Šta sam doneo sa Sajma knjiga 2015.

  

Prošlo je već mesec dana od okončanja beogradskog sajma knjiga. Kao i svake godine, i ove sam uredno, pre tog dešavanja, najavio knjige koje preporučujem vašoj pažnji, ali džaba, jer neki me opet zapitkuju o stvarima koje sam tamo lepo rekao! Šta da se radi: novembar je bio gust obavezama – imao sam jednu promociju (Smederevo), jedno učešće na festivalu (FSFF), spremanje za intervju s Bavom, završavanje knjige razgovora sa Kadijevićem, pisanje nekoliko članaka za RUE MORGUE, izbivanje od kuće od sve ukupno negde oko 10 dana, i još koješta – pa tako, evo tek sad stigoh da se ukratko osvrnem na sajamski plen.

Kao i svake godine tako i ove pronaći ćete ovde ne samo knjige koje sam planirao i najavio u gorelinkovanom tekstu, nego i mnoga iznenađenja, neočekivana otkrića i povoljnosti koje su se našle nenadano, bez najave. Ovo dole iskopao sam bez potpuno detaljnog skena sajma – jer, moram priznati, iako sam u Hali bio puna tri dana (sreda-petak), veći deo proveo sam u druženju sa prijateljima i kolegama, ali i čitaocima i poštovaocima, a manji deo u lunjanju po halama i štandovima, pa nisam stigao da pomno proučim ponudu, naročito kod najvećih mejdžora, i može biti da mi je nešto vredno promaklo kod, recimo, Službenog glasnika ili tako nekog.

Ipak, od onoga što sam obišao i što mi je privuklo pažnju, te što sam smatrao vrednim mojih para, evo šta sam sebi uzeo. Tekst je ilustrovan naslovnim stranama kupljenih knjiga, ali i fotkama nastalim tokom druženja na sajmu (jer bez druženja – džaba knjige)! 

Neo-noir film – Ksenija Zelenović

(FCS, 2012)

Samo tog dana bilo na nekom ludačkom popustu, kupio sam je za oko 200 din. Magistarski rad, ako se ne varam, na temu meni samo marginalno interesantnu, ali ipak donekle blisku hororu; plus, zanima me da vidim kako je teoretski postavila sve to razgraničavanje žanrova, čime se iscrpno bavila u pripremnom delu...

Naracija u igranom filmu - Dejvid Bordvel

(FCS, 2014)

Ova kapitalna knjiga iz teorije filma – pa još od mog omiljenog teoretičara (citirao sam ga, supstancijalno, čak i u POETICI HORORA!) – u redovnoj prodaji košta preko 3.000 din. Na sajmu je to bilo sniženo na pola, ili tu negde (misli mda su je prodavali za oko 1.800), ali tokom samo jednog dana sve knjige na FCS štandu imale su 70% popusta, i ja sam to smesta iskoristio, te kupio ovu knjižurinu za oko 700 din.

Knjiga je objavljena 1985. godine u izdanju The University of Wisconsin Press, a napisana je u cilju zasnivanja jedne nove „teorijske poetike“ filma koja bi trebalo da odgovori na pitanja kako radi filmska naracija, šta gledalac treba da radi da bi razumeo narativni film, koje crte i strukture iziskuje razumevanje narativa, koje uloge mogu imati osobine filmskog medija u procesu naracije i slično.

Nečista kuća – Mileta Jakšić

(Prosveta Bg, 1985)

Ovo sam otkrio u najboljoj antikvarnici za koju znam, u „Kući za sunce“, gde sam i ranijih godina redovno nalazio dobre stvari: retke, a po razumnim cenama. Ova knjiga mi je otkrovenje: nisam do sada znao za ovog autora, a vidim da je na početku XX veka pisao nešto veoma blisko folklornoj fantastici i hororu. Platio sam je 350 din. Uskoro ću se detaljnije osvrnuti na nju u zasebnom postu.

Kako se plaše deca – Tamara Lujak

(Presing, 2015)

Antologija najboljih jezivih bajki širom sveta. Odličan koncept, sjajno što se neko ovde odlučio na tako nešto – ne znam da li je u svetu neko napravio nešto ovakvo – u svakom slučaju, za sve koji dubinski proučavaju i vole horor, ovo je odlična prilika da se zagrebe po samim korenima onoga što je mnogo kasnije žanrifikovano.

Šteta što su dizajn i povez skoro skandalozno loši: osrednja ilustracija na korici, loš prelom zadnje korice (gde tekst zamalo da ispadne sa ivice korice!), slab papir (sav talasav), prosečne meke slabunjave korice... Ipak, nema mesta za izbirljivost, nema beganja, uprkos svemu pomenutom ovo mora da se ima. Cena je bila 800 din, a ja dobio neki mali popust od autorke. Sadrži bajke u rasponu od Avganistana i Alžira preko Belorusije, Estonije, Danske, preko Lužičkih i ostalih Srba, Havaja, Češke... sve do Švedske. Ima 466 strana. Nema ilustracija niti ikakvih ukrasa ili dizajna unutra: samo goli tekst, na ćirilici; priča za pričom nanizana, „predgovor“ na celoj jednoj strani, i to je to.

