During the recent NecronomiCon 2013 — a conference of all-things Lovecraftian held in HPLâs beloved Providence — I participated in a panel on weird fiction. During the lively and interesting discussion, the opinion was expressed that much weird or horrific fiction seems to be written from a âbleak existentialist perspective.â While that may well be…
Tag: horror
On Stephen King and horror as “one of the most literary of all forms”
Here’s a really nice pair of paragraphs expressing a dead-on and truly significant point, from a review by Margaret Atwood (!) of King’s new novel Doctor Sleep, his much-heralded sequel to The Shining: King is right at the center of an American literary taproot that goes all the way down: to the Puritans and their…
Teeming Links – September 20, 2013
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Today’s opening word comes from novelist and National Book Award winner Richard Powers, speaking to The Believer magazine in 2007 about the unique value of reading — and specifically, reading fiction — in helping to “deliver us from certainty” during an age when a great deal of evil…
Teeming Links – September 13, 2013
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Far Away from Solid Modernity (Revolution: Global Trends and Regional Issues) Zygmunt Bauman on liquid modernity and our unfolding apocalypse. “[We live in a society] which, moving relentlessly towards the apocalypse, does not care (does not want to care or is not able to) about the security and…
Teeming Links – September 6, 2013
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net To introduce today’s offering of necessary and recommended reading, here’s a description of a trend in academia that represents one of the most ironic of all ironies (as described by the excerpt), and also one of the most welcome and revealing developments of the present age: Itâs odd…
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, and the dark-mythic summer of 1816
I’m presently teaching a sophomore college course about horror and science fiction in literature and film. (You can view the syllabus online.) Yesterday’s class meeting was devoted to introducing Mary Shelley and Frankenstein by giving background on Mary’s life and describing the epic, shadowy, amazing, uncanny, utterly mythic summer of 1816, when Mary stayed with…
Teeming Links – September 3, 2013
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net To preface today’s offering of recommended and necessary reading, here are passages from a hypnotic meditation on solitude, inner silence, reading, and the literary vocation by Rebecca Solnit, excerpted from her new book The Faraway Nearby: Like many others who turned into writers, I disappeared into books when…
Teeming Links – August 30, 2013
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Today’s opening word is actually double: two opening words. The first is from John Michael Greer, writing with his typically casual and powerful lucidity. The second is from international studies expert Charles Hill, who writes with equal power. They’re lengthy, so please feel free to skip on down…
Teeming Links – August 27, 2013
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Today’s opening word simply has to go to Ben Godar, who, in a marvelous little piece for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, offers exactly what we’ve all been frantically (if unwittingly) yearning for during our past two decades of seeking total fulfillment in cyberspace: Are you tired of being in…
H. P. Lovecraft’s literary reputation: Joshi’s keynote address at this weekend’s NecronomiCon (Video)
The NecronomiCon, long known as the greatest of all Lovecraft conventions, is going on in Providence even as I type these words. A huge number of my friends in the Lovecraftian realm are there, and I’m presently experiencing severe pangs of regret at being unable to attend. Here’s some consolation, though. Steve Ahlquist has done…