![]() ![]() ![]() I personally enjoy the genre of 'weird fiction' (Barron, Klein, Sarban) as much as the 'weird fiction' of unclassifiable visionaries such as Kafka, Schulz and Borges equally, but I do differentiate - the main fault of Vandermeer's review is that I think he is criticizing The Croning primarily for being in fact what it is, and not what he would prefer it to be. (aka 'cosmic horror) which of course explains Joshi's affinity for LB's work. I think it comes down to a difference in artistic philosophy Vandermeer's concept of the 'new weird', as I understand it, is rather avant-garde, centering upon transcending the genres of literature, fantastic or otherwise, to create an entirely new way of looking at and classifying imaginative/experimental writing whereas Barron, despite approaching his material in self-consciously distinct (or 'literary') ways, is still very much working out of what can be called the traditional 'weird fiction' style of Machen, Lovecraft, et al. ![]() Melding supernatural horror with hardboiled. ![]() It's funny how highly Joshi thinks of The Croning while Jeff VanderMeer virtually trashed it.Īs much as I've enjoyed Vandermeer's Weird project (both the book and website), I'm definitely with Joshi on this one in fact, you can find me arguing online with Jeff V. Over the course of two award-winning collections and a critically acclaimed novel, The Croning, Laird Barron has arisen as one of the strongest and most original literary voices in modern horror and the dark fantastic. ![]()
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