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possibilities within the field. To this end, one thing that has been productive about the New Weird is its salient critical function (and the attention to style and quality of writing certainly does not hurt). This is not to say, of course, that fantasy before this point had no critical function, or inspired writing, for that matter ― fantasy has always been as capable as mainstream fiction of being serious-minded, contemplative, artful, and visionary. Rather, what is useful here for fantasy as a literature is the conversation New Weird has incited about the critical role fantasy can play, if its readers and writers choose, and the genre's capacity for creative brilliance. True, the conversation about New Weird has turned some people off for various reasons; but in the meantime, for others, I think it's expanded what we as a community say fantasy can do. It's about the narrative of this genre, not the actuality of it.

That's why, in once sense, it doesn't matter if the New Weird "actually" exists ― whether it's just a rogue chill breeze raising goosebumps, or whether there really is a phantom rattling the windows and making discomfiting noises here. Because of the conversation surrounding its possible existence, the New Weird has changed the speculative fiction landscape, widened the horizons ― a lot or a little depending on where you're standing. For this reason, I expect this particular phantom will continue to haunt the literary landscape for a long time to come.

WORKS CITED

Harpham, Geoffrey Galt. On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. McHale, Brian. Constructing Postmodernism. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Whose Words You Wear

K. J. BISHOP

THERE IS no doubt some advantage to be had from labelling fiction under rubrics of genre, period, style, and all else that helps a reader find, on the shelves of a bookstore, something to their taste. But there are disadvantages, too, for both reader and writer, the chief of these being, I think, that a label invites a particular reading of the work and discourages other readings. If we are told that a book is Modernist we will most likely read it through a filter made of our knowledge of Modernism. That filter may be useful, and even quite necessary to an understanding of the writer's methods. However, we might be so satisfied with our view of how the book sits in the Modernist canon that we don't think about where else it might fit. A minute's thought about the bookshelves of literature, as opposed to those of bookshops, tells us that they are not simply linear. They are more like the London Underground or Paris Metro, only more complex by orders of magnitude, with books sitting at many-rayed junctions of theme, genre, style, intention, idea, and the taxonomic mind, however exact and exhaustive it tries to make its labels, is not looking at dinosaur bones or mineral specimens, however much it wishes it were. It is working in conditions perfused with the subjectivity that attends all understanding of all art, so it ought not to be too cocky about the labels it comes up with.

The label on the front of this volume, "New Weird," rather obviously tells readers to expect something new and weird. But since both terms are relative, readers may not find their expectations of either fulfilled.

This is a problem with all genre labels. The horror story someone read was not horrific enough, the fantasy was not fantastical enough, the science fiction romance novel was not romantic enough or not science fictional enough ― then the taxonomist steps in and tries to make things better. I admit my instinct is to see the taxonomist as a ludicrous figure. However, one hears what he has to say about the reading of the label "fantasy," to use the example of that immense genre into which much of the so-called New Weird fits. "Fantasy" has become associated in many people's minds with stories and themes that are very familiar ― the bil-dungsroman, the war story, the quest ordained to succeed, all decorated with trappings