The test of the really weird
27 January 2016 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
“The one test of the really weird [in writing] is simply this,” H. P. Lovecraft wrote in the introduction to “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” “whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes or entities on the known universe’s utmost rim.”
I love this definition so much. "Scratching...on the known universe's utmost rim." Perfect.
(Quoted in a 2008 interview with Stephen King; the whole interview is excellent.)
I love this definition so much. "Scratching...on the known universe's utmost rim." Perfect.
(Quoted in a 2008 interview with Stephen King; the whole interview is excellent.)
no subject
Date: 2016-01-28 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-28 09:06 pm (UTC)Not that I'm a Pollyanna -- I'm a therapist in real life, specializing in seeing adults who were physically, sexually, or emotionally abused as children -- so I get my dose of grimness...
no subject
Date: 2016-01-28 10:13 pm (UTC)