Weird Fiction

[Fried Egg]

Extollager

I don't have any objection to your list of strange tales generally but there are a few I would take issue with: Dunsany's "Hoard of the Gibbelins" and Asimov's "Nightfall" for instance. They just don't work on that level in my opinion. I love both of them, I just don't think they qualify as "weird".

For me the weird tale has to in someway set about disturbing the reader's sense of the proper order of things, unsettling the bedrock of assumptions that we cling to in order to make sense of the world around us. The best weird tales do this in subtle ways so that we are almost not quite aware of it happening, transpiring at an almost unconscious level.

It is not enough that this might happen to the protagonist of the story, it is the reader's experience that is critical, that distinguishes it from merely being a story of horror or mystery. Which is why I would say that "Nightfall" and "Hoard of the Gibbelins" don't qualify.

[nomadman]

Originally Posted by Fried Egg

I preferred Mark Sammual's "The White Hands and other weird stories" to both Michael Cisco's "The Divinity Student" and Laird Barron's "Imago Sequence" but he's certainly the most rooted in the traditional and therefore perhaps somewhat less original than the other two.

I wouldn't say Samuels suffers from a lack of originality. I just sometimes find his prose and storytelling style a bit flat, compared to those others two. He has written some excellent pieces though, Mannequins and Impasse for example, and maintains a more consistent quality level than Cisco.

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Aside form the novel Malpertuis by Jean Ray, which after chatting with Fried Egg appears to be a bone fide classic, can you recommend what you consider are the key collections or longer works by those three gents I should be spending my hard earned on?

Unfortunately, as Fried Egg pointed out, Ray's short fiction is extremely difficult to get hold of unless you're willing to pay big bucks for them. Ex Occidente Press and Midnight House both released hardback collections of his work in the last ten years, but they're out of print and commanding high prices on the net. There was an earlier paperback collection of his work called Ghouls In My Grave that theoretically should be cheaper now, but it's so rare I've never even seen it go for sale. His two best stories, The Shadowy Street and The Mainz Psalter have both been anthologised a few times, but they're also reprinted in the Vandermeer anthology, so just something to bear in mind if you're planning to get that.

As for Cisco and Barron, I'd recommend The San Veneficio Canon (which includes The Divinity Student as well as another short novel) for Cisco and The Imago Sequence for Barron. Cisco's short story collection, Secret Hours, is also worth tracking down. D_Davis is something of the resident Cisco expert here, so maybe he can point you to some more of his better works.

[nomadman]

Originally Posted by Extollager

I wonder how satisfactory a definition of "weird fiction" would be that reflected something of the old meaning of weird as fate or destiny. A weird tale then would be a story with an element of creepiness that builds to an inevitable outcome given the postulates of the story. It would tend to minimize the ability of human beings to "master their fates" or would treat such human efforts ironically (the very trying to prevent a foreseen fate as bringing it about). There would often be a sense of doom. No one particular philosophy would have to underlie the weird tale. You could have stories that suggest the universe is hostile to man; stories that emphasized the power of certain human beings or of other agents to compel victims to their fates; you could even combine the sense of fate/doom with a Christian understanding of the importance of moral choices -- when Wentworth turns from reality, humility, and love to self-pleasing eroticism and withdrawal from love, he is doomed to a fate weird enough in the telling of Charles Williams's Descent into Hell.

The definition would be loose enough to cover stories with supernatural agents and also stories that could be understood naturalistically, but all would have a sense of the creepy in one way or other.

Some stories that have been considered weird fiction that wouldn't fit under this definition might be some of the Conan stories, etc.

It's an interesting definition but I think it'd open the field up too much to works which aren't normally termed weird, whilst excluding or marginalising some that most definitely are. Many of Hodgson's nautical tales, for instance, which often involved chance confrontations with monstrous beasts and otherworldly entities, would be excluded, unless they fell under the "hostile universe" idea. But whilst doom and hopelessness are a large component of his work, I don't consider the theme of fate to be especially prominent. Characters in a Hodgson tale tend to survive or die on a roughly equal basis, with no real way of knowing beforehand, and are very often able (and willing) to fight back to protect themselves.

There are also those works whose primary objective is to achieve a certain atmosphere or dreamlike state in the reader, with plot development a secondary concern. Much of Bruno Schulz's work might qualify here, as might certain CA Smith stories and quite a lot of Cisco's output.

I do agree that a large number of weird stories involve a strong element of fate, more than I at first realized, but I don't think it's a consistent enough theme to apply to the main body of weird writing without involving some major excisions.

