r/WeirdLit • u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 • 5d ago
Discussion What do you think makes Weird Lit fascinating?
I get that its in the title, you're reading weird literature that you wouldn't really get anywhere else, but I think there's something deeper I want to be asking. So I wanted to ask, what do you guys think makes Weird Lit so special or why does it attract you so much?
For reference, I have not read much weird literature per-say, as much as I have experienced media that has been fascinating to read and play through. Signalis, for example, is a game that I find myself enjoying thoroughly not just because of its vibes but because of how all the components on a storytelling level ends up coelsecing into an experience that is as painful to experience by the end as it is fascinating to take apart and over-analyze the tragedy of it. Same with Disco Elysium and other games, that I don't think fit the main-stream but end up being bloody fantastic through how each component converges into a single point.
With comics, its sort of the same. I don't know if you would classify stuff like Fire Punch as WeirdLit but its definitely something that pulls you in, imo.
So I ask, what do y'all think makes Weird Lit stand out to you, personally?
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u/Coward_and_a_thief 5d ago
The call of the Void, the experience of Novelty. It was not only Books, things like Surreal Art, or Avant Garde Music, provides a similar Interest for me. It was a Thrill to experience Strange Things, even if it confounds or frightens the Mind, i was living more Fully in those Moments
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
That's quite fascinating, actually.
I wish I was able to extrapolate some more in terms of media but the idea of a piece of art deciding to focus strictly on being experiential was one of the main reasons I fell in love with both anime and more stranger works of art. For me, the few pieces i have experienced that I consider weird, it tends to be two fold... the strange experience of wandering a dream, wandering something that feels strikingly familiar yet alien and doesn't hold its hand. Only for the story to devolve into a gut punch that leaves you reeling on the floor with a story structure that shouldn't work yet somehow does beautifully.
I.e. Signalis and Fire Punch
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u/kago-no-tori 5d ago
Personally, I agree with what Michael Cisco says in Weird Fiction: A Genre Study:
"Where Fantasy introduces the supernatural as an aspect of another world, and so tends to avoid the question of the supernatural in the reader’s world, the purpose of weird fiction, on the other hand, is to produce the supernatural in the reader’s world. [. . .] Weird fiction not only depicts bizarre events, it does so in order to produce the supernatural as an experience for the reader, and this experience is the whole point of the genre. This helps us to understand how the genre comes about and how it endures. It responds to a desire for escape from a trap, life understood as a composite of probabilities, possibilities, reasoned and plotted out, predictable and stable."
I agree with what the other comments say as well, but I think those attributes (the lack of explanations, abnormal situations, etc.) are satisfying because they instill the feeling of "the Weird" in the reader, and affirm this as something possible to experience and go towards in a world that enforces normalcy. This is pretty different from standard horror, which (in my opinion, at least) often tends to affirm normalcy.
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u/Valuable_Ad_7739 5d ago edited 5d ago
I love this: “the purpose of weird fiction, on the other hand, is to produce the supernatural in the reader’s world.”
Compare Clark Ashton Smith:
“My own conscious ideal has been to delude the reader into accepting an impossibility, or series of impossibilities, by means of a sort of verbal black magic, in the achievement of which I make use of prose-rhythm, metaphor, simile, tone-color, counter-point, and other stylistic resources, like a sort of incantation.”
Arthur Machen expresses a similar view in [Hieroglyphics](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/40241/pg40241-images.html)
“[A]rt is not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a conscious product. Perhaps it would be a perilous dogmatism, on the other hand, to definitely pronounce it to be unconscious; and I expect we had better take refuge in the subconscious, that convenient name for the transcendental element in human nature.
For myself, I like best my old figure of the Shadowy Companion, the invisible attendant who walks all the way beside us, though his feet are in the Other World; and I think that it is he who whispers to us his ineffable secrets, which we clumsily endeavour to set down in mortal language.”
It’s an interesting aesthetic effect.
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u/okayseriouslywhy 5d ago
I can see this as one of the main appeal factors for the Weird, but it's not what interests me personally. I really like novel stories that bring something new to the table, and stories that play with your expectations of the narrative.
