The Science of Monsters - Matt Kaplan

One of the most fearsome creatures of Greek mythology is the chimera: part lion, part goat, with a snake for a tail, the creature terrorised the people of Lycia, before being slain by Bellorophon.  But what is the basis for the story? Matt Kaplan sketches out a plausible scenario. Somewhere in prehistoric times, a goat happens upon an isolated waterhole. Stopping to drink, it finds out to its cost why the pool is so deserted – the water has collected over a tar pit, and by now its feet are stuck. Its desperate cries attract a lion, sensing an easy meal, but the predator too becomes trapped. Finally, a snake also becomes involved, meeting a similar end. The creatures’ bones become mixed together as they are preserved in the tar, until a Greek traveller unearths them. How to explain the jumble of skeletons? It must be a monster!

The Science of Monsters is full of these insights into the creation of mythical beings. Along the way, he explains why dragons are said to guard hoards of treasure (a phenomenon caused by the build-up of flammable gasses in underground burial chambers), how a common sleep condition could give rise to a fear of incubi, and why vampires are afraid of garlic (sufferers of furious rabies experience a heightened sense of smell, so the scent becomes overpowering). Most interestingly though, Kaplan also explores the importance of myths and horror stories to the human psyche, and charts the changing face of monsters in the modern age.

Kaplan argues that experiencing fear in controllable doses is a useful mental exercise. The effect is similar to that of eating a hot curry: we know that it will make our tongue burn and our eyes water, but we also know that there will be no long-term harm. We enjoy the momentary sensation of unease, in the knowledge that we are not in any real danger. Likewise, hearing a story which frightens us could prepare us to confront danger in the real world, acting ‘like a sandbox of the imagination’. If there is a genetic advantage to curiosity or courage, then monster stories could help us to develop and demonstrate those traits. The creation of monsters can also be rational – how else to explain skeletons of creatures with teeth the size of bananas, or the events which saw a member of your hunting party snatched by beasts which appeared suddenly out of the darkness?

It is interesting to see how different cultures interpret similar events. In a section on underground monsters, Kaplan describes the minotaur, a human-bull hybrid which inhabited an underground labyrinth in Crete. One explanation for the minotaur is that the myth was a means of rationalising the subterranean events which ravaged the island, including massive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. If tectonic plate movements caused havoc in Crete, however, they had a positive impact for the ancient inhabitants of Hawaii. Here, volcanic lava flows created areas of fertile soil, and the tectonic activity was symbolised by Pele, the goddess who was known for her passion and divine love. Although Kaplan does not explore it here, this desire to ascribe understandable human motives to natural forces could also explain the popularity of the Gaia hypothesis in the 1970s.

Kaplan suggests that there has been a shift in our view of monsters in modern times. Whereas creatures like the Nemean Lion and the Sphinx were sent by the gods to punish humans, many of our modern horrors are self-inflicted. King Kong, for example, was harmlessly inhabiting a far-off jungle until he was bought to America by profit-seeking exploiters, at which point he escaped and wreaked vengeance on cities. Corporate greed is also punished in James Cameron’s Aliens, and colonisation is allegorised in HG Wells’ War of the Worlds.

Frankenstein allows us to take this idea of creation further. For Kaplan, the monster’s actions explain the psychological process by which people assigned to low-status but high-power tasks, for example prison warders, can become corrupt and abusive. A modern-day parallel would be with the American soldiers at Abu Grahib. This is one of the areas in which I disagree with Kaplan; while for him the monster’s yellow eyes represent inhumanity, it has been strongly argued that Shelley’s story allegorises her own post-partum depression following the death of her first child, and the yellow eye is indicative of jaundice. This interpretation makes the monster seem pitifully human, rather than the abusive, low-status monster Kaplan represents.  

Whereas past civilisations struggled to understand the strange bones they dug out of the ground, or the mysterious subterranean causes of whirlpools, floods and earthquakes, now we speculate about alien contact and artificial intelligence. Kaplan dates the first reported alien encounter at the height of the space race, in 1961– it could be argued that people experiencing similar phenomena in the past would have put them down to different causes, such as an appearance of the Virgin Mary – and the possibility of encountering a species with superior physical or mental powers is still terrifying on a primal level. Likewise, the average person in the street is no more able to describe the workings of a supercomputer than earlier people were able to analyse the causes of tsunamis, and the unexplainable always contains an element of peril to be exploited by storytellers.

The Science of Monsters is well-researched, wide-ranging and pithy, mixing quotable anecdotes with more serious analysis. His explanations are inventive but plausible, and his prose in engaging. Film fans will enjoy mentions of 2001, The Serpent and the Rainbow, The Princess Bride and so on, but these references don’t represent a desire to dumb down – cinema is simply the modern storytelling device with the greatest reach. After all, as Kaplan suggests, sitting in the dark being scared out of our senses is one of humanity’s most abiding recreations.