From December 2017, updated for 2026.
I have written these past few weeks about the so-called "New Weird," which may or may not have been new (in 2008) and the practitioners of which may or may not have been doing something innovative in their writing. One thing they seem to have in common is their dislike or disdain for convention or tradition, especially for well-accepted and well-liked writers of the past. China Miéville, for example, dislikes J.R.R. Tolkien for his conservatism, evidently also for his Catholicism. (I guess you can take the British Marxist out of the Church of England, but you can never take the Church of England out of the British Marxist.) Here is Mr. Miéville on Tolkien: "His was a profoundly backward-looking reaction, based on a rural idyll that never existed--feudalism lite." (1) I won't go very far into the idea that socialism is the proper successor to feudalism, with the State assuming the role of the king (and God), the intellectual élite taking the place of the aristocracy and clergy, the people being kept in their place as serfs, and of course no usurping middle class in sight. I just want to give you an idea of how a writer of "the New Weird" feels about an old-time fantasist.
China Miéville's near contemporary Jeff VanderMeer had a few things to say on H.P. Lovecraft and Weird Tales previous to and following the end of his wife's tenure as editor of that magazine. You could have read his essay "Moving Past Lovecraft" on the website Weird Fiction Review, dated September 1, 2012, but it's no longer available there. Too bad. The upshot of Mr. VanderMeer's essay is that Lovecraft is dead and gone and that it's time for something new. I agree with some of the things he wrote. (For example, like him, I don't think Lovecraft should be at the center of weird fiction as if he were Azathoth at the center of Ultimate Chaos. There are other writers and other ideas.) But the author gives too much away with his hackneyed language of the left. Talk about needing something new: we all need a break from this old and tired way of writing and thinking . . .
Observe that: a) Lovecraft; b) Weird Tales magazine under editors other than Ann VanderMeer; and c) weird fiction not approved by Mr. VanderMeer are characterized by worn-out leftist pejoratives: conservative, non-progressive, nostalgia, nostalgic, the dead past, cannibalistic, narrowness, etc. In contrast, a) Jeff and Ann VanderMeer; b) writers of their circle; and c) everything they like are described in approving terms, all equally worn out by writers on the left: inclusiveness, progressive, innovative, transgressive, diverse, etc. I understand that Mr. VanderMeer composed his essay in the heat of the moment. Maybe things have cooled off in the many years since. Maybe that's why we can no longer read his essay.
So, if you're keeping track, China Miéville's dragon-for-the-slaying is J.R.R. Tolkien, while Jeff VanderMeer's is or was H.P. Lovecraft. Their fellow supposedly "New Weird" author K.J. Bishop is a little more positive: in an interview from the website Strange Horizons, from October 18, 2004 (here), she admitted, "I was a Lord of the Rings fan, and I have plenty of regard for Tolkien still." She also seemed to recognize that "the New Weird" may not have been so new after all:
Other kinds of fantasy have always been written; the picaresque has been around for ages, as have folk tales about ordinary people to whom strange things happen, and to me the "New Weird" is coming out of those traditions. The elements of decadence and horror are there in the Arabian Nights and the Brothers Grimm. I think that what appear to be evolutions in the writing are really changes in public taste and what gets published. [Boldface added.]
Maybe Ms. Bishop doesn't quite fit in "the New Weird" category after all.
Next is British author Steph Swainston on Tolkien:
The Brontës had a contribution to make to fantasy literature--their Great Glass Town. Sometimes I wish the fantasy genre had grown from Great Glass Town instead of Middle Earth. But they were ahead of their time, and Charlotte Brontë knew better than to go public with such a private world, even though her brother Branwell pushed her to do it and I suspect Thackeray would have loved it. I like to use variety--and as little repetition of words as possible. It amazes me that so much fantasy writing is leaden and conservative, still influenced by Tolkien's use of a solemn, "epic" style. Anything can happen in fantasy, so why use such stilted prose? [Boldface added.] (2)
That's not so harsh; Ms. Swainston may have made a legitimate point about Tolkien's style. But here again is that critical, if not pejorative, term, conservative. On the other hand, I'm not sure that the Brontës or William Makepeace Thackeray could be called liberal or progressive.
Here is a more informative quote from Steph Swainston:
[Jeff VanderMeer]: Do you believe in the existence of Evil?
[Steph Swainston]: Certainly not. 'Evil' is just a strong word for something you don't like.
More on that topic next.
Notes
(1) From "Tolkien-Middle Earth Meets Middle England" by China Miéville in Socialist Review on line, January 2002, at the following URL:
(2) From "Dangerous Offspring: An Interview with Steph Swainston" by Jeff VanderMeer, Clarkesworld, October 2007, here.
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| A map drawn by Branwell Brontë of the Brontë family's Glass Town world. The map above is somewhat similar to those showing Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age and J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth in that there is a bulging continent on the north and a great gulf on the south. |
Original text copyright 2017, 2026 Terence E. Hanley
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