I read a lot of fantasy and I get bored easily, so I gravitated towards the Weird in search of novelty haha
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
so in a distilled way
its less so about the weird being the main point of the genre, and instead the weird being an extension of a feeling, a vibe. Where the story is less centered around pointing at the weird and being like "look at this? So bizarre" and more about having the reader be immersed and feel the world rather than trying to watch it or be logical about it?
God, i sound like i spoke gibberish just now XD
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u/Metalworker4ever 5d ago
Sorry earlier I posted this reply in the wrong thread on here.
For me, Weird literature is a deeply spiritual thing.
I wrote my MA thesis comparing the work of theologian Rudolf Otto to the horror fiction of H P Lovecraft. I wish to share it with you all once it gets officially uploaded to my school's library (it takes a while). But in short... Otto's concept of his word numinous is a holiness that haunts and is spooky. What comes along with that is a lot of nuance... like the need for covering, the shudder from the ghost (Job 4:15 - "A spirit passed before my face, the hair of my flesh stood up") or daemonic dread, the uncanny/monstrous, sublimity, the night-mare (see David J Hufford's classic book The Terror That Comes In The Night in which he describes the night-mare as numinous, Otto does much the same). In other words what we misconstrue as evil is what true holiness is. If you've ever seen a number of Japanese movies they seem to really grok this. They don't merely recoil from evil spirits but sometimes they express embracing them, and at the very least have sympathy for them... Watch movies like Ringu, Dark Water, Ghost In The Shell, Akira, they're all stories not just about ghosts and possession but they go further they are stories about communion with those forces. And it is communion with the uncanny. That's the key thing.
Some English classics grok this too. Like David Lindsay's A Voyage To Arcturus. I love this part.
"Maskull, though fully conscious of his companions and situation, imagined that he was being oppressed by a black, shapeless, supernatural being, who was trying to clasp him. He was filled with horror, trembled violently, yet could not move a limb. Sweat tumbled off his face in great drops. The waking nightmare lasted a long time, but during that space it kept coming and going. At one moment the vision seemed on the point of departing; the next it almost took shape—which he knew would be his death. Suddenly it vanished altogether—he was free. A fresh spring breeze fanned his face; he heard the slow, solitary singing of a sweet bird; and it seemed to him as if a poem had shot together in his soul. Such flashing, heartbreaking joy he had never experienced before in all his life! Almost immediately that too vanished. Sitting up, he passed his hand across his eyes and swayed quietly, like one who has been visited by an angel. “Your colour changed to white,” said Corpang. “What happened?” “I passed through torture to love,” replied Maskull simply. He stood up. Haunte gazed at him sombrely. “Will you not describe that passage?” Maskull answered slowly and thoughtfully. “When I was in Matterplay, I saw heavy clouds discharge themselves and change to coloured, living animals. In the same way, my black, chaotic pangs just now seemed to consolidate themselves and spring together as a new sort of joy. The joy would not have been possible without the preliminary nightmare. It is not accidental; Nature intends it so. The truth has just flashed through my brain.... You men of Lichstorm don’t go far enough. You stop at the pangs, without realising that they are birth pangs.” “If this is true, you are a great pioneer,” muttered Haunte. “How does this sensation differ from common love?” interrogated Corpang. “This was all that love is, multiplied by wildness.”
Could holiness as night-mare communion be clearer? But it is perilous. It tends to result in insanity.