The Best Short Stories – „Sapper“

(J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1986)

Ovaj autor (Saper! To mu je nadimak) slovi za minornog klasika detektivske i natprirodne priče, nailazio sam već negde pominjanje njegovog imena u pozitivnom kontekstu, a pošto je ova knjižica bila samo 200 din. uzeo sam da proverim je li čemu.

Paradoks fikcije: ogledi iz savremene analitičke estetike

– prir. Aleksandra Kostić

(Fedon, 2013)

Zbirka radova na književnoteorijske teme, ali sa naglaskom na afektivno dejstvo fikcije: kako i zašto nas jedan tekst zasmejava, rastužuje, plaši... Dakle, emocije i proza. Moglo bi biti korisno za nekoga koga zanima vrsta proze čija je estetska namera određena izazivanjem osobene emocionalne/afektivne reakcije. Cena, oko 900 din.

Senka i zlo u bajkama – Marija Lujza fon Franc

(Fedon, 2012)

Jungovska psihologija, arhetipovi, bajke... Senka... Velika majka... Opsednutost zlom... Susret sa silama zla... Cena, oko 900 din.

Velika majka – Erih Nojman

(Fedon, 2015)

E, ovo je već superpektakl! 480 strana texta + 185 strana sa ilustracijama a sve na temu simbolike i mitologije Ženskog. Iako je moja privatna mitologija vezana za Magnu Mater (što je i naslov jedne od mojih narednih knjiga) odavno formirana, ova knjižurina svakako neće da škodi da to bude još plastičnije ili slikovitije i mitološki/psihološki još potkovanije...

Evo šta kažu i kako je opisuju izdavači:

Knjigu „Velika majka" Erih Nojman (1905-1960) posvetio je svome „učitelju i prijatelju" Karlu Gustavu Jungu, a nastala je, kako je autor zabeležio, „tako što su profesor Jung i gospođa Frebe-Kaptajn predložili da napišem uvodni tekst za prvo objavljivanje slika "Velike Majke", slika koje su deo materijala sakupljenih u Eranos arhivu za istraživanje simbola". S druge strane, ovo delo spada među Nojmanove najveće doprinose upravo Jungovoj misli.
U uvodu za prvi deo knjige, Nojman ističe da se ovde „ne radi o bilo kojem arhetipu, nego o jednom sasvim posebnom, o Velikom ženskom ili, strogo uzev, o arhetipu Velike Majke". Na drugom mestu, dodaje: „Istraživanje ženske psihe u njenoj posebnosti najnužniji je i najvažniji zadatak koji se postavlja pred dubinske psihologe kojima su na srcu stvaralačko ozdravljenje i razvoj pojedinačnog čoveka."

Cena nije nimalo naivna – platio sam 2.900 din – ali za ovu tematiku, ovaj stepen ozbiljnosti, ovaj kvalitet štampe i poveza (tvrd, sa zaštitnim omotom) i dizajna – za sve ovo, ne žalim!

Krunisanje tame – Miloš Živanović

(SKC Kragujevac, 2015)

Ovo sam dobio na poklon, sa zloslutnim rečima: „Iako ovo nije horor, mislim da će ti se dopasti.“ Ko zna. Na prelistavanje deluje čitljivo... videćemo... 

Sablasne priče

-H. P. Blavacka-

Metaphysica

Ružna korica, sumnjiva štampa i kilav, izuvijan i talasast meki povez nisu obećavajući... Ipak, iako ovo u originalu imam odavno (i ko hoće na engleskom, može lako da nađe na netu, u javnom je domenu), ipak je zgodnije to imati i čitati na papiru. Cena, 550 din.

Arcueil

-Aleksandar Bečanović-

Levo krilo

Dobio na poklon od autora ovaj kratki (120-ak strana) epistolarni roman o de Sadu. U njegovoj ranijoj zbirci OPSJEDNUTOST (vidi moj rivju OVDE!)najbolja je priča bila upravo o de Sadu, pa stoga verujem da i ovo mora biti odlično.

Levo krilo vam s velikim zadovoljstvom predstavlja prvi roman Aleksandra Bečanovića.
Arcueil (Arkej), mirno predgrađe Pariza, na Uskrs 1768. godine postalo je poprište skandala koji je brzo dospeo u francusku štampu i umalo doživeo epilog na sudu. Markiz de Sad domamio je u svoju vilu u Arcueilu prosjakinju i udovicu Rose Keller da bi je podvrgnuo sadističkom tretmanu bičem i raznolikim oblicima seksualnog iživljavanja. Nesrećna žena je uspela da pobegne iz jazbine Božanstvenog Markiza i da se dokopa slobode, policije i medija. Da li se sve odigralo baš tako?

