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Maggots in the Corpse of an Empire: An anarchist approach to gothic literature
Hey everybody, all the wonderful people who subscribe to my Patreon already saw this last week but I wrote another one of my grouchy rambling essays that I write sometimes and this one is some reflections on how I as an anarchist spec-fic writer view my genre. I think it's pretty good but of course I would say that. It's free to read now but if you wanna toss a coin to your author then you'll get early access to stuff for only $2 a month; I'd call that a bargain.
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βAmerica sleeps ahead of you, its nightmares filled with quakes, storms.Β Youβll need to find your own path.β
As is so often the case with terms related to art and aesthetics, what is and is not βgothicβ is infuriatingly difficult to pin down with mere words.Β As a musical genre, subcultural lifestyle, or personal style of dress, the vast intersections between goth, punk, emo, hardcore, synthwave, heavy metal, and so on make a simple and concise definition nearly impossible to verbalize; one might as well say that a goth is a punk who wears lace while a punk is a goth with spikes.Β Aesthetically, the gothic is a lot like pornography, in that I have no idea what it is but Iβm sure Iβll know it when I see it.
Defining the gothic as a mode of literature is a bit easier, but still irritating enough.Β In superficial terms (and, I think, in the mind of the average person), itβs tempting to say something like: βA gothic story is a scary story about an old building.βΒ In every nook and cranny of the vast gulf between Walpoleβs The Castle of Otranto and Faulknerβs A Rose for Emily, the word βgothicβ calls to mind French cathedrals, English country estates, Carpathian castles, and American slave plantations, with all of the dark secrets, unpleasant pasts, and shallow graves one expects to find in such places.Β But, of course, if that were all there were to it, every Dungeons and Dragons campaign about an evil wizard in a tower and every horror story involving a haunted house would be gothic; and, while those things certainly can be, they arenβt necessarily.
The matter is complicated further as the gothic genre contains immense variety, and even the works that most of us agree are all gothic can be very, very different from one another.Β A work may be in the equivocal gothic (supernatural elements are ambiguously real or unreal, as in Wuthering Heights), the natural gothic (supernatural elements are not present, as in the aforementioned A Rose for Emily), the explained gothic (what was thought to be supernatural is revealed to be natural, as in The Mysteries of Udolpho), or the supernatural or marvelous gothic (the unnatural and phantasmagorical is present explicitly, as in Dracula), and still sit comfortably under the label of gothic.Β What, then, is the unifying factor?
To my mind, the most elegant and concise definition of what is and is not gothic was put into words by James M. Powell in 1988, writing for the Syracuse Scholar about German narrative historian Leopold von Ranke:Β βThe great paradox of human existence is the refusal of the past to die and the danger that critical examination of the past, always fragile, may succumb.Β Human beings live in the narrow margins between mythic pasts and hard-won efforts at understanding their past.βΒ To wit, I believe that a story becomes specifically gothic fiction rather than more broadly horror or fantasy when its central themes deal with the uncomfortable intrusion of the past into the present and the stubborn refusal of that past to die.
My opinions on literary fiction should be well-known to anyone familiar with my work, but to briefly summarize a bitter old womanβs lifetime of kvetching, I find the majority of contemporary so-called litfic to be uninspired and uninteresting drivel that isnβt worth the paper itβs printed on (with the few notable exceptions, such as Leslie Feinbergβs incredible Stone Butch Blues or Latin American magical realism, notable as much for their rarity as their exemplary quality).Β I find myself at home in the world of speculative fiction, in stories of imagined worlds and flights of fancy and phantasmagoria; what Professor Tolkien called subcreation.Β Progressive speculative fiction is a genre dominated by science fiction, such as the dystopian near-future sci-fi of Octavia Butlerβs Parable of the Sower and the βharderβ far-future sci-fi of Ursula K. Le Guinβs Hainish cycle, with works of fantasy and phantasm (such as the fantasy of Margaret Killjoy, or Le Guinβs own Earthsea series) being comparatively uncommon.Β This is to be expected; the fantasy genre is usually rooted, at least superficially or aesthetically, in the past or the present, and those artists setting out to create art dealing with progressive themes will naturally be most concerned with progress, whether thatβs dreaming of a better future or ruminating on how the crimes of the present might affect the future.
However, the problem of the stubborn past is not one that can ever be discounted or ignored.Β As the character Ulysses said in one of my favorite works of progressive near-future science fiction, the video game Fallout: New Vegas, βWho are you, who do not know your history?β
In his 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, the brilliant political economist and passable wordsmith Karl Marx famously said:Β βMen make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted by the past.Β The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.βΒ This, to me, summarizes the essence of the gothic as much as it's a statement on real-world history and politics.Β The past, with all of its mistakes and all of its secrets, defines and creates the present.Β The stage of history upon which the great drama of our lives will play out was set and dressed long before we were born, and the problems of the present that we fight to fix are the purest form of the stubborn refusal of the past to die.
Ever since the people who worry about such things have condescended to turn a critical eye towards genre fiction, rivers of ink have been spilled discussing the possible utility of horror fiction and the nature of humanityβs perpetual fascination with the grotesque and macabre.Β The general consensus amongst critics and theorists, which I mostly agree with, is that horror is important both as a conceptual βsafe spaceβ in which to explore the more unsavory aspects of the human experience and as an unflattering mirror providing a far too honest reflection of ourselves and the world we live in.Β This, I think, makes the gothic a genre uniquely poised to treat with the problems of the modern world; as the past creates the present and the contradictions of the past define the issues of the present, our lives as workers are haunted by the uncomfortable intrusion of the past into the present and by the stubborn refusal of the past to die, and the phantasms vexing workers in the edifice of a dying empire are far more terrifying than those haunting Victorian aristocrats in their decaying estates.Β After all, as the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born, now is the time of monsters.
