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Rating: Weird Literature. Narrating the Unthinkable by Francesco Corigliano (some may know him for his unsettling weird tales) is an important text that seeks to clarify a slippery subject (the "Weird" indeed) which has been often misused in recent years. I consider it important because it doesn't merely talk, as often happens when dealing with the fantastical, about Anglo-Saxon authors but it also investigates, besides the figure of H.P. Lovecraft, two European representatives like the Belgian Jean Ray and the Polish Stefan Grabinski. Corigliano has thoroughly studied most of the books related to the subject: in particular, he focused on the studies of Todorov, David Punter (his studies on the gothic from a socio-cultural perspective are important but ultimately somewhat schematic and limited), S.T. Joshi, Mark Fisher, and Harman and theorized (based on Joshi himself and the Italian scholar Ceserani) how the "weird" should be considered as a "mode," that is, a literary mode with recurring themes and formal procedures. This is a valid approach that seeks to find its interpretive key to the evolution of the fantastical from the late 19th to early 20th century. From the reading, it emerges how Mark Fisher has better than others (although in my opinion, he should also have discussed a text like In the Dust of This Planet by Eugene Thacker, a true bible of a new dark aesthetic) a powerful and deep interpretation based on the concepts of "Weird" and "Eerie." I too was struck by Fisher's studies, which involve (perhaps somewhat too freely) other media like music: associating the music of Brian Eno with the tales of Montague Rhodes James is very fascinating (and it works too) but the suspicion is that there could be numerous and subjective examples in this sense. The impression is that a subject that perhaps should be confined expands further, an operation that Corigliano, as mentioned, tries to carry out.
The choice to delve into the works of Lovecraft, Jean Ray, and Grabinski proves to be apt since these writers better than others (although the work of Hodgson also fits fully into this context, having heavily influenced both Lovecraft and Jean Ray) have grasped the impulses of modernity, bringing out, in the wake of Freud and psychoanalysis, the phantoms lurking in the unconscious and internalizing the new theories on time and space by Einstein. In this sense, it is correct to associate these writers with the literary movement of "modernism," despite Lovecraft publicly distancing himself from authors like T.S. Eliot and James Joyce (but in truth, he admired Joyce and considered the surrealist aesthetic not far from his own). Jean Ray may appear, at first reading, to be the most traditional writer, but on closer examination, some analogies with Lovecraft himself emerge: his masterpiece novel Malpertuis reinvents the gothic novel and the theme of fallen gods (very widespread in high literature of the time) is treated innovatively. However, the chosen time frame might suggest that the driving force of the weird somehow stalled in the 20th century. Horror literature, in fact, has taken more conservative paths (somewhat like Giuseppe Lippi wrote, considering We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson as the last example of a delirious and non-aligned fantastic). In reality, Thomas Ligotti is mentioned (not surprisingly considered the modern incarnation of the Weird) and it is explained how the "Weird," by its very nature, is in constant evolution. In any case, we are faced with a volume that all fans of the fantastical should absolutely acquire. Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.it/letteratura-weird-Francesco-Corigliano/dp/8857567400.
Francesco Corigliano “Weird Literature. Narrating the Unthinkable” - Mimesis Edizioni, DeGenere series, 264 pages, €22 -
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