Slike, formule, jednostavni oblici

-Nemanja Radulović-

Čigoja

Radulović je dokazani znalac ezoterične tematike, što je već ispoljio u knjizi PODZEMNI TOK... Ovde nudi nekoliko svojih eseja na razne teme, a meni lično za kupovinu bila su dovoljna ova dva: „Podvodna mitologija u slici sveta savremenog ezoterizma“ (gde se kreće od teozofije, preko nacističkog okultizma pa sve do – Keneta Granta i Lavkrafta! Navode se i neki radovi iz temata o lavkraftu koji sam priredio za Gradac, a pominje se čak i Dorijan Nuaj!) i „Neobogumilstvo: istorija i mitologija“. Oni zauzimaju oko 130 strana, dakle, više nego pola ove knjige (koja ukupno ima 234 str). I ostatak bi mogao biti zanimljiv, ali ova dva eseja su za mene više nego dovoljna za kupovinu... Svakako proverite! 600 din.

Iz srpske religije, mitologije i folklora; izabrane studije

-Veselin Čajkanović-

Evro-Giunti

Dvoumio sam se da li ovo da kupujem jer glavni i meni najbitniji deo (O SRPSKOM VRHOVNOM BOGU) odavno imam kao zasebnu knjigu. Plus, ovo je prilično ružnjikavo natrpano u glomaznu knjigu... Na kraju, dok sam se dvoumio da li da kupim (1.500 din) ili ne, jedan prijatelj koji je primetio moje nećkanje mi ju je – kupio na poklon, valjda smatrajući da moram da je imam!

Ranxerox – Integral

Makondo

Jedan od meni vrlo dragih stripova, najzad u integralnom obliku, sa milion dodataka, i sve plasirano tačno kako zaslužuje. Cena je bila, valjda, negde oko 2.000 din, ne sećam se više, ja sam ga dobio pod posebnim uslovima... Ovo je Must Have, Ghoulov Pečat Preporuke, a i rivju stiže, nadam se, pre Nove Godine!

Slejn: rogati bog

Komiko

Odličan strip predragog mi majstora, Sajmona Bizlija, čitao sam još pre 15 godina (hvala Vladi Vesoviću!) – baš me zanima kako će sad da mi legne. Ipak, ni ovde nema sumnje da se radi o Must Have spektakularno luksuznom i ludački nakićenom izdanju koje zaslužuje Ghoulov Pečat Preporuke! Cena je bila oko 2.400 na sajmu; ja dobio pod povlašćenim uslovima...

Gaša

Beli put

Komplet Gaše šeprtlje, u tri velike tvrde kolor knjige, prodavao se prošle godine za oko 5.000 din. Sad je tiraž već na izmaku, nije još mnogo ostalo. Na sajmu bilo za 4.000, a ja dobio po povlašćenoj ceni od 3.000 od izdavača, u znak poštovanja što sam mu priredio najprodavaniju knjigu ikada (Nekronomikon!). Čude se neki videvši ovo u mojim rukama, ali zaista nema ni najmanje diskrepancije ili čudila u tome: Gaša je jedan od užasno retkih stripova (recimo, uz Asterixa), koji mi je svojevremeno redovno, često, izazivao glasan, grohotan smeh. Proveriću da li je to i dalje slučaj...

Nekradamus

Čudna knjižara

Old school crtež a izgleda i zaplet, ali deluje sasvim primamljivo za cenu od samo 1000 din, na sajmu. Izdavač je pokušao da proizvede utisak patine, starosti, na papiru na kojem je štampao, ali sve što je uspeo jeste da beli papir poprska sitnim žutim flekama koje izazivaju to da čitaocu igraju zvezde i treperi mu pred očima dok pokušava da prati strip... No, nije strašno. Čak ni to što ovo piratsko izdanje nema potpisanog prevodioca, niti ikakav impresum. Kad je već cela zemlja otišla dođavola nazad u 1990-te, ne čudi ni što je stari Jugoslav, Boban, retardirao u to doba. Vidim na Darkvudovom forumu da neki čitaoci kritikuju slab prevod i opremu; ja još nisam zaronio u knjigu/strip, ali poznajući Bobanove metode „Zgrabi lovu i beži!“ verujem da ima istine u tim kritikama.

A što se tiče Bobanove piraterije, već sam vas detaljno upozorio da zaobiđete njegovo nakaradno, nevešto posrbljeno izdanje Snoviđenje ka neznanom Kadatu! Ne dajte da vas neko tretira kao ovce i da vam ovakvim prevarama otima novce!

KNJIGE KOJE NISAM KUPIO

ali sam ih pominjao u ranijoj najavi

Bagatele za jedan masakr

-L. F. Selin-

Ovaj antisemitski pamflet odnosno rant na preko 300 strana prodavao se za 1000 dinara. Previše za tu vrstu govneta. Volem Selina, i rant je njegov prirodni oblik izražavanja, ali ovde iz principa nisam hteo da pljunem ovolike pare za OVO sranje.

