Since “Weird” has become the adjective of the moment thanks to Trump and J.D. Vance, I thought I’d review this book from 2023 that explores the weirdness of 21st Century fiction.
In order to execute that exploration, Kate Marshall, an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, delves into weird fiction from the past. Her analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) made me want to reread that classic (I’m searching the shelves for it today). Marshall also tackles one of the weirdest books I’ve ever read, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (1985), where someone is killed on almost every page. Then she grabbles with that classic, iconic magazine, Weird Tales (1923-1954).
Once you get past Chapter 1–The Old Weird–Marshall starts her tour of 21st Century weird fiction. Some of the titles, like Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country (2016), are very familiar to me (you can read my reviews here and here) I’m a big fan of the novel and the short TV series. I’m also familiar with Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom (2016) (you can read my review here). Other weird novels that I’ve heard of–but haven’t read–include Colson Whitehead’s Zone One (2011) and Ali Smith’s Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer (2018).
In Chapter 6–After Extinction–I wanted to drop everything and read Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves (2015). Stephenson, known for his Big Thinking, sets Earth on fire with a comet storm. Marshall also dives into Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy and Jeff and Ann VanderMeer’s The New Weird (2008) anthology.
Novels by Aliens is a brief but fascinating journey into weird fiction, both old and new. I completely enjoyed it and I think many of you might enjoy it, too. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction: Dispatches from the Extinguished World — 1
1 The Old Weird — 27
2 Cowboys and Aliens — 49
3 Cosmic Realism — 74
4 The Novel in Geological Time — 100
5 Pseudoscience Fictions — 121
6 After Extinction — 142
Acknowledgments — 167
Notes — 171
Works Cited — 195
Index — 207
Sounds promising…I imagine I’ll have some things to argue with within!
A quick gloss on THE NEW WEIRD along with some of its contemporary pack: https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2010/10/ffb-new-movements-this-morning-new.html
Todd, NOVELS BY ALIENS is not a comprehensive survey so I’m sure you’ll be able to argue with Kate Marchall’s choices.
And, of course, it’s been Gov. Walz who encouraged, successfully, the noting just how pathetically weird Drumpf and Hillbilly Resentment frequently are.
And RFK 2 has demonstrated how weird he is, by admitting picking up a roadkill black bear cub (supposedly hit by the car Just in Front of his) and dumping it in Central Park and leaving a bicycle on top of it, Because It Was Funny, the theoretically suggested notion that the bear was killed by a bicyclist striking Li’l Bob as Hilarious.
Todd, RFJ, Jr. and the bear story may drive more potential voters away. Kamala seems to be picking up support from voters who planned to vote for a Third Party when Biden was still in the race.
It does sound interesting. By coincidence, I started Colson Whitehead’s ZONE ONE last week, but too much narration and it didn’t pull me away from the other books I was reading, so I returned it. Maybe another try?
Jeff, I have to be in the Right Mood to read a Weird story. A little weirdness goes a long way for me…
I love weird fiction but only through about the thirties when there was still the slightest tinge of mysticism to science, when people like Edison and Bell were trying to build spirit phones and Doyle was trying to sell the world on fairy and spirit photographs. The further writers got into the 20th century the the more the frisson quickly evaporates, which is a little curious given how irrational people are these days and preposterous lies are readily accepted as reality by half the country. I confess I also read vintage weird tales just to escape to another century and rinse off as much of the 21st as I can.
Have you read Jules Verne’s sequel to “Gordon Pym,” “An Arntarctic Mystery”? It’s not great but kind of a fun curio.
Byron, I have not read Jules Verne’s sequel to GORDON PYM, but I’ll track down a copy. It sounds like a perfect book for FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS! Thanks for the heads up!
The Verne book is better known as THE SPHINX OF THE ICE REALM, which is the version of the title (LE SPHINX DES GLACES in French) that the excellent translator Frederick Paul Walter used for his 2012 edition.
H.P. Lovecraft referenced the Poe and Verne stories in his “At the Mountains of Madness.”
Jeff, I ordered an omnibus of Verne, Poe, and a third guy who wrote a PYM sequel. I’ll make it an FFB book for later this month.
If you get the translation by Mrs. Cashel Hoey, that’s good, especially for an early version — when there weren’t many good Verne translations. If you get the one by Basil Ashmore, though…too bad.
There’s another similar big omnibus that has the Poe and Lovecraft stories, but only excerpts from the Verne. It has some other stories, though, including John Campbell’s “Who Goes There?”
Jeff, the book is supposed to arrive Saturday so I’ll check the translator. I might be dealing with three translators–a different one for each book.
I cannot come up with a weird book I have read. I guess they are mostly in fantasy and science fiction, which I don’t often read. Does THE TURN OF THE SCREW count?
Probably should. I think that her point was to include fiction that isn’t inherently fantastic, but dips into hallucinatory and similar states of mind…BLOOD MERIDIAN being in that category, and the likes of Camus’s most famous works would count.
Patti, I would count THE TURN OF THE SCREW, MODY-DICK, and Don DeLillo’s novels.
Surfiction and metafiction often qualifies thus.
Todd, my favorite Weird Fiction is Lovecraft and his many followers like Robert Bloch and Charles Stross. The Mythos is addictive!
George, your incoming omnibus will probably not have three different translators, as two of the three novels were published in English!
Jeff, oops! Good point!