A black hole, on the other hand, is hard to even comprehend. A vampire might be scary, but it is both composed of familiar features of the world and people (just organized in a particularly threatening way) and, crucially, there is pre-existing lore that allows us to make sense of these creatures when we encounter them in books or movies. But he astutely points out that it is not the thing itself that is wrong, but rather our conception of the world.įisher explains by way of comparing a black hole to a vampire. For Fisher, the weird points towards, as I said at the outset, wrongness. The essays that comprise this book, each of which focuses on one or two works, are compelling on their own, but together provide readers with a much deeper understanding of two concepts that are too often confused with familiar elements found in science fiction, fantasy, or horror stories.īefore getting into a few of the essays, it’s worth noting that Fisher begins both sections (each of which includes writings on the weird and eerie, respectively) with brief definitions of what each concept means. Mark Fisher, in his extremely insightful and interesting book, The Weird and the Eerie, goes much further, using this sense of “wrongness” as a jumping off point to explore a wide range of novels, short stories, films, and albums. But one thing any answer is likely to have in common is that both words point towards something being wrong. These are words everyone thinks they know until they’re asked to explain them. James, Christopher Priest, Joan Lindsay, Nigel Kneale, Daphne Du Maurier, Alan Garner and Margaret Atwood, and films by Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer and Christoper Nolan.Weird.

These two modes will be analysed with reference to the work of authors such as H. Perhaps a proper understanding of the human condition requires examination of liminal concepts such as the weird and the eerie. The Weird and the Eerie both fundamentally concern the outside and the unknown, which are not intrinsically horrifying, even if they are always unsettling. Both have often been associated with Horror, yet this emphasis overlooks the aching fascination that such texts can exercise. The Weird and the Eerie are closely related but distinct modes, each possessing its own distinct properties. What exactly are the Weird and the Eerie? In this new essay, Mark Fisher argues that some of the most haunting and anomalous fiction of the 20th century belongs to these two modes. The Weird and the Eerie Mark Fisher € 21.99 If not in stock, the expected delivery time to our store for this item will be 7-10 working days.

The weird and the eerie by mark fisher