Govori Selin

-L. F. Selin-

priredili Milojko Knežević i Branko Kukić

Gradac

Ovde su neki materijali iz temata časopisa Gradac – ko ima specijal o Selinu ne treba mu ova knjiga.

Eden

-Stanislav Lem-

Prodavao se za oko 550 ili 600 din. Nije to mnogo za Lema, ali... nepročitana mi stoje još dva njegova romana kupljena pre 2-3 godine, pa nema mesta žurbi...

UPOZORENJE! Snoviđenje ka neznanom Kadatu

UPOZORENJE! Ne nasedajte na ovu prevaru Čudne knjižare! Radi se o krajnje nevešto „posrbljenom“ a zapravo ukradenom hrvatskom prijevodu Lavkraftovog romana, piratski skarabudženom u ružan, jevtin, kičasto opremljen knjižuljak: školski primer prizemne strategije „izdavača“ Bobana Kneževića: „Zgrabi lovu i beži!“ Odnosno, „Šišaj ovce, baš te briga!“

U ovoj knjižici besramno je pokraden nakladnik Zagrebačka Naklada i prevoditelj Toni Golub, a naivčine koje se zalete na ovu knjigu – uprkos mom upozorenju! – moći će da „uživaju“ u ovakvim frazama:

...s onim stepeništem još uvijek nepređenim, strana 8

...toliko neverojatnim da bi se mogli shvatili, strana 22

...u zemlji snova se podrazumijeva, strana 23

... ali je karter nije htio ni taknuti, strana 28

...njegovih odanih branitelja, strana 30

... toliko neizvesne koliko su skoro neverojatne, strana 39

... sve vrijeme, strana 40

... gde su se prizmatične magahe gnijezdile, strana 41

...da je njegovo ljudsko poreklo bilo neprimjetljivo, strana 52

... u budni svijet, strana 53

...mladih zoogova iz plemenitih obitelji, strana 64

...do podneva je Karter stigao do jaspijskih *10 terasa, strana 66
* ovo bi navodno trebalo da bude fusnota sa oznakom 10 ali ni pre ni kasnije nisam naleteo ni na jednu podnožnu napomenu
itd. itd.

Pa, ko ovo voli, nek izvoli! Bacite 600 dinara, častite lopova i „obogatite“ svoju biblioteku ovom ružnom, nelektorisanom, navrat-nanos sklepanom „knjigom“.

Inače, naglašavam: MAKONDO je i dalje rešen da se ovo delo srpskoj čitalačkoj publici predstavi na dostojanstven i ozbiljan način, dakle – ono što sam najavio nedavno ostaje kao plan za iduću godinu. Svima koje zanima Lavkraftov KADAT evo i definitivne potvrde i najave.

MAKONDO će iduće godine objaviti KADAT u mom prevodu, sa nekoliko važnih dodataka:

- rečnik bića, stvorenja, zemalja, toponima i drugih pojmova koji se obrađuju u ovom delu;

- stručan pogovor;

- originalne ilustracije;

- tvrd povez;

- lepa, pristojna korica;

Znači, umesto da bacate 600 din. na ovaj Bobanov amaterski paperback trash sa nikakvim dizajnom i kič koricom, sačekajte pola godine pa čitajte ovo u pristojnom, stručnom i luksuzno opremljenom izdanju za oko 900 din.

Jer, superiorna MAKONDO + GHOUL verzija se će se DESITI.

Ako je postojao i 1% dileme oko toga, on je uklonjen onog časa kada je potvrđeno ono što se i sumnjalo – da je ovo Bobanovo zlodelo samo zbrzano otaljana navlakuša za naivčine, nestrpljive, neobaveštene i neprobirljive.

Kao što ja to uvek ponekad kažem: ko zna, znaće; ko ne zna – neznaće (i treš kupovaće)!

Zašto je Lavkraft i danas relevantan?

            Uprkos kontroverzama – poput one oko Lavkraftovog rasizma (o čemu sam pisao OVDE) – ovaj pisac ostaje bez ikakve sumnje najuticajniji i najznačajniji pisac horora 20. veka i to nikakvo kevtanje i podmetanja kojekakvih psića neće promeniti niti umanjiti. Jubilej 125 godina od njegovog rođenja obeležili smo i u Srbiji, izdanjem zbirke dosad neprevođenih priča, pod naslovom ŠAPTAČ U TAMI (imam još par primeraka, ko ih želi nabaviti od mene), a obeležili smo ih i u najboljem svetskom časopisu za horor, RUE MORGUE, za koji imam zadovoljstvo i čast da redovno pišem. Tamo sam nedavno priredio veliki temat o Lavkraftu – detaljnije o sadržaju i svemu pisao sam OVDE.

Međutim, koliko je Lavkraft inspirativan vidi se i u tome što sam, uprkos upozorenju da nećemo imati mesta za dugačke intervjue, od svojih ispitanika dobio znatno iscrpnije odgovore nego što sam tražio. A ispitanici su mi bili zaista „KO JE KO“ među današnjim piscima, izdavačima i urednicima. Zbog ograničenog prostora u magazinu, nismo mogli da upotrebimo sve što su mi oni poslali, pa sam zato uzeo i priredio izbor najboljih njihovih iskaza o Lavkraftu koji NISU ušli u magazin, i onda su te izjave premijerno prošle nedelje objavljene na sajtu Ru Morga, OVDE.

