The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [172]
Finnish fiction in general tends to have a very strong flavour of its own, with deep-rooted distrust for things fantastical, unless they derive from the local mythology and folklore. Johanna Sinisalo's Finlandia Award-winning novel Troll: A Love Story dabbles there, New Weirdishly, between various genres and styles, but staying still very much Finnish.
New Weird as I see it out there is similar but different from our domestic form. Our New Weird is possibly a bit more toned down, more rooted into our Finnishness.
Konrad Walewski, acquiring editor, translator, scholar, and anthologist
POLAND
Konrad Walewski is a Polish scholar, specializing in Anglophone imaginative literature, literary critic, translator, anthologist, and, most recently, the editor-in-chief of the Polish edition of THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION. He received an M.A. in English Studies from Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland. For the last five years he taught various courses on American literature at the American Studies Center, Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland. He has translated into Polish, novels and short stories by such authors as Pat Cadigan, John Crowley, Kelly Link, and many others. Since 2005 he has been editing annually the anthology of foreign imaginative fiction entitled KROKI w NIEZNANE (STEPS INTO THE UNKNOWN). It is the continuation of the cult anthology series under this name edited by the Polish translator and editor Lech Jqczmyk and published back in the 1970s, which at that time was perhaps the only book-form presentation of Western science fiction in communist Poland.
"THE UNCLEANED KETTLE"
It seems that, contrary to prevalent beliefs and fervent declarations, both critics and readers are fond of literary labels as a specific kind of currency; among its numerous functions a label allows us to perceive certain processes occurring within literature as a comfortable series of books to be read. I think that, paradoxically, it is more natural to label those artistic phenomena that achieve a substantial intensity, integrity and scale than to pretend that they are merely a whim or hoax aimed at guaranteeing recognition and sales of a handful of novels by a group of authors.
This said, I identify New Weird as a literary strategy, a way of thinking about writing and understanding imaginative fiction, and, above all, a way of practicing it, which has turned out to be innovative not at the level of narrative technique ― there is not so much textual experimentation in it ― but rather at the level of setting and characters. Constructing baroquely lush cityscapes and eclectic, astounding locations, filling them up with multicultural and multiethnic societies of humans, monsters, and all kinds of their hybrid forms, creating complex characters and subjecting them to the dilemmas of the world they live in ― these are all characteristics of the New Weird practice. Not only did New Weird books transgress the generic limitations of science fiction, fantasy and horror, but, more significantly, emphasized the ongoing departure from the abused and exhausted Tolkienian heroic fantasy mode. What is more, its unprecedentedly dynamic and alchemically brave genre amalgamation resulted in literary synergies of high originality and attractiveness such as those in the books by China Miéville, Steph Swainston, Jeff VanderMeer, or Jeffrey Ford. The need to come up with vibrant, memorable venues as well as original characters and creatures became New Weird's most noticeable attribute.
At the level of subject-matter it rejected many jaded fantasy tropes, including the clash of good and evil, and chose the exploration of such problems as otherness, alienation, and even from both in its physiological and existential dimension. I would like to quote at this point a short passage from William Gibson's Idoru:
Lo told me a story once, about a job he'd had. He worked for a soup vendor in Hong Kong, a wagon