A Taste of the New Weird

Before this topic, I don't think I'd ever heard the term "new weird". It's basically a blended subgenre that comes from old pulp magazines, where horror/scifi/fantasy and the supernatural could all be blended interchangeably to tell a unique flavor of stories.

I had my first introductions to H.P. Lovecraft with What the Moon Brings, and Angela Carter, with some of her short stories.

In What the Moon Brings, I was at first a little too distracted by the purple-y voice to really get into the narrative. Although I did really like the first line, "I hate the moon--I am afraid of it--for when it shines on certain scenes familiar and loved it sometimes makes them unfamiliar and hideous." That's a great hook, and it works to summarize the whole story in a way. The rest of the writing feels a little too ornate (ahem--pretentious?) for me to truly enjoy the story, but I guess it does help to enforce the dream-state of the narrative. It's about a man wandering through a marvelous nightmare, full of creepy statues, a sea full of worm-nibbled bodies, and a gigantic devil climbing out of hell. It is definitely unique from anything I can remember reading before.

From Angela Carter, I first started reading a portion of her novel, Nights at the Circus, before moving on to her short stories. I didn't get far, but so far it's about a journalist who's trying to write a story about Fevver, a world-famous acrobat. What's so intriguing about her? Well, apart from her height (6'2"), and her raucous personality, she has giant feathered wings. Or so she wants everyone to believe--the journalist is not convinced. The writing was a little dense, but still very energetic to match the tone of a circus-y story. Once I got used to the style I was very interested in finding out more--did she really hatch from an egg? Will the journalist learn how to not be a critical jerk?--but I knew I wouldn't have time to get through the whole book in time, so I paused and moved on to the short stories.

I don't want to say much about The Snow Child except: I never would have expected someone to pack magic, jealousy, infidelity, necrophilia, AND murder into a story less than five hundred words long, but there you go. It was like a Grimm's fairytale on cocaine. The writing style was nice, at least.

It's interesting to look back and see that what stood out to me most in each story was the writing styles. The authors all use language in unique and intricate ways, which makes it hard to lose their voices in the story. I always thought about style in writing as a thing that should be heard but not seen. It should do interesting things, and stand out as a whole, but it shouldn't be so present that you're more distracted about how things were said than what was said. In this genre, that has intentionally been flipped. It's like the difference between looking at a Rembrandt and a Van Gogh. In Rembrandt paintings, what you see first is the figure. You get a sense of the mood and you're in awe of the details, but you're not overly aware that you're looking at a painting. If you look closely you can see the brushstrokes, but from a distance, they blend seamlessly into the whole. With Van Gogh, what you see first is the brushstrokes, and then the colors (or vice versa). You can look past them to see the image as a whole, but you never forget about the way it was painted because it's so upfront. It may take you longer to find the mood and/or intentions of the piece. You may get the mood right away, but struggle to see what, how, or why it's trying to conceive. It's fascinating to think about the psychological effect this adds to the experience of reading horror.

I never realized it before now, but I've also seen several "New Weird" movies.  Freaks, Cabin in the Woods, Shaun of the Dead, and Horns, to name some. They're all very different films, but they do have one thing in common: they tell a common story in a fresh way to shock and intrigue the viewers. To simplify it, Freaks is a story about two co-workers having an affair. Cabin in the Woods is a story about college kids spending a weekend in a rickety, old, and incredibly secluded cabin. Shaun of the Dead is about a zombie outbreak. But none of them are the stories you think they will be from those descriptions because they're told in an unexpected way. SotD is humorous. CitW is a satire, and instead of a haunted cabin or a loose serial killer, it's a (SPOILER!) methodical government-sanctified sacrifice to the old gods. Freaks takes place in a circus and the characters are played by real circus performers from that era (1932)--which doesn't seem so out there in 2018, but in the thirties audiences were so horrified to see these people on the screen that the movie was actually lost for several years, and many scenes were completely cut out. It also portrays the "freaks" as compassionate and noble, while the real monsters are "normal" people.

I think what's most intriguing about the New Weird is that it not only twists what we already know and expect, but the characters overall tend to have more depth and relatability. We can broach new/sensitive topics and ideas in an easier way, because it's so obviously not real. It gives the public a little bit of space to accept the extraordinary, so when they're confronted with something less extreme but still ~different~ in real life, it feels easier to grasp. A seemingly naked flying bird girl? If she's considered fine, then a burlesque dancer is a Girl Scout in comparison. The New Weird is actually just a fabulous, sneaky, and convoluted way to hide deep metaphors and teach empathy.