[dask]

Any discussion of what constitutes weird fiction, like that of science fiction, can go on til the moon don't shine. What really matters is the mind of the editor gathering stories for any such anthology and how flexible he is with the tempered steel of definition. One man's weird is another man's widgeon and it's the prerogative of the editor to decide whether Anas americana is weird or not. If I were editing the definitive collection of weird I'd be sure to include Ivan Turgenev's "Bezhin Meadows." Now that is weird. The narrator, returning from a day of hunting in country he knows as well as Stradivarius knows the back of his violin, does more than lose his bearings, he finds himself in territory that ought not to be there. Somehow an alien landscape inserted itself between him and his home. Stumbling lost for hours he finally arrives at Bezhin Meadows and finds a camp of peasant boys watching a drove of horses in the open country for the evening telling supernatural tales around a campfire, tales of dark deeds and strange deaths. Were the stories genuine or made up? No need to be wishy-washy here. Turgenev's terrain from nowhere was weird enough to concretize the supernatural, and the sudden death in the final paragraph may even have been fate related though I'm not equipped to explain why.

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by nomadman

As for Cisco and Barron, I'd recommend The San Veneficio Canon (which includes The Divinity Student as well as another short novel) for Cisco and The Imago Sequence for Barron. Cisco's short story collection, Secret Hours, is also worth tracking down. D_Davis is something of the resident Cisco expert here, so maybe he can point you to some more of his better works.

Thanks. I'll try to source those for my next order.

[Connavar]

Good to see foreign authors that have written weird stories that i didnt know they wrote stories like that. Myself i enjoy reading weird,supernatural story that isnt horror.

I have non-weird stories by Ben Okri,Akutagaw in my drive to read more African,Asian authors.

[nomadman]

Originally Posted by dask

Any discussion of what constitutes weird fiction, like that of science fiction, can go on til the moon don't shine. What really matters is the mind of the editor gathering stories for any such anthology and how flexible he is with the tempered steel of definition. One man's weird is another man's widgeon and it's the prerogative of the editor to decide whether Anas americana is weird or not. If I were editing the definitive collection of weird I'd be sure to include Ivan Turgenev's "Bezhin Meadows." Now that is weird. The narrator, returning from a day of hunting in country he knows as well as Stradivarius knows the back of his violin, does more than lose his bearings, he finds himself in territory that ought not to be there. Somehow an alien landscape inserted itself between him and his home. Stumbling lost for hours he finally arrives at Bezhin Meadows and finds a camp of peasant boys watching a drove of horses in the open country for the evening telling supernatural tales around a campfire, tales of dark deeds and strange deaths. Were the stories genuine or made up? No need to be wishy-washy here. Turgenev's terrain from nowhere was weird enough to concretize the supernatural, and the sudden death in the final paragraph may even have been fate related though I'm not equipped to explain why.

Very true, though it's an interesting exercise and might help us to understand the genre better and the reasons for why its best examples work as they do. Certainly, I've never seriously considered the role fate plays in Lovecraft and others' works, and whilst I don't wholly agree with the definition extollager put forward it's given me food for thought, and a deeper understanding of the stories themselves.

I think if I were editing an anthology I'd make my selections based on the emotional response I got from the story first, with plot and other more concrete things a secondary consideration. It might result in some offbeat choices, but I would hate to exclude a story just because it lacked in some common ingredient if the end product still delivers the goods.

[dask]

Originally Posted by nomadman

Very true, though it's an interesting exercise and might help us to understand the genre better and the reasons for why its best examples work as they do. Certainly, I've never seriously considered the role fate plays in Lovecraft and others' works, and whilst I don't wholly agree with the definition extollager put forward it's given me food for thought, and a deeper understanding of the stories themselves.

I think if I were editing an anthology I'd make my selections based on the emotional response I got from the story first, with plot and other more concrete things a secondary consideration. It might result in some offbeat choices, but I would hate to exclude a story just because it lacked in some common ingredient if the end product still delivers the goods.

I read somewhere editors like to save the two best stories for opening and closing their anthologies. The first to entice you in, the second to beckon you back for the next one. My favorite usually lies somewhere between in the smoking terrain of no man's land.

[Extollager]

Originally Posted by dask

Any discussion of what constitutes weird fiction, like that of science fiction, can go on til the moon don't shine. What really matters is the mind of the editor gathering stories for any such anthology and how flexible he is with the tempered steel of definition. ....If I were editing the definitive collection of weird I'd be sure to include Ivan Turgenev's "Bezhin Meadows." ...

