Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 03:43:12 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Lovecraft and Presence

Started by Hey, Punk!, November 14, 2018, 09:02:02 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

mothman

Is there a recommended reading order or list? Because I wouldn't know where to start.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: mothman on February 07, 2019, 06:25:17 PM
Is there a recommended reading order or list? Because I wouldn't know where to start.

Start anywhere, it doesn't matter.

NoSleep

All the stories stand up on their own. The mythos is an undercurrent throughout the stories; all of Lovecraft's tales are glimpses of the same fictional world, which has a cumulative effect as more are read.

garbed_attic

Just chiming into say that I've finally gotten round to reading The Weird and the Eerie and it manages to really gleam some clear-sighted insights from Freud's pretty tortured essay on 'The Uncanny' - I reread the latter recently for teaching and it struck me that many of Freud's examples of the uncanny (such as automatons) are unnerving because we can't immediately locate the source of their agency and whether they are being moved from within or by some outside agency. So, it's really useful (and a bit uncanny since I've come to read 'TWatE' just days after having taught that class, having those ponderings) to have Fisher situate the question of agency at the heart of his understanding of the uncanny and then use it as a means to separate the weird from the eerie. Really impressive work and stuffed to the gills with the kind of hauntological references to 1970s kids TV that you people love!

BlodwynPig

Quote from: gout_pony on February 13, 2019, 12:39:56 AM
Just chiming into say that I've finally gotten round to reading The Weird and the Eerie and it manages to really gleam some clear-sighted insights from Freud's pretty tortured essay on 'The Uncanny' - I reread the latter recently for teaching and it struck me that many of Freud's examples of the uncanny (such as automatons) are unnerving because we can't immediately locate the source of their agency and whether they are being moved from within or by some outside agency. So, it's really useful (and a bit uncanny since I've come to read 'TWatE' just days after having taught that class, having those ponderings) to have Fisher situate the question of agency at the heart of his understanding of the uncanny and then use it as a means to separate the weird from the eerie. Really impressive work and stuffed to the gills with the kind of hauntological references to 1970s kids TV that you people love!

What is this WatE? Interest piqued.


daf


garbed_attic

Quote from: BlodwynPig on February 13, 2019, 02:38:33 AM
What is this WatE? Interest piqued.



It's a long-form essay (or series of short essays) by the late Mark Fisher on defining the weird and the eerie, using Freud's essay on the uncanny as a jumping off point. In short, Fisher defines the weird as presence where there should be absence (and, as noted by the OP, uses examples from Lovecraft to prove his point) and the eerie as absence where there should be presence (like Felixstowe). It's a little speculative at times, but more systematic than Freud's original essay, with lots of pleasing pop culture references, especially to SF and weird fiction.

garbed_attic

P.S. Lovely Rock Paper Shotgun article about eerie places in games inspired by Fisher's writing:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/11/01/the-eeriest-places-in-games-are-the-ones-where-the-environment-is-the-monster/

(mostly posting because I love Pathologic, but it is otherwise also very good!)

BlodwynPig

Shitty page making me turn off adblocker, which, on safari, means jumping through hoops now.


BlodwynPig

don't worry, I took that extra 10 seconds to disable and read.

thanks Gouty

garbed_attic

but then I took the extra 30 seconds to use internet archive!

You owe me 20 seconds Blodders!

BlodwynPig



Mister Six

Quote from: gout_pony on February 13, 2019, 11:48:51 PM
P.S. Lovely Rock Paper Shotgun article about eerie places in games inspired by Fisher's writing:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/11/01/the-eeriest-places-in-games-are-the-ones-where-the-environment-is-the-monster/

(mostly posting because I love Pathologic, but it is otherwise also very good!)

Interesting article, but I do hate it when writers use that "X told me" construction. Stop inserting yourself into the story, Ewan Wilson! Nobody's here for you.

BlodwynPig

GET IN!! I'm travelling to Boston in April and after a discussion with QDRPHNC last night realised that Providence is only 1 hour away by train. Will be doing a Lovecraft walking tour. Deep Ones - be prepared!

Pingers


BlodwynPig

Quote from: Pingers on February 27, 2019, 08:58:44 PM
You jammy arse

Where should I visit...I'll send you some postcards

Pingers

I've never been - New England is on my bucket list, purely for Lovecraft purposes. If you manage to get some good photos you should definitely post some on here.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Pingers on February 27, 2019, 09:11:22 PM
I've never been - New England is on my bucket list, purely for Lovecraft purposes. If you manage to get some good photos you should definitely post some on here.

Happy to get you some gifts and send them over. If I find a first edition Necronomicon for example.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: BlodwynPig on February 27, 2019, 09:20:32 PM
Happy to get you some gifts and send them over. If I find a first edition Necronomicon for example.

You should take a camcorder (or one of those iphone things) and record the whole event and post it on here. If you do so I will pay you an entire pound coin.

BlodwynPig

My landlady said "Providence is ok, a large gay community. But you should go to the Kennedy Library instead"

BlodwynPig

Fucked it. Had a very pricey ticket to see Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets in Toronto - but booked my Harvard trip for the same time.

NoSleep


BlodwynPig