The Weird

[flemmings]

In search of an elusive author whose works the library system doesn't have- or has only in unborrowable form- I succeeded in getting my hands on a thumpingly huge short story collection called The Weird. Heart fell when I saw that the ToC included M.R. James' Casting the Runes. James isn't weird: he's terrifying. But if that's an exception: if the other stories are indeed weird tales, it occurred to me I could try reading them as 100 Demons episodes. Which I do, generally to dismal failure. Hand's The Boy in the Tree, Gaiman's Feeders and Eaters, Tagore's The Hungry Stones, Chabon's The God of Dark Laughter, Utley's The Country Doctor (and stories I knew from before: Russ' The Little Dirty Girl, Kafka's In the Penal Colony, Akutagawa's The Hell Screen) are, well, SF or horror or what-have-you, but not the simply Odd that Ima does. With the possible exception of Mieville's Details, which is certainly looking like an Ima manga so far.

Alas, I can't remember what writer it is I want to read. Possibly Michael Cisco.

Alas also, the ToC is in chronological order, which makes finding anything very difficult.

Comments

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Oh, that collection. Almost enough to make me want an e-reader as I suspect that thing could be used as a deadly weapon.

I do think that by Weird Vandermeer mostly means 'horror by surrealists'.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

It's the double columns so reminiscent of bound reprints of The Times; without which I suspect the thing would be unliftable.

Thank you: that's useful to know. Means I shan't waste too much time looking for oddness but can tale it back to the library. (The Mieville however is immensely Ima-ish except that the overheard conversations don't develop into their own separate subplots.)