Sada ih plasiram i čitaocima ovog bloga, za zabavu i poduku. Ako je ovo dole bilo izbačeno, možete misliti tek kakve su divote bile uvrštene u veliki magazinski sedmostranični temat!

Uživajte!

Why is LOVECRAFT still relevant? 

Seven experts weigh in

(c) Dejan Ognjanović for RUE MORGUE

Our cover feature in November’s issue #161 is dedicated to 125 years of H. P. Lovecraft. The scribe from Providence got a lot of bad press this month, what with the World Fantasy Award statuette controversy – his visage (as designed by Gahan Wilson) has been removed from this prestigious award after four decades due to his privately expressed views of race. Still, regardless of those, the continuing and ever-growing influence of this author’s prose cannot be over-estimated. That is why seven important writers, scholars and editors are providing their own Rue Morgue exclusive answers to the same question: “What makes Lovecraft still relevant today and even far more popular than back in his day?”

1. Thomas Ligotti

Thomas Ligotti is probably the most faithful successor of Lovecraftian bleak philosophy, which he further developed together with a style and themes all his own. His two long out of print collections came out this fall from Penguin (Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe): see our December’s issue #162.

I think there are a number of explanations for Lovecraft’s continued relevance and popularity, and they’re all quite glaring. A good many people are enamored of Lovecraft’s imagination, particularly when it comes to the monsters he created. These entities make for entertaining comic books, video games, role-playing games, and all kinds of amusement of that sort. Then there are people who admire Lovecraft less for these qualities than for his vision of what the universe and human life are all about. Such persons are fewer and probably always will be. The reason for this can best be traced to the fact that Lovecraft’s vision is not supportive or the commonplace doctrines of human values. Even those who favor Lovecraft’s imagination, particularly as it fabricated monsters of various kinds, do not share his existential views. Another class of Lovecraft fan may be attached to the character of the man himself as a rather freakish type of being whose obsessions they find enchanting as recorded in his letters. There may, of course, be some crossover between these groups. While Lovecraft is obviously more popular and enduring than most of the other horror writers of his time, it seems unlikely that he will ever mean very much for very many people.        

He had other qualities that made him an attractive figure in a normal sense. Outside of psychopaths and some indefinite number of genuinely despicable persons, one doesn’t often confront someone who doesn’t have a measure of congenial features. Lovecraft was by no means loathsome. He was incredibly sensitive to what was loathsome about humanity and human existence, but all the best people are sensitive in exactly this way. All the same, he had to partake of a degree of insensitivity or he wouldn’t have been able to tolerate being alive. One has to be a clod to some extent, if not a psychopath or a genuinely despicable person, to maintain a sufficient degree of vitality. But seldom or never did Lovecraft wholly deviate from what made him a model horror writer who saw life in sheer awfulness and made this perception the basis of who he was.

2. S. T. Joshi

S. T. Joshi is the most eminent and devoted scholar of the weird tale in general, and of Lovecraft in particular; his contribution to understanding of this author through the dozens of books which he wrote and edited cannot be overemphasized. His I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft is an unsurpassable critical biography.

I think Lovecraft’s stories speak to us in ways that those of his contemporaries by and large do not. Although his stories are, in some particulars, clearly rooted in the culture (intellectual, social, even political and economic) of the 1920s and 1930s, they also possess a timeless quality that transcends their era. Lovecraft addresses such questions as: the role of humanity in the vast cosmos-at-large; questions of identity (what is it to be human? what is the difference—if any—between the “human” and the “monstrous”?) and alienation from oneself and one’s fellows; and the role of history and topography upon human life. There is a depth and richness to Lovecraft’s work that is lacking in that of many of his contemporaries, especially in the pulp realm.

The proliferation of “Lovecraftian” anthologies is a slightly different matter. Certainly, the fact that Lovecraft permitted others to contribute to and add to his “Cthulhu Mythos” (although, in reality, there was no way he could have prevented anyone from doing so) during his own lifetime have given others the license to do the same. But this wouldn’t have been possible if the Cthulhu Mythos didn’t allow for nearly unlimited expansion and elaboration—in ways that might have surprised Lovecraft himself.

Currently what we’re seeing is a kind of snowball effect, where one anthology seems to lead to others, and still others. There may be a danger of oversaturation, especially if the resulting work is of low quality. But in my mind the neo-Lovecraftian work of the past 30 or 40 years has been remarkably high in quality, at least when written by professionals knowledgeable in the basic thrust of Lovecraft’s work. I like to think that the advance of scholarship during that time—which clarified many myths about Lovecraft and his writing and showed that the interpretations of such of his disciples as August Derleth were highly erroneous—has had something to do with this increase in overall quality. Now that we know that Lovecraft was not writing just stories about outlandish monsters, but had a definite philosophy—the philosophy of “cosmic indifferentism”—that he sought to embody in his stories, other writers have followed suit and elaborated upon this philosophy, rather than merely writing one more story about a “god” or “forbidden book” or something of the sort. The Cthulhu Mythos was to be “background-material” for stories that meant something to the author; it could therefore allow authors to express their own worldview within the context of this invented mythology.  