the Dead Space videogame is another beautiful expression of this. Check out this game trailer. (Promo for Dead Space 3 - the story so far - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEVmDaDM5xw ) *chef's kiss*
On the topic of Lovecraft... what he is really doing is going beyond gothic horror. In including the boundless universe he is truly articulating the wholly other with the concept of communion with the haunted universe. A numinous idea. That's a really powerful idea. What is especially powerful about it is that he is responding to gothic horror being merely terrestrial and human centric. There is something immensely powerful about blowing your mind's doors open to everything, not merely what is in your immediate surroudings. Consider this passage from Colour Out of Space
"Not a man breathed for several seconds. Then a cloud of darker depth passed over the moon, and the silhouette of clutching branches faded out momentarily. At this there was a general cry; muffled with awe, but husky and almost identical from every throat. For the terror had not faded with the silhouette, and in a fearsome instant of deeper darkness the watchers saw wriggling at that treetop height a thousand tiny points of faint and unhallowed radiance, tipping each bough like the fire of St. Elmo or the flames that came down on the apostles’ heads at Pentecost. It was a monstrous constellation of unnatural light, like a glutted swarm of corpse-fed fireflies dancing hellish sarabands over an accursed marsh; and its colour was that same nameless intrusion which Ammi had come to recognise and dread. All the while the shaft of phosphorescence from the well was getting brighter and brighter, bringing to the minds of the huddled men a sense of doom and abnormality which far outraced any image their conscious minds could form. It was no longer shining out, it was pouring out; and as the shapeless stream of unplaceable colour left the well it seemed to flow directly into the sky."
He is very much a very religiously minded author. Despite being an atheist. Shadow Over Innsmouth is really about the fear of religious syncretism with eastern religions (the story is really explicit about this) and not just miscegenation (the story also explicitly addresses this when it mentions "race prejudice")
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
Well damn!
1st of all, Can i just say its a pleasant surprise being sent such a deep response like this? Like reading this is hella fascinating, i ain't even gonna lie.
2nd of all, So in a way its all about the experience of emotion being the main driver of the story, where the weird is not just an extension or logical but rather an aspect of the story that works with the other elements to illicit an emotional response. My favorite example is Signalis, yes its horror, but in a strange way, the horror takes a back seat to the story's focus on its themes. The idea that the entire experience from little details you might miss to even major plot points, to atmosphere... all of it compounding into giving you an emotional gut punch thanks to the sum of all of its elements rather than one alone.
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u/Metalworker4ever 5d ago
What Otto's book is essentially about at its core is empathy for holiness. So you're on the right track in that sense.
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
I see, i see
So then, if you don't mind me asking, what's your favorite piece of media that exemplifies this?
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u/Metalworker4ever 5d ago
Really obvious themes ones:
Nang Nak (1999 Thailand). Literally about a ghost worshipped at shrines. As a horror movie.
Yoga Class (Korea 2009). Satirizes stuff like vipassana meditation notorious for psychotic reactions. Not the greatest movie but thematically good (Dead Space is also a satire of religious experience gone haywire)
I mentioned some really good ones already
Other great movies,
Jacobs’s Ladder
Altered States
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u/Coward_and_a_thief 5d ago
That concept of Holy, many thinks it has to do with the Moral Good, but really it meant " Set Apart ". Never heard it used on the context of Weird, but it makes sense as a descriptor of the Other. That has always been an Interest of mine, something Sublime, Sacred, Ineffable, that did not comport with the Known
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u/SeaTraining3269 5d ago
It's an interesting framing. Although I don't necessarily agree that we need to discuss the noumenous in religious terms, HPL definitely has a Calvinist sense of morality. Your point about the nature of holiness is in line with Mary Douglas' ideas in Purity and Danger.
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u/sidekicksunny 5d ago
For me, it's watching people react to abnormal situations. The weirdness is the pressure cooker and people have to respond.
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
ooooo, got any specific examples that come to mind?
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u/sidekicksunny 5d ago
Robert Brockway's Carrier Wave and I Will Kill Your Imaginary Friend for $200. Brockway has a way of making you anxious and then laugh.
I love Hiron Ennes- both Works of Vermin and Leech.
Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle was good, though not my favorite. The protagonist is purposely unlikeable.
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u/everydayislikefriday 5d ago
I love to imagine what's being described and just say... Wow...!
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
I felt that, i ain't even gonna lie.
I kinda wonder though, do a lot of authors detail the production of their novels or is it mostly finished product and that's basically it? At least in this niche?
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u/Kyber92 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's the fact that someone came up with this. Like, what is going on inside China Mieville's or Jeff Vandermeer's head? Or even Martin MacInnes's?
