The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [173]
Even though Gibson's kettle can be perceived as a witty metaphor of literature in general, I believe that it is particularly relevant to New Weird, which was, or perhaps so still is, this "uncleaned kettle" of imaginative fiction; the writing whose freshness was to a large extent the result of unrestrained stirring in the kettle as well as joyous and vigorous putting into it any ingredients that were at hand. I am convinced therefore that it is this particular artistic strategy that is fundamental to New Weird.
However, I don't think that it still exists as a coherent literary movement aimed at provoking readers or attacking stale traditions, although I am convinced that some specific traits of New Weird will reverberate in works of both new and established writers. I actually count on New Weird as a source of inspiration and a strong influence for those who take up writing imaginative fiction. I also believe that the genre-mixing strategy ― the methodical stirring in the uncleaned kettle of fantastic fiction, putting more and more fresh ingredients and spices into the brew ― exemplified by the New Weird will become a significant approach for future writers. Moreover, the necessity for writers to constantly widen their scope, employ vivid imagery, architectural lavishness, and physiological weirdness are as vital in creating imaginative fiction as narrative skills. Historically speaking, the New Wave revolution opened science fiction to mainstream writing with its variety of narrative techniques and literary traditions, the cyberpunk movement explored all kinds of technological concerns within neon-lit, infinite cityscapes, whereas, in my view, New Weird rediscovered fantastic fiction as an alchemical playground as well as re-established the necessity for a writer to concoct new, surprising formulae of imagined cities or empires and their inhabitants.
When viewed from the perspective of the category's distinctive features, I believe that at least two novels in Polish can be referred to and analyzed as New Weird since they have many similarities to the works of China Miéville, Jeff VanderMeer or Jeffrey Ford. These are Inne piesni (Other Songs, 2003) by Jacek Dukaj and Miasta pod Skalq (Cities Under the Rock, 2005) by Marek S. Huberath. Both of them are highly impressive achievements of Polish fantastic fiction, brilliantly conceived and masterly executed, both are set in artistically vivid, highly original, and absorbingly unique worlds of their own.
However, one has to remember that what happened as a major literary movement in Britain and in the United States was merely a marginal phenomenon in Poland, or perhaps even something that merely coincided with what was happening in the West. I do not suppose that either Dukaj or Huberath attempted to follow anyone's footsteps, even though their novels operate within the same aesthetics and employ very similar artistic strategies to those of acclaimed New Weird authors.
I wish we were able to develop stronger and faster reactions to new literary trends as well as particular works of fiction, but, unfortunately, Poland, at many levels, is a slow-changing country, whose literary market is really peculiar and, to a large extent, conservative, and where readership is alarmingly slight compared, for instance, to that of our neighbor, the Czech Republic ― a country with the population nearly four times smaller than Poland's. By many it is still viewed as an inexplicable phenomenon that throughout the 1990s the bestsell-ing authors in Poland were William Wharton (the author of Birdy, who at a certain point began to write exclusively for the Polish market) and Jonathan Carroll, while a huge number of both contemporary classics