Weird Studies/Lovecraft
17 Apr 2022 - 16 Dec 2022
- PF described a category of fiction that sort of reaches out of the page and warps you, PKD being the archetype...this sounds a lot like Erik Davis theory.
- Ghost stories vs. Weird fiction – the former present an intrusion of the supernatural into a stable world (which is eventually banished generally). The latter present a character discovering that the world he inhabits is fundamentally strange at its foundations. Ghost stories suture the wound, the weird writer leaves you bleeding (or gives you an infection).
- Weird fiction doesn't actually have or emphasize narrative, given they are trying to describe this timeless thing. So not much distance between pulp and avant garde.
- (these guys really need to read and talk about Southern Reach trilogy !)
- Charles Taylor buffered self. Weird Studies/Charles Taylor and Disenchantment
- Sloterdijk's immunology and cancer...cancer as a betrayal from within, no buffering will help you. In Lovecraft, the buffer collapses.
- What is cancer? Crabs are monstrous, also a symbol of the unconscious because they walk sideways and seem so inhuman...so cancer is a Great Old One (OK, now I'm going to think of PICI as Charles Stross Laundry, where nerdy wizards deploy math weapons against eldritch monsters).
- Nyarlathotep
- Ref to Infinite Jest passage, interesting
- Based on Tesla? Interesting
- Glad they mentioned the connect with alt.right... wonder if they've seen Zero HP Lovecraft – An increasing proportion of the industrial surplus is being absorbed by the task of masking bio-social deterioration.