Weird Studies - Episodes Tagged with “Weird Fiction”

Episode 55: The Great Weird North: On Algernon Blackwood's 'The Wendigo'

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 11:30:00 -0400

No survey of weird literature would be complete without mentioning Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951). As with all masters of the genre, Blackwood's take on the weird is singular: here, it isn't the cold reaches of outer space that elicit in us a nihilistic frisson, but the vast expanses of our own planet's wild places -- especially the northern woods. In his story "The Wendigo," Blackwood combines the beliefs of the Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands with the folktales of his native Britain to weave an ensorcelling story that perfectly captures the mood of the Canadian wilderness. In this conversation, JF and Phil discuss their own experience of that wilderness growing up in Ontario. The deeper they go, the spookier things get. An episode best enjoyed in solitude, by a campfire.

Header Image: "Highway 60 Passing Through the Boreal Forest in Algonquin Park" by Dimana Koralova, Wikimedia Commons

SHOW NOTES

Glenn Gould, The Idea of North
Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo"
Game of Thrones (HBO series)
Weird Studies, Episode 29: On Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Philosophy of Composition"
Fritz Leiber, The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Richard Wagner, Parsifal
David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return
Peter Heller, The River: A Novel
The Killing of Tim McLean (July 30, 2008)
Weird Studies, Episode 3: Ecstasy, Sin, and "The White People"
Mysterious Universe: Strange and Terrifying Encounters with Skinwalkers
Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds
Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy
Arthur Machen, Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy

Episode 46: Thomas Ligotti's Angel

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 08 May 2019 14:45:00 -0400

In his short story "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel," contemporary horror author Thomas Ligotti contrasts the chaotic monstrosity of dreams with the cold, indifferent, and no less monstrous purity of angels. It is the story of a boy whose vivid dream life is sapping his vital force, and who resorts to esoteric measures to rectify the situation. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss the beauty and horror of dreams, the metaphysical signifiance of angels and demons, and the potential dangers of seeking the peace of absolute "purity" in the wondrous flux of lived experience.

REFERENCES

Thomas Ligotti, "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel" (read by Jon Padgett)

Roger Scruton, The Face of God
Thomas Ligotti, Songs of a Dead Dreamer
Thomas Ligotti, "The Last Feast of Harlequin" in Grimscribe: His Lives and Works
Robert Aickman, English author
H. P. Lovecraft, American author
H. R. Giger, Swiss artist
Jean Giraud a.k.a. Moebius, French comic book artist
Donald Barthelme, American author
Pierre Soulages, French artist
Bruno Schulz, Polish author
Thomas Bernhard, Austrian author
Edgar Allan Poe, American author
J. F. Martel, "The Beautiful Madness: Primacy of Wonder in the Works of Thomas Ligotti" (Forthcoming in James Curcio (ed.), Masks: Bowie and the Artists of Artifice from Intellect Books)
Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo"
Thomas Ligotti, "The Dark Beauty of Unheard of Horrors" in The Thomas Ligotti Reader: Essays and Explorations
Dogen Zenji, Zen master
Manichaeism
Spencer Brown, The Laws of Form
Ramsey Dukes, Words Made Flesh: Information In Formation
Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical
Thomas Ligotti, "Purity," in Teatro Grottesco
James Joyce, Ulysses
Advaita Vedanta
Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld
P. J. O’Rourke, political satirist

Episode 43: On Shirley Jackson

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 11:00:00 -0400

Shirley Jackson's stories and novels rank among the greatest weird works produced in America during the 20th century. However, unlike authors such as Philip K. Dick and H.P. Lovecraft, Jackson didn't cut her teeth in the pulps but among the slick pages of such illustrious publications as The New Yorker. On the other hand, whether because her most famous novel uses the traditional ghost story form or because she was a woman, Jackson only rarely appears in the litanies of weird literature, where she most definitely belongs. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss two of Jackson's short works, "The Lottery" and "The Summer People." The conversation touches on such cheerful topics as human sacrifice, the use of tradition to license evil, and the alienness that can infect even the most familiar things ... when the stars are right.