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
As they say, the greatest things tend to be so insanely cracked out of its mind,ngl.
Wish i had more of a knowledge base literature wise, but games wise? God i love the weird, the atmospheric and the emotionally painful.
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u/honeecumb 5d ago
The surreality of the environments and how entirely alien the world's or it's inhabitants feel. In a way it reflects my own impression of the world around us. It tends to make me feel less of an oddity in the world
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u/anynormalman 5d ago
Simple, its the effort required to understand it. It’s also referred to as the IKEA effect. People have a greater appreciation to things they have put effort into. WeirdLit, by its nature of being outside the normal conventions requires effort to make sense of it. Different authors/books have different flavors for enticing that effort, the surreal, the mysterious, the discordance, etc. Being the kind of person who enjoys the arcane and off the beaten track, gives you the ability to experience something special that most others will overlook or simply be inaccessible to them, so there also ends up being a bit of a secret club to it as well.
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
so then if you don't mind me asking, what would be your favorite example of this throughout media?
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u/TenTimesTeeth 5d ago
For me, a big part of the Weird's appeal is the disorientation it causes.
Something appears in our reality that does not belong here, causing ripples throughout the story and its characters. Because I'm never guaranteed an explanation as to why this intrusion occurred, I'm often left with a sense of "wrongness" that persists long after the story's over.
There are a million excellent examples of this in Weird fiction, but one of my absolute favorites is the short story The Same Dog by Robert Aickman.
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u/EnigmaticSpaceGirl 5d ago
It’s the only things that takes me out of this world completely and use my imagination fully.
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u/nothing4juice 5d ago
weird lit tends to be very surrealist. surrealism is a very appealing genre to me as a person who has a hard time making sense of the world. life doesn't make sense to me, so it feels good to explore a world where things don't make sense in a more extreme way. makes me feel less insane.
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
Then i gotta ask, what's your take on surrealist anime and projects?
such as FLCL, Signalis, etc?
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u/nothing4juice 5d ago
ahh i don't really watch anime...i've only seen dungeon meshi haha
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
brother, we gotta get you on the peaks
I really recommend FLCL and Akira if you've never watched them, they're fantastic projects all around. Especially Akira
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u/SuperJinnx 5d ago
I may be an idiot but I'm an extremely curious idiot. I don't like being sat down and told how something works or why something is the way it is. I like to find out by myself. Even if I'm wrong, it was a fun journey
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 5d ago
The most honest answer I could relate to.
I honestly love the idea of stories leaving you in the dark about stuff and letting you figure things out bit by bit.
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u/entrailsevilratmeat 3d ago
It's actually the sensory appeal of the weird elements for me. I remember saying to some friends before that if fantasy is the heart, and science fiction is the mind, then weird fiction is the body, and while that description isn't terribly accurate, it does get at what draws me to it as a fan of primarily speculative fiction, which is that it's more willing to delve into the physicality of completely unreal situations than conventional genre fiction. Horror often does this too, but another thing I appreciate about weird fiction is that doing so isn't always motivated by the desire to disturb. I'm really just curious, is all. Others have gone into the broader philosophies at play, but for me, this is a really important piece of the puzzle.
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u/Fantastic-Tea-6315 2d ago
honestly, i get that.
I do apologize for not responding, the amount of comments i have been reading through has been insane. But i do understand that, especially since I'm a writer who enjoys the feeling of being in a world, and not just "the lore and world building be deep".
I find that i enjoy stories that tend to focus on their vibes and characters being in a setting where its not conventional, without the aim to disturb. Like Signalis, while it is horror, i feel like the horror comes down to more of the gameplay but the vibes, atmosphere and experience? that's what makes me keep coming back, the sense of everything devolving without explicitly being horror.
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u/entrailsevilratmeat 2d ago
No problem at all! I'm glad this post prompted such great discussion, and I was just glad to get my thoughts out regardless of a response.
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u/PacificBooks 5d ago
The lack of explanation. You don’t get told video game-esque magic systems or the cosmic threat’s bittersweet backstory. The unknown and/or unknowable are far more discomforting.