Sneerwell and Verjuice: The School for Weird Fiction

What would you choose for your daily dose of weird fiction? Insane Lovecraftian gibberings as minds break down on exposure to cosmic horror? A growing sense of futility and failure when the truth of the world reveals itself? Or perhaps a lingering, bitter-sweet recognition that we are not meant to know what existence really is, but that we must persevere regardless? And while we’re asking questions, what has Peter Cushing got to do with writer Sheridan Le Fanu and his great-uncle? Come inside, stranger, and sit yourself down on this oddly-shaped iron chair…

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a man earlier today, assailed by definitions of weird fiction

Why We Don’t Know What We’re Doing

Greydogtales is not one of those gosh-darned clever literary sites. We don’t worry about genre questions a lot, but we like to poke a stick at things now and then. Last year we ran five particular ‘weird fiction’ features which garnered an unexpected amount of attention, and we thought we’d revisit those articles very briefly, a final farewell. And add new stuff, some of our usual semi-scholarly quotes, and peculiar trivia, because… because it’s what we do.

Each of those features considered aspects of weird fiction and its writers, from old-timers H P Lovecraft and Fritz Leiber, to current explorers John Langan and Michael Wehunt. In the process we travelled with some unexpected bedfellows, such as Lodovico Ariosto and G K Chesterton. We’ll start gently with a musing or two on the subject at hand…

There is no definition of the genre, if it is a genre at all. Maybe it’s an animal that you only recognise when you see it, different for each person. Apart from the broad themes we mentioned at the start, ‘weird fiction’ can include:

  • Transgressive horror stories questioning current social mores;
  • Ghost stories which break the traditional boundaries, questioning the nature of who haunts who;
  • Re-interpretations of classic horrors, even vampire tropes, which twist the roots of where such fears come from;
  • Dark fantasy tales which shed the typical pseudo-Medieval trappings;
  • Questioning speculative fiction along the lines of Philip K Dick, Zelazny, and Delaney;
  • Bizarro works of satire and subversion;
  • Magical realism and surreal visions stemming from writers like Kafka and Borges.

We can try and say that modern weird fiction has a predominant psychological element, that we are the monsters, but that doesn’t pin anything down either. The weird tale of the early Twentieth century had its psychological nightmares; today’s fiction has its physical monstrosities. Quiet horror is another term for some contemporary weird fiction, but can be surprisingly hard to define as well.

So we don’t really know what we read or what we write, in short. China Mieville expressed one view in the Guardian newspaper:

“I don’t think you can distinguish science fiction, fantasy and horror with any rigour, as the writers around the magazine Weird Tales early in the last century (Lovecraft in particular) illustrated most sharply. So I use the term ‘weird fiction’ for all fantastic literature – fantasy, SF, horror and all the stuff that won’t fit neatly into slots.”

May 2002

In his extended essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, H P Lovecraft himself laid out the genre as he saw it back then:

“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.”

1927, revised 1933/34

And we featured Lovecraft in our top three features last year…

Blasphemous Polyps – Quick Sale Due to Incipient Insanity

Musing on H P Lovecraft’s work and his impact on weird fiction is a popular past-time, though not without its pitfalls. In May 2016 we opened up the topic of New Lovecraftian weird fiction, mentioning Paula Guran’s Mammoth Book of Cthulhu, and were delighted that John Langan and Michael Wehunt provided us with exclusive comments on their contributions to the anthology.

61bx02jTCnLcthulhu may not live here any more

Add in Bobby Dee’s Sex and Cthulhu Mythos, and we had a major spike in website hits. Which was nice.

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our own tragically un-optioned concept anthology

In July we dared to question Great Cthulhu Himself, and looked at the mythological basis of two maritime monstrosities who populate weird fiction and fantasy, Cthuhlu and the Kraken. Spoiler: Our conclusion was that neither are perhaps as ‘squiddy’ as people think – and that Alfred Lord Tennyson is still a good read.

krakens and cthulhus – squids no more

The other HPL-related feature we ran which broke the usual records was our inadequate contemplation of the connections between theosophy and weird fiction in December. Assisted again by scholar Bobby Dee, who provided some fascinating HPL letter extracts, it’s a subject which deserved far more time. We peppered it with as many notional fancies and trivia as we could fit in, and received a lot of interest in it.

emb_logoh p lovecraft and the lords of venus

When Irish Eyes are Scary

On to some olden days connections now. Re-reading the HPL essay reminded us that the term weird fiction is supposed to have originated with Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-73), author of such scary stories as “Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter” and “Green Tea”.

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le fanu

Lovecraft wasn’t a great Le Fanu fan, though he thought Green Tea superior to the other pieces he’d read by the Irishman. If you’re interested, you can read a discussion of HPL’s exposure to Le Fanu on the wormwoodiana site here:

wormwoodiana

M R James, who would not perhaps have wished to be included in the weird fiction movement, said of Le Fanu (lecture to the Royal Institution of Great Britain):

“Only one novelist known to me ever refers to Sheridan Le Fanu as an acknowledged authority or master in the particular line to which he devoted himself: the name of this writer is respectable but not more. It is James Payn. Probably if the works of Andrew Lang ever have a concordance made to them, the name of Le Fanu will be found to occur in it. But the fact remains that Le Fanu is not at the moment the occupier of any particular pedestal. There has never been a boom in his writings. I am not anxious for one, though if it comes I shall be prepared to concede the great author of booms, Poet Gosse, several points or bisques.

I do not then claim for this author any very exalted place, but I desire to advance the claim that he has attained supremacy in one particular line: he succeeds in inspiring a mysterious terror better than any other writer.”