Lovecraft's fiction is remarkable for being both “timeless” and deeply rooted in the time and place he lived in. The more I read his fiction—and the more I learn about his life--the more integrated his life, work, and thought seem to become. It is not merely that, as a New Englander, he wrote profoundly about the history and topography of New England. It is that his entire outlook—the “cosmic” perspective; a deep sense of the fragilty of human life; an awareness of the corrupting influence of technology and mechanisation on human affairs; a sensitivity to the psychological effects of terror--is infused in every story he wrote. Lovecraft's work is a product of the 1920s and 1930s--but it is also a gift for all humanity.

3. Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock

Jeffrey A. Weinstock is a scholar with significant contribution to Lovecraftian studies, with two essays on this author in forthcoming academic publications (Adapting Frankenstein and The Lovecraftian Poe). He is co-editor, with Carl Sederholm, of The Age of Lovecraft, a scholarly collection coming in 2016 from University of Minnesota Press and has also edited three volumes of Lovecraft's fiction for Barnes & Noble. 

Lovecraft's popularity today is what I would refer to as “overdetermined” – that is, it is the product of multiple lines of converging forces.  Foremost among these, however, is likely the concerted efforts of a group of admirers to publish and promote his works. Arkham House was founded by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei in 1939 to preserve Lovecraft's fiction.  Few other authors, however deserving, have enjoyed similar efforts to ensure the perpetuation of their legacies.

Connected to this as well was Lovecraft's monumental correspondence and his encouragement of other authors that helped to establish the “Lovecraft circle.” As Poe once quipped, “to be appreciated you must be read” and together the Lovecraft circle and Arkham House ensured that Lovecraft continued to be read.  His works found their ways into the hands of many influential contemporary makers of popular culture – among them Neil Gaiman, Guillermo del Toro, John Carpenter, and China Miéville – who have, in turn, created their own Lovecraftian works.

Lovecraft's anti-Humanist cosmicism is particularly appealing to contemporary posthumanist scholars invested in challenging models of thinking the human that have lead to environmental despoilation and system abuse of animals and other human beings.

4. Ellen Datlow

Ellen Datlow is today's most awarded editor in the field of horror, responsible, among other things, for Lovecraftian anthologies Lovecraft Unbound, Lovecraft’s Monsters and upcoming Children of Lovecraft (2016).

Lovecraft's influence on the field of horror has been enormous. During his lifetime and soon after, a whole sub-genre developed of what today we would call fan fiction. Writers among his circle of friends and acquaintances used his mythos to emulate and/or expand upon his work. Some of the resulting pieces of fiction were pastiches, some was more ambitious, more artful. In 1981 Chaosium Press released the roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu, and the original game, its playbook,  and its offshoots and anthologies are still being published.

Scholars have been dissecting his work and his personal life for decades and I think their obsessions have helped keep his work alive.

The new generation of writers “playing” in his playground are doing very different things. The best have removed many of the trappings, bringing a freshness to the core elements of Mythos fiction.

But the why of it? More difficult to analyze: Perhaps because his vision of cosmic horror and of the existence of or return of Elder Gods that control human destiny is creepy and effective and has always been so, even though his prose was often clumsy and overblown. 

5. Brian Hodge

Brian Hodge is among the most notable guests in recent Lovecraftian anthologies and some of his stories, like “The Same Deep Waters as You”, are among the best examples of HPL's concepts updated and upgraded with quality and style.

What Lovecraft is best known for, and what’s come to bear his name as an adjective, is just a subset of his total body of work. It’s important to note how much Lovecraft’s continued prominence is the result of factors that go beyond the merits of his work.

He open-sourced the mythology and happily invited other writers to come play in his yard. And it’s a big yard. That didn’t just spread his influence in his own lifetime. It lent the whole mythology an expansive, multigenerational momentum. So through that sense of play and camaraderie, creative generosity and just having fun, he unwittingly launched a project that hit a critical mass and took on a life of its own.

But there was no forgetting where it came from. None of that could’ve mattered if Lovecraft himself hadn’t delivered the goods. And he did. It wouldn’t have worked if the canvas he set up wasn’t broad enough to hold other writers’ visions. But it was. It wasn’t world-building he did. It was universe-building.

In the last few years, reams of commentary have been devoted to the obvious go-to here: Lovecraft’s psychological quirks in general and his racism in particular. I can't add to that. But the timing, that's a factor I find interesting, and less remarked upon.