Header image by Hussein Twabi, Wikimedia Commons

REFERENCES

The Weird Studies Patreon
Shirley Jackson
Zoë Heller, “The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson,” review of Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
American writer Mitch Horowitz
Rhonda Byrne, The Secret
Stuart Wilde, The Trick to Money is Having Some
Seymour Ginsburg, Gurdjieff Unveiled
Randall Collins, Violence: A Microsociological Theory
James Hillman, A Terrible Love of War
Homer, The Iliad
Phil & JF at Octopus Books in Ottawa, 2015
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations “Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you.”
David Lynch, Blue Velvet

Episode 34: The Weird Realism of Robert Aickman

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 10:00:00 -0500

Although he is one of the luminaries of the weird tale, Robert Aickman referred to his irreal, macabre short works as strange stories. Born in London in 1914, Aickman wrote less than fifty such stories before his death in 1981. JF and Phil focus on one of his most chilling, "The Hospice," from the collection Cold Hand in Mine, published in 1975. In it, Aickman uses a staple ingredient of the classic ghost story -- a man is stranded on a country road at night, lost and out of petrol -- to concoct an unforgettable blend of fantasy and nightmare, reality and dream. Indeed, Phil and JF argue that Aickman deserves a place alongside David Lynch and a few others as one of those rare fabulists who can adeptly disclose how reality is more dreamlike, and dreams more real, than most of us would care to admit.

Header Image: Detail from photo by Ivars Indāns (Wikimedia Commons)

REFERENCES

Robert Aickman, "The Hospice" from Cold Hand in Mine
Dante Aligheri, The Divine Comedy: The Inferno
David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Weird Studies, Episode 22: Divining the World with Joshua Ramey
Norman Mailer, An American Dream

Episode 29: On Lovecraft

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 14:00:00 -0400

Phil and JF indulge their autumnal mood in this discussion of Howard Phillips Lovecraft's work, specifically the essay "Notes on the Writing of Weird Fiction" and the prose piece "Nyarlathotep." Philip K. Dick, Algernon Blackwood, and David Foster Wallace make appearances as our fearsome hosts talk about how the weird story differs from conventional horror fiction, how Lovecraft gives voice to contemporary fears of physical, psychological and political infection, and how authors like Lovecraft and Dick can be seen as prophetic poets of the "great unbuffering of the Western self."

REFERENCES

H. P. Lovecraft, "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction"
H. P. Lovecraft, "Nyarlathotep"

1974 Rolling Stone feature on PKD
Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy
Theodor Roszak, The Making of a Counterculture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and its Youthful Opposition
Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo"
Algernon Blackwood, "The Willows"
Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande
Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Music of Erich Zann"
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Colour Out of Space"
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
Weird Studies, Episode 2: Garmonbozia
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

Weird Stories: M. R. James' "The Mezzotint"

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 13:00:00 -0400

M. R. James has been hailed as the unrivalled maser of the classic ghost tale, and his powers are at their zenith in "The Mezzotint," a story that first appeared in his 1904 collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. In it, James reimagines the Gothic trope of the haunted picture in a weird new light. The text, read here by co-host Phil Ford, serves as a springboard for Weird Studies episode 11, where we discuss the enduring power of the art object in the age of mechanical reproduction.

Weird Stories: Arthur Machen's "The White People"

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 10:00:00 -0500

Weird Stories is a series of readings for Weird Studies listeners who want to dig deeper into the themes and ideas discussed on the Weird Studies podcast.

In his seminal essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," H. P. Lovecraft named Arthur Machen one of the four "modern masters" of horror fiction, alongside Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, and M. R. James. Born in 1863, Machen burst onto the London literary scene in 1890 with the controversial novella "The Great God Pan." He was briefly considered one of the luminaries of the Decadent movement before falling into obscurity and experiencing a literary rebirth toward the end of his life.

In this Weird Stories installment, Phil Ford reads the complete text of one of Machen's most famous works, "The White People" (1904).