March 1923

If Le Fanu can be seen as a Founding Father of weird fiction (rather than merely as someone who coined the phrase), it’s because he tended to imply his monsters bit by bit, and let the style and tone of the story do its work. And maybe the subtle disquiet used in some of his stories did help shape later works by other writers. From James again:

“…how does he contrive to inspire horror? It is partly, I think, owing to the very skilful use of a crescendo, so to speak. The gradual removal of one safeguard after another, the victim’s dim forebodings of what is to happen gradually growing clearer; these are the processes which generally increase the strain of excitement. “The Familiar” and the concluding chapters of Uncle Silas are the best specimens of this. And again the unexplained hints which are dropped are of the most telling kind. The reader is never allowed to know the full theory which underlies any of his ghost stories, but this Le Fanu has in common with many inferior artists. Only you feel that he has a complete explanation to give if he would only vouchsafe it.

“Who was the person who, in Uncle Silas, was heard to say “Fly the Fangs of Belisarius”? Where did Minheer Vanderhausen take his wife to? What was the rationale of the mysterious coach and the lady and her servants who brought Carmilla the Vampire to the house where she was to find a new victim? And what exactly was it that passed when Lewis Pyneweck and the hangman came to see Mr Justice Harbottle? We are never told. The trick of omission or suppression may be used in a very banal fashion, but Le Fanu uses it well.”

ibid

(Quotes copyright N J R James, full lecture notes text available courtesy of Ghosts and Scholars archive – james on le fanu )

dreams-of-shadow-and-smoke

In 2014, Swan River Press of Dublin released the commemorative anthology Dreams of Shadow and Smoke, which featured ten new tales of the fantastic and macabre written in celebration of the bicentenary of Dublin’s “Invisible Prince”. It’s unfortunately out of print, but does lead us to one of our surprise successes of the year, where we celebrated Swan River’s new edition of The Pale Brown Thing. This was Fritz Leiber’s ‘precursor’ or ‘companion’ to his justly celebrated novel Our Lady of Darkness, a book which should be read by all weird fiction enthusiasts. You can read all about it here:

swan river press edition 2016
swan river press edition 2016

the pale brown thing & a dose of de quincey

The last feature which entered our Top Five came from the same roots as we started with today- what is weird fiction? So we stood up and named five books which may not be found on the usual lists, each of which is part of, or has contributed to the development of, this beguiling non-genre. Again, we had a most positive response.

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five weird fantasy books not on fantasy lists

And that’s our round-up of the five most popular weird fiction posts on greydogtales during 2016. So there.


Graphic and Novel

Whilst we’re on the topic, we almost opened a can of weird worms after we interviewed Paul St.John Mackintosh in October. We’re not cautious in the fiction we consume (or produce, for that matter), but we try to keep greydogtales itself accessible to all tastes. Paul’s fascinating collection Blowback contained two or three stories which despite the quality of the writing were hard to discuss directly on the site because of the subject matter. This sparked a discussion about weird fiction – what it was for and how far it should go.

reading black propaganda
reading black propaganda

Paul, who is a delight in debate, and not a shy communicator, then wrote a piece for his own blog which explored some interesting points.

“Primarily, I want to expand on what I’ve been saying about quiet horror, compared to other types of horror. This isn’t intended as a blanket criticism of quiet horror as a sub-genre (whatever my reservations about pressing any definition of a sub-genre into service as a marketing category), but more as a prophylactic against lazy, pedestrian, or otherwise imperfectly realized quiet horror, as well as a reminder that other styles of horror do exist, with reason. If anything, it’s a plea for some – but not all – quiet horror writers to spread their wings and raise their game, as well as a cautionary note about the sub-genre’s shortcomings.”

You can read the whole piece here:

quiet horror-unquiet horror-disquieting horror

And our original interview with him is below:

transgressions, lovecraft and inner demons


The Pre-Stoker Awards

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We’re now planning our 2017 programme, and… what? Peter Cushing? Oh yes. Well, you remember that Le Fanu chap, from above. He also wrote the famous Carmilla vampire novella (1871-72), which came well before Bram Stoker’s Dracula and included some serious lesbianic themes, although expressed carefully for the sensibilities of the time.

20th century film adaptations have variously toned down or ramped up the overt lesbian aspects. Possibly the most familiar version will be the Hammer Film Productions, released as The Vampire Lovers (1970). This starred Ingrid Pitt in the lead role, Madeline Smith as her victim, and, of course, Peter Cushing. Vampire Lovers is sometimes described as part of the Karnstein trilogy of films, which includes Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil.

Not only was Cushing also in Twins of Evil, but he has an earlier connection to the works of the Le Fanu family. The noted playwright Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (1751– 1816) was Sheridan Le Fanu’s great-uncle, and The School for Scandal is amongst those works of his which are still well known.

This play, first performed in 1777, introduced the conniving characters Lady Sneerwell and her cousin Miss Verjuice, though sadly Verjuice was written out in some revisions. Sheridan was one of those constant tinkerers.

The School for Scandal is the quintessential creation about people blabbering about people. Here is sham, snobbery and betrayal in full regalia…”

Critic Alvin Klein

It’s a witty play and observant even now, with only the odd dodgy bit. And would you believe it, Peter Cushing was in it many decades ago, performing as part of the Old Vic company with none other that Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. There’s proper trivia for you, dear listener.


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In the next week or so: All sorts of strangeness, but probably something on Adam Nevill’s new book Under a Watchful Eye. And don’t forget to make it look as if you’ve voted for greydogtales as mega-best website in the Critters awards. It only takes a quick email adress to make us famous-ish…

critters web-site awards (open until 14th January)

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