"The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space."Back in early 20th century when Lovecraft and his ilk where publishing in the various pulps, most notably Weird Tales, "weird fiction" was a catch-all phrase to describe fiction that was "genre" fiction before "genre" fiction was a thing. Nowadays, we can recognize it as fantasy, horror, and fantasy. Then, such distinctions did not exist. In recent years, weird fiction has experienced a resurgence (probably because of the vast increase of interest in the work of Lovecraft) and along with it, a literary movement called the "New Weird" has emerged. I find it interesting that authors and readers are attempting to carve out a more defined genre out of what was essentially a way to describe literature that was the manifestation of misc. or etc. Proto-fantasty. Proto-SciFi. Proto-Horror. You get the gist.
To tell the truth, I am not sure how I feel about this. Now, I am about to do some serious talking-out-of-my-ass so bear with me. I don't know very much about New Weird. I am a fan of Lovecraft and I enjoy reading stories written by his contemporaries, but I know little about what is going on with the New Weird (Save for the modern Weird Tales incarnation, which is publishing some awesome stuff, and other material, maybe not quite so). Weird Fiction is weird in that when you come away from it, you have a feeling of "what the fuck just happened?" If a story fails to produce a sensation of the strange, if it fails to convey any sort of bending of known realities into absurd new dimensions (or at the very least introducing notions that are alien to us), it should not be considered weird. If the New Weird movement that I came across does this, I have no qualms. I would delight in such a movement. I don't even think literature has to adhere to specific conventions of genre to be weird. If you don't come away with the sensation I was describing after reading Chuck Palahniuk's Damned or his seminal debut novel Fight Club then there just might be something wrong with your brain chemistry, because you should be weirded out.
Conversely though, I feel apprehensive that many authors would do what many Lovecraftian-Mythos authors do and simply do a pastiche that really only touches on the most surface elements of the original fiction.
Now that I think about it, many definitely will, because as we know:
"Ninety percent of everything is crap" - Theodore Sturgeon
But I look forward to the gems anyway.
So if I don't really know all that much about what is called New Weird, why use it as my title?
Because I feel it describes the heart of what I am interested in. I am an avid reader of all kinds of fiction, but horror is closest to my heart. Closer still (maybe even the sinewy flesh that beats that precious lifeblood) is horror that encapsulates the notion of weird. It's not quite horror, it's not quite fantasy, it's not quite science fiction, it's not quite...right.
As I look around I see a world where everything is clearly illuminated by scientific discovery and technological interconnectedness, I see opportunities to experience the weird in brand new ways. In our homogenized and seemingly straightforward world with unchanging (save for our latest computers and such) society, there is always a what the fuck just happened to be found.
And that is the New Weird.
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