For me, he was working in this ideal window of time. He was a contemporary of physicists like Einstein and Max Planck and Niels Bohr. His work often taps into that zeitgeist of the frontiers of science being radically expanded, and the nature of reality being plumbed at a much deeper level, where things get very strange. At the same time, the world was a bigger, more disconnected place. There were no interstate highways. Aviation was barely underway. Global population was less than a third of today’s. No camera phones, no satellites, no TV with a 24-hour news cycle. The more remote locales he uses feel genuinely isolated and hard to get to. They’re places where superstitions die hard. They feel capable of containing weird events without them drawing much wider attention, with plenty of time to congeal into area folklore. I love how he stirs all this together.

6. Charles Stross

Charles Stross is a British writer who took up Lovecraft's new world of Gods and Monsters and made something recogizably his own through a series of novels about “The Laundry”, a secret government agency for battling occult threats to mankind. The latest is The Annihilation Score (2015).

Lovecraft's writing career stretched over more than 30 years, and like any human being his preoccupations and outlook changed over time. When we look back at him it's with history's foreshortening telephoto lens: we see it all superimposed as if it all happened at once. What we can say for sure is: Lovecraft straddled the high gothic of the Victorian era and the uneasy birth of the modern in the early 20th century. He felt born out of his time, living in a fallen, debased age — indeed, we would today characterise him as an early victim of future shock.  

Lovecraft's relevance, for me, goes back to one particular story I wrote: “A Colder War”. The premise of ACW was that “At the Mountains of Madness” was a true and accurate historical account: what, then, would have ensued during the 1940s through to the 1980s, with the second world war and then the  cold war in full effect? Lovecraft's nightmares have to some extent faded due to over-exposure in the spotlight of public awareness: so I used them as stand-ins for nuclear weapons, in an attempt to put the fear of annihilation back into the mythos. It works, but too well — ACW is a very bleak novelette, and any attempt to write something in that mode at greater length would be too depressing.

However, I wanted to do something involving secret histories, and spies, and Lovecraftian nightmares. And I had an inkling that adding situational humour — a protagonist for one sort of story who's fallen into a very different one and keeps rubbing up against the rough edges the wrong way -- would take the edge off the darkness. Both horror and humour are flavours you can add to any other type of fictional narrative, and it turns out that they work well together: if anything, a dose of edgy humour sharpens the edge of the abyss. 

7. Gemma Files

Gemma Files is a writer whose stories are commonly among the very best in any recent Lovecraftian anthology. See RM#161 for a feature on her first novel called Experimental Film.

For me, there’s no other formative horror author—someone almost universally acknowledged as being a backbone part of the horror culture “canon”—who so typifies the main challenge of this most problematic of genres the way that H.P. Lovecraft does. And that’s because horror really revolves around the idea of “the Other,” which means it revolves inherently around the idea of “othering”...of implying, or even stating outright, that a everything/one sharing a certain combination of qualities is somehow innately negative, alien, disgusting, frightening, unnatural, horrible.

The symbological shorthand used in horror very easily slides from universality to specificity and back out again, so that what seems like a very personal fear—in Lovecraft, for example, his revulsion at the thought of eating seafood—can, if probed deeply enough, reveal facets that readers might end up sharing. So maybe you love calimari and shrimp and a well-cooked salmon steak, but you also have to agree that the ocean in general is spooky-ass place, a vast, dark unknown where nothing that can’t breathe water can survive, full of things which glow and bite and don’t have nearly enough bones for comfort, things that are cold-blooded and gelid, things that can prey on each other (and you!) in truly disgusting ways. Go deeper still (ha ha), and you end up orbiting fear of darkness, fear of limitless space, fear of death and dissolution, fear of drowning, fear of transformation... all basic human fears. Nobody’s going to argue with those.

Where Lovecraft runs into trouble, however, is when those universal human fears run up against equally universal human prejudices, our general tendency (proven by history) to apply the same standards to other human beings—to essentially move from saying “I don’t like seafood because I personally find it creepy” to “I don’t like Jewish people, or QUILTBAG people, or people of any type of colour/culture beyond my own because I find them creepy, and the reason I have that reaction is that if you peel things back far enough you’ll soon discover they’re not actually people at all, the same way the citizens of Innsmouth are actually upright fish wearing not particularly well-fitting human-masks.”

Which is disgusting, obviously, and our immediate reaction is to want to say “oh well, fuck Lovecraft, let’s just get rid of him and everything he wrote, and everything will be okay from then on.” But the lesson of Lovecraft is that no matter how extreme his prejudices are, they’re far less the exception than the rule, and that only by recognizing how innately racism, sexism, homophobia, etcetera form the constant background radiation of everybody’s lives do we have any hope of defusing that cycle. That no matter what we do or how hard we try to reject these social constructions which exclude some of us from “full humanity,” the true cosmic horror of it all is that each of us has a switch inside that’s constantly flicking back and forth, recognizing that exclusion and being exclusive in turn, setting boundaries and policing them, making our own personal standards for what qualifies as human. That if we only scratch ourselves hard enough, we will always find the instinct to say: “You’re not like me, and that makes you somehow wrong.”