Marx also said, in his verbose and rambling but nonetheless insightful Capital:Β βCapital is dead labor which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more the more it sucks.βΒ We artists tend to be a disconnected and self-aggrandizing group who go through life with an over-inflated sense of the importance of what we do, and I as a novelist have got my doubts about the utility of fiction as a pedagogical tool, but it canβt be denied that all art is propaganda.Β I do believe that, when we as artists take the time to explore the gothic, we might help deliver just a few more hammer-taps onto the end of the stake being driven into the heart of the vampiric wage system.
Paavu loves her charlatan background, leads to the best nights out, especially when you can forge a document in the local authorities hand.
Β Based on a convo me and @zenyattaslaugh had about our two miscreant old women. I love them both, so much
Β I am also, so so happy with the colouring!! my new method feels so good.
β¨(commission info)(kofi)β¨
My friend sent me this and Iβm a huge astronomy nerd and so my immediate thought was βYOU FOOLS EUROPA HAS GEYSERS, ITS NOT JUST AN ENTIRE ICY WASTELAND THERE ARE AREAS OF HEAT, AND ANY SOCIETY WOULD BE BUILT AROUND THESE GEYSERSβ but THEN I thought βoh the geysers are privatized of course they are itβs the ice wars on Europaβ
The ice you can learn to live with, friendβ¦ but the geysersβ¦ you canβt prepare for them. And theyβre out there, waitingβ¦ thatβs the REAL War right thereβ¦ thatβs what happened to my crew.
straight white people making a romance movie: haha what if it was illegal to have sex? wait what's lawrence v texas. wait what's mclaughlin v florida. wait what's loving v virginia
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Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Not an artfight, sadly i learned about it when it ended :c.
But for my polish audience or not, i present yall the iconic ranczo bench with sw ocs Ikoru, Fen Nook , Cirz and Kleebo!!!!
.(APPARENTLY NEXT SEASKN OF THIS SHOW IS BEING FILMED AT THE HUGHSCHOOL I'VE SPENT MY LAST 4 YEARS AT. you get the backgroud)
Iko belongs to me
Cirz - @amarcia
Nook Fen- @czuowiekkrzesuo
Kleebo - @thats-ee
Yall have so cute ocs that i saw lately(or helped make), i couldn't help myself not to draw them together. I had too much fun doing this ngl, i still hate drawing the potato sacks they wear.
Love and kisses, care for your ocs people and don't traumatize them too much, i say this while Iko is a widow. ANYWAYS
We have this interesting situation where we basically no longer have privacy nor the expectation of privacy, but we also don't have community or meaningful connection with others, so we're all simultaneously both completely exposed and absolutely alone, and please understand that when I say this situation is "interesting", what I in fact mean is that it's "nightmarish and I wish I could wake up"
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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another huge piece of advice: separate out 'tidying', 'cleaning' and 'organising' in your head. they're not the same thing and a lot of paralysis and overload comes from either misidentifying what your space needs, or trying to do all of them at once with conflicting goals.
TIDYING means clearing space, making your environment orderly and inviting. it usually entails removing clutter from surfaces, clearing the floor so you can move around easily, and creating psychological ease by putting everything visibly in its place. It's very visual, and can also involve things like straightening picture frames, squaring pillows, folding blankets on the couch, etc. It reduces chaos and noise and makes a space comfortable.
ORGANISING means sifting through belongings, ensuring that what doesn't need to be kept is thrown out and what does need to be kept is kept well. This often means categorising by room and function β teaspoons go in the teaspoon drawer, and the teaspoon drawer stays in the kitchen. It can also mean indexing things so you can find them easily (markers sorted by colour, paperwork divided into topical folders, books alphabetised) and preserving things (moving photos out of direct sunlight, keeping open flour in a sealed container, sleeving trading cards).
CLEANING means removing built up dirt, dust and grime, reducing the level of environmental contaminants and making your space sanitary. Bacteria are a fact of life, they love to hang out in dust and cling to pet hair and multiply on any given surface. Cleaning is how you keep that stuff in check, preventing it from building up to the point it affects your health. This means wiping frequently touched surfaces with disinfectant, sanitising utensils (doing the dishes), washing bedding and clothes (and yourself), and sweeping/vacuuming and taking out the trash to physically remove dirt from your home.
Tidying is not the same thing as organising β shove the mail, bills, dirty teaspoons and your gardening gloves in a drawer, and you've tidied the table. Sort the paperwork into piles by deadline, put the teaspoons in a cup, and roll the gloves together so they don't get separated, and the table is untidy but organised.
Similarly, a tidy or organised space can still be filthy. Just because all the yellowed newspapers and trash bags are sorted by date in the basement, out of sight, doesn't mean they're clean. A chaotic, cluttered space can still be very sanitary if it's being kept clear of refuse, and wiped and dusted often.
Sometimes tidying makes your space less organised, and vice versa. Organising often shakes out a lot of dust and makes the space dirtier. The classic "it's even worse than when I started" feeling is often the result of going into a room with the intent of tidying, then actually starting the task of organising instead. It's a lot easier to tidy an organised space, and organising first is usually the right instinct, but the distinction isn't intuitive so the sudden cluttering effect can be really demoralising. Remember they're three different things with different goals. Sometimes they overlap, but sometimes they conflict. That doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.
turnnoffyourmind
andulkaphoto
origamiaround
areudirty
gamechangershow
tangentwithtanner
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