The test of the really weird

[delphipsmith]

“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.)

Comments

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing such a great quote! :D

[weird-little.livejournal.com]

I've deliberately never read Lovecraft -- and don't read much Stephen King, either -- because it's all too easy for my mind to latch onto things and refuse to let go of them. There are some things that I it wise not to put into my mind in the first place.

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...

[dreamy-dragon73.livejournal.com]

Brilliant definition