This is a basic human impulse, the impulse to literally dehumanize others, and it doesn’t go away just because you cut Lovecraft out of the canon, any more than Barack Obama winning two terms somehow means racism is “over,” so shut the fuck about it. It continues whether we choose to examine it or not, a grinding, chronic universal pain that has to be defused again and again. And if we choose to make Lovecraft into nothing more than a convenient scapegoat for our collective white/cissexual/heterosexual/able-bodied guilt, we risk not realizing that he remains only the tip of that particular iceberg. We have to keep on checking ourselves in order to stay honest, and having Lovecraft around making us look bad provides a very handy reminder of that fact.

Novi intervju za Narodne novine

            U ponedeljak, 23.XI jedini pa stoga i najbolji niški dnevni list Narodne novine na svojoj jednoj-ali-vrednoj kulturnoj strani objavio je intervju sa mnom. Vodila ga je jedina osoba u tom glasilu koja pokriva kulturu, Aleksandra Gojković. Evo kako je to izgledalo.

            Ako vam je problem ćirilica, ili nešto drugo oko ove slike, evo tog istog razgovora i ovde, latinično-zeleno.

Nedavno je izašlo drugo izdanje romana “Zavodnik”. Znači li to da je uspeo pokušaj sa objavljivanjem knjige bez izdavača?

- Prvo izdanje, kao samizdat, ispunilo je svoju svrhu: zadovoljilo je moje stalne čitaoce, one koji već poznaju moj rad kroz blog i prethodne knjige. Takođe, interesovanje koje je pobudilo kod čitalaca, uključujući mnogobrojne promocije širom Srbije i regiona, privuklo je i pravog izdavača („Orfelin“ iz Novog Sada), tako da će knjiga sada najzad moći da se nađe i u knjižarama, bibliotekama itd. što kao samizdat nije mogla. Sada je profesionalno dizajnirana, dopunjena mojom novom pričom i, što mi je naročita čast, pogovorom Đorđa Kadijevića, pionira srpskog horora, čuvenog po filmu Leptirica.

Tvoj opširan temat o Lavkraftu izašao je u novembarskom broju poznatog svetskog horor magazina „Rue Morgue“, svojevremeno si pisao o njemu i za „Gradinu“. Šta je posebno inspirativno za sadašnje čitaoce kada je u pitanju taj pisac? Zašto je tebi važan?

- Lavkraft je, posle E. A. Poa, najuticajniji pisac strave svih vremena: u proj polovini 20. veka on stoji tačno na razmeđi klasičnog, gotskog, i modernog horora, zagledan i u daleku prošlost i u budućnost. Pored toga što je uveo koncept „kosmičke strave“, koja odriče čovekov antropocentrizam, poštujem njegovu ozbiljnost i predanost: za njega horor nije bio igrarija niti eskapizam već pogled na svet. Svojim autsajderskim, beskompromisnim životom on se pokazao ne samo kao značajan pisac već i kao veliki čovek. O tome svedoče i neki od najznačajnijih današnjih pisaca koje sam intervjuisao za „Rue Morgue“, ali i zbirke Nekronomikon (2009; dopunjeno 2012) i Šaptač u tami (2015) koje sam priredio.

Priredio si tri nove knjige za „Orfelin“... Čini se da interesovanje za žanrovsku književnost u Srbiji i dalje raste...

- To interesovanje je, umnogome, proizvedeno delima sumnjive književne vrednosti, ali dobro je da ga ima, jer onda će, možda, bar poneki od onih čitalaca koji se žanrom „zaraze“ Sumrakom ili Stivenom Kingom, pročitati i istinski književno vredna dela kakva nudi edicija „Poetika strave“ koju uređujem, sa pričama Aldžernona Blekvuda, M. R. Džejmsa i Lavkrafta. Za nju, dogodine, spremam i neke savremenije autore koji nisu sa bestseler lista ali jesu ozbiljna literatura, istovremeno i jezovito zabavna.

Tvoj rad o novijim srpskim horor filmovima nedavno je izašao u jednom prestižnom svetskom zborniku na engleskom jeziku. Reci nam nešto više o njemu.

- Da, moj rad “Welcome to the Reality Studio: Serbian Hand-Held Horrors“ izašao je u zborniku Digital Horror: Haunted Technologies, Network Panic and the Found Footage Phenomenon koju su priredili Lini Blejk i Havijer Aldana Rejs, predavači na Mančester Metropoliten Univerzitetu. Rad analizira filmove Život i smrt porno bande i Srpski film u kontekstu uloge video tehnologije i kvazidokumentarističkog stila u građenju njihove tematike i idejnosti, a posebno u svetlu tematike filmske (auto)viktimizacije, „balkanskog divljaka“, meta-filmskog preispitivanja nacionalnog identiteta i kinematografije. I ranije sam objavljivao u akademskim zbornicima ove vrste, npr. u knjizi Speaking of Monsters (2012) a biće toga i još...