Ray Bradbury presents a surreal conspiracy based on a modern (too modern) anxiety: crowds!
Tag: Edgar Allan Poe
Weird #24: “The Tarn” by Hugh Walpole (1936)
A Cask of Amontillado-style literary revenge tale starring a very, very deep lake.
Weird #23: “The Town of Cats'” by Hagiwara Sakutarō (1935)
In which a poet becomes lost in a labyrinthine wood.
Weird #19: “The Book” by Margaret Irwin (1930)
A terrifying story about a tiny gap in a bookshelf.
Weird #18: “The Dunwich Horror” by H. P. Lovecraft (1929)
The Dunwich horror is a metonym for the genre of weird fiction as a whole
Weird #2 The Screaming Skull by F. Marion Crawford (1908)
"The Screaming Skull" (1908) by Francis Marion Crawford, the second story in Ann and Jeff VanderMeer's anthology The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, takes us into the mind of disturbed retired sailor as the skull of a possibly murdered friend haunts his guilty conscience. Told in the first person in what the editors …
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Archaeological Adventure Fiction II: Uncharted: Poe’s Fortune
Last week's post discussed the Indiana Jones series and the works of pulp fiction author A. Merritt, who may have partly influenced the movies. One modern (or postmodern) narrative continues the tradition of what I call archaeological adventure fiction: the video game series Uncharted. Hero Nathan Drake is a professional thief, who believes he is …
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Top 10 Things I Learned While Studying English Literature at McGill University
Is it even possible to canonize all the things I have learned in my three and a half years studying literature at Canada's best university to 10 items? I believe my critics will be able to deconstruct the bejesus out of this list. They'd probably base their argument on how I privilege my subjectivity over …
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Is Fantasy Heresy?
“War begets war. Destruction begets destruction. On earth, a century ago, in the year 2020, they outlawed our books.” -Edgar Allen Poe, in Ray Bradbury's “The Exiles.” Edgar Allan Poe fights rocket men on a Mars mission to annihilate everything fantastic or non-realistic, in Ray Bradbury's short story “The Exiles.” Bradbury's short story stands with …
Vision: Evening Prayer
The date was Sunday 6 August 2012. I had entered the chapel of the monastery in Taizé, France, late at night during the service of evening prayer. I had scarcely slept since arriving in Paris and after two days in the City of Lights, I was exhausted. I was in the state of waking in …
Matthew Rettino 