
Certainly H.G. Wells must have certainly harbored that grudge for a long time, but it cannot be said that that resentment did not serve him to reinvigorate his enormous imagination, even if with a pinch of madness and spite.
A CURIOSITY THIS TIME MORE JOYFUL
As an honorable mention, it seemed appropriate to insert an anecdote of the writer C.S. Lewis with his great friend J.R.R.Tolkien, who the latter often remarked that in the fantasy stories there were never lampposts, almost as a rule.
Somewhat irked, Lewis began to write a fantastic story of a world surrounded by spectacular landscapes where magic was the master, which could be accessed thanks to a portal hidden inside a wardrobe, which obviously led to a path full of lampposts that illuminated an enchanted forest covered with snow, thus starting the adventure of the protagonists. And so it was that “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” and the well-known saga of books “The Chronicles of Narnia” were born.
Now we can be “heartened” by the fact that if we are feeling resentment and the sense of offense obscures our mind, we can not only channel these emotions in a productive and why not, even pleasant way, by venting in a creative way, but also by remembering that the most illustrious writers have been “afflicted” before us and it is a normal and human thing that distinguishes us.
If you liked the article and you know other books that, like these, were conceived in unusual situations under the irrepressible impetus of resentment, do not hesitate to comment on it below in the comments section. We will be happy to read and add your most curious recommendations to the list!
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3+1 BOOKS THAT WERE WRITTEN OUT OF SPITE 3+1 BOOKS THAT WERE WRITTEN OUT OF SPITE 3+1 BOOKS THAT WERE WRITTEN OUT OF SPITE 3+1 BOOKS THAT WERE WRITTEN OUT OF SPITE