"Bezhin Meadows," a story I love, would fit the description of weird fiction that I offered. I hope you didn't misunderstand my intentions. I wasn't proposing a notion of weird fiction in order to criticize some stories for not being "weird," etc.

One reason to try out a description of weird fiction such as I have offered is that it is a net that catches fish from my years of reading and suggests that they may have unexpected but interesting affinities.* (Anyone who uses my proposed description to think about his or her reading will probably have the same experience.)

I could see the idea of weird fiction that I have offered as a way to encourage students to read literature alertly. I'm rather alienated from my profession when it obsesses about racismcolonialismgenderclass etc. and by its practice of inculcating in students the same outlook, as if this is "why" we read.

Thus I fear that quite often students approach, say, Conrad's Heart of Darkness already "knowing" what they are expected to get from it: a depiction of imperialism first of all; then, oh, they find as they begin reading that Kurtz was engaged, okay, then the story is about the male world and the way it is kept secret from the homebound woman's world. Et cetera. Sure, these things are there, but do they account for the fascination exerted by this story? If we focus on those things, I believe that the reading experience of the best readers is apt to be falsified. In fact, this is a weird story, or a story of (what Burke called) the Sublime. And a skilful one indeed. I think it is this that, for many readers, keeps them coming back for a rereading -- however interesting the issues of race or "gender"** etc. also are.

A lot of misreading of Shakespeare goes on. (I will just "footnote" this comment by saying that anyone who wants to read Shakespeare well should take the time to read a 150-page book by S. L. Bethell with the not terribly alluring title of Shakespeare and the Popular Dramatic Tradition.) People read the plays as if they were novels. They "detect" all kinds of ironies that are not really there. And everyone gets his or her turn as amateur psychoanalyst, for while psychoanalysis has fallen on hard times in the world of therapy (see Frederick Crews's Skeptical Engagements etc.), it remains popular in high school and college classrooms. And so, as I said, a lot of misreading occurs. But now, armed with a notion of the weird in literature, we can get into some of the plays ready to respond to this element, which really does account for some of their attraction for readers. The easy example is Macbeth. Sure, there are interesting things going on here with regard to (if we must use the term) "gender" (Lady M.'s "Unsex me now" etc.), but this element is perhaps best seen as subsumed under the category of the weird in this play! But what chance is there of that discussion happening in most classrooms?

So I think there's a heuristic value in doing the following to create a description or working definition of something like "the weird" and then applying it:

1.Look at the history of meanings of the word. (Weird originally related to fate/doom.)
2.Work inductively -- gather examples from one's reading of works that surely are "weird."
3.Apply the emergent description, informed by a sense of examples, to other literary works that might after all be weird or have significant elements of the weird.
4.Discuss and enjoy.
5.If you come up with some really interesting insights, consider blogging about them, or writing a paper for your class about them, or publishing an article or a book, etc.

I'll share an example. Working on an MA in English (received University of Illinois 1987), I took a seminar on Swift from Claude Rawson and wrote about horror in his writings, relating them not to Swift's 18th-century peers but to Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, etc. The paper went over well. It's a good feeling when a prof who's an authority on an author says your comments showed him that author's work from a valid and (to him) new angle. Of course Rawson didn't need me to point out to him the element of horror in Swift, but I think he tended to think of it as there for the purpose of a highly aggressive kind of satire. My contention was that, when you see Swift using the same techniques that modern horror-genre writers rely on, you can see him as also writing horror for its own sake. You can consider that (since there's a popular appetite for horror) one reason Swift persists as a reader's favorite is not just his tremendous satirical prowess and verbal resourcefulness but his skill simply as a horror writer. (Set Gulliver's time with the Yahoos side by side with Lovecraft's "Arthur Jermyn" etc.) By doing this, I was not simply trying to score points with the teacher but to say something about the reader's actual experience -- but an element of that reading experience that may sometimes be overlooked to the degree that the reading experience is somewhat falsified.

So, Dask, if you don't get into questions of definition or description, aren't you losing a tool by which to talk about your reading and maybe even get some insight into the experience?

*Of course one needs to take into account other things in the story, too. The story is alive. Good criticism doesn't kill the literary experience. (I am familiar enough with the complaints about "dissecting" one's reading.) It is more like a conversation between two people or within a group of people who know some other person or some place, etc. Good criticism can help one to experience more of the life of a story, in fact.

**I am wary of the use of "gender" in literary criticism because it implies some (shall we say) philosophical dispositions that I reject, including a reductive attitude towards the human dimension, etc.

