Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Did somebody say “apocalypse”? Oh, yeah: that was me, here, all the time. And it was also, as it turns out, everybody, everywhere these days. To preface the current roundup of recommended and necessary reading, here’s a rich reflection on this very fact, and on the deeper meanings…
Tag: literature
Magick, Madness, and Outsider Art: The Lovecraftian Path to Happiness
A Search for the Heroic in Lovecraftian Fiction, Part Four NOTE: This is the final part of a four-part series in which Stu Young explores the works and influence of H. P. Lovecraft in an attempt to tease out themes of heroism and optimism among the more familiar themes of horror, gloom, and despair. Although…
C. S. Lewis, Narnia, and mythic truth: “Stories are mirrors that show us our soul”
From a splendid essay by young adult novelist Zu Vincent and creative writing teacher Kiara Koenig, published in Through the Wardrobe: Your Favorite Authors on C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (2010), about the exquisite philosophical-spiritual value of finding solace, solitude, and authentic meaning in fictional stories amid our contemporary culture of scientistic disenchantment and…
How reading and literature effectively reincarnate us into a higher form of consciousness
From Mark Edmundson, writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education, a passionate paean to the college English major as a field of study that is ultimately devoted to “pursuing the most important subject of all — being a human being”: Soon college students all over America will be trundling to their advisers’ offices to choose…
Shirley Jackson: Witchcraft, madness, and the uncanny dangers of writing
From a long and uncommonly engrossing essay by Victoria Best at Open Letters Monthly about the relationship between life, art, madness, and the occult in the work and person of Shirley Jackson: She believed [writing] had a protective function, too, a kind of mental hygiene that allowed her to be herself: “The very nicest thing…
“Lovecraftian horror at its best”: Don Webb reviews Richard Gavin’s ‘At Fear’s Altar’
What tangled web of eldritch synchronicities is this!? In 2006 I reviewed Richard Gavin’s strong first collection of supernatural/numinous horror fiction, Omens, for the journal Dead Reckonings. In the years after that, Richard and I forged a good online friendship. In 2011 he and I, and also our fellow horror scribe Simon Strantzas, roomed together…
Doris Lessing on storytellers as myth-makers: “Our heritage of stories began in fire, magic, the spirit world”
From Doris Lessing’s lecture in acceptance of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature: We are a jaded lot, we in our threatened world. We are good for irony and even cynicism. Some words and ideas we hardly use, so worn out have they become. But we may want to restore some words that have lost…
Arthur Machen in the underworld
Fans and admirers of Arthur Machen and his literary universe of mystical terror take note: one week ago BBC Radio 4 broadcast a delicious half-hour exploration of Machen’s life, work, and literary legacy, presented in the form of a tour of various sites in Wales that are relevant to his biography and major themes. It’s…
Lovecraft, Tolkien, and the nightmare as “a necessary drug for the mass consciousness”
Here’s a description of the book Nightmare: From Literary Experiments to Cultural Project (Brill, 2013) by Russian-born literary and cultural scholar Dina Khapaeva, who is currently serving as chair of the School of Modern Languages at Georgia Tech: What is a nightmare as a psychological experience, a literary experiment and a cultural project? Why has…
How to read Lovecraft: A practical beginner’s guide
NOTE: When you’re finished with this article, be advised that it has a sequel. After reading “Lovecraft: Invading the ego with shadows from the id,” a friend and coworker asked if I could “give a first-time Lovecraft reader a title to start with!” The answer to such a request is of course a resounding yes,…