[dask]

I love definitions and look up words all the time. I am sorry if I gave the wrong impression. People have their own ideas about what makes a weird story (and will defend them with their lives), whether it's truly weird or just has weird elements. I'm flexible. But until everyone is in total agreement these discussions can go on a very long time and I never meant to say they shouldn't. Just keep in mind the importance of the editor who plays a bigger role in all this than we sometimes realize.

[Extollager]

Originally Posted by dask

Just keep in mind the importance of the editor who plays a bigger role in all this than we sometimes realize.

It's good, then, if he or she explains how "weird fiction" (or whatever) is understood in a given anthology, right?

[dask]

Sure, I don't see why it wouldn't. (You seem to think I have a problem I don't have. I apologize again for giving the wrong impression.) It's also good if they don't explain if they don't want to as the stories they choose should reflect their definition.

[nomadman]

Originally Posted by dask

I read somewhere editors like to save the two best stories for opening and closing their anthologies. The first to entice you in, the second to beckon you back for the next one. My favorite usually lies somewhere between in the smoking terrain of no man's land.

Thank god I'm not an editor then, as the practice never even entered my mind.

Originally Posted by dask

Sure, I don't see why it wouldn't. It's also good if they don't explain if they don't want to as the stories they choose should reflect their definition.

I think in more experimental anthologies some degree of explanation/justification is needed, if only to draw attention to certain connections or common themes in the stories that wouldn't otherwise be clear. Such a thing, provided it's not too heavy handed, can both deepen the reading experience and help to harmonize the work as a whole.

[dask]

Originally Posted by nomadman

I think in more experimental anthologies some degree of explanation/justification is needed, if only to draw attention to certain connections or common themes in the stories that wouldn't otherwise be clear. Such a thing, provided it's not too heavy handed, can both deepen the reading experience and help to harmonize the work as a whole.

Personally I look forward to introductory material in anthologies/collections and feel a little cheated if i's left out. Imagine DANGEROUS VISIONS with just stories...

[j. d. worthington]

First: In the vast majority of stories featuring the "weird", "ghostly", etc., that I have read, where there is an introduction, the editor takes some time to explain their own take on what constitutes a story in this vein. That explanation can itself sometimes be a bit obscure (e.g., Robert Aickman now and again), but it does help to give the reader some background. It is, if you will, as if the editor sets out his thesis of the weird tale, and then provides supporting examples of that theory. (Which is why even such a tale as Shirley Jackson's "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts", can be made to fit rather well in a selection of fantasy tales, for instance.)

Second: I think Extollager has a good point with HPL and fate. Lovecraft was a mechanistic materialist, who was convinced of determinism; the complexities of the mechanism involved (the universe) is what makes it appear to we limited human beings that there is an element of "free will", but in reality everything which happens is the result of everything which has gone before -- and I mean everything -- hence far beyond the scope of our abilities to even perceive, let alone being able to calculate the influence resulting from it all. This, too, is why such a thing as chaos is perceived as such an intense horror: it is a violation of all the laws of nature and introduces truly random chance, making any sort of consistency in the universe untenable and open to dissolution at any point, present, future, or (to make it truly terrifying) even past... this last making even our memories and experiences, both individual and collective, invalid as criteria for building expectations. (Which, really, is what lies at the core of that very odd little story "Watch the Whiskers Sprout", by D. F. Lewis, in Cthulhu's Heirs.)

Third: The Dangerous Visions books are fine examples of an aspect of Ellison's approach to writing (and editing) which I don't recall seeing anyone mention: "unveiling the mystery". Throughout much of his career, Ellison has made it a point to show to both readers and even the non-readers on the street (via such things as his writing stories in shop windows and the like) that writing is a job of work, not some mysterious, esoteric practice resulting from being "touched by the gods". Not that he doesn't think there's something special about writers or writing, or any genuinely creative sort of work; but that he intends to aid in people seeing that writers work at what they do, and work hard at it. "It doesn't just come" (to quote Neil Simon's Felix Ungar). There is labor in creating these things, and there are practical considerations here as much as in building a house or managing a factory. Hence he often draws attention to these aspects of the craft, including (in his introduction to No Doors, No Windows) filling in the uninitiated on word counts and using the various stories in that collection as examples by giving the count for each, etc.) This is even more true, perhaps, of Medea: Harlan's World, which includes a massive amount of prefatory matter including a transcript of portions of the conference with the various writers involved showing how they (collectively) created a world, with considerations of its various physical, biological, and philosophical factors....