The Modern Weird Tale: A Critique of Horror Fiction

by S.T. Joshi

This is a critical study of many of the leading writers of horror and supernatural fiction since World War II. The primary purpose is to establish a canon of weird literature, and to distinguish the genuinely meritorious writers of the past fifty years from those who have obtained merely transient popular renown. Accordingly, the author regards the complex, subtle work of Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Robert Aickman, T.E.D. Klein, and Thomas Ligotti as considerably superior to the best-sellers of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, and Anne Rice. Other writers such as William Peter Blatty, Thomas Tryon, Robert Bloch, and Thomas Harris are also discussed. Taken as a whole, the volume represents a pioneering attempt to chart the development of weird fiction over the past half-century.

Genres: Horror, Nonfiction, Weird Fiction, Lovecraftian, Literary Criticism, Books About Books

278 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2001

About the author

Sunand Tryambak Joshi is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.

His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.

Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.

In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.

Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.

In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.

Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joshi treats the weird tale--as all critics should treat it--as a distinct and worthwhile genre, and consequently seeks to establish a canon of works by using the criteria of 1) literary merit, 2) the presence of the weird and uncanny (as opposed to mere horror or suspense) and 3) the consistent logic of the author's world. Using these criteria, he judges Shirley Jackson, Robert Aickman, Ramsey Campbell, T.E.D. Klein and Thomas Ligotti as masters of the form, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Peter Straub and Anne Rice as flawed, inconsistent secondary figures, and Dean Koontz as unworthy of mention. Although I find some of his in-depth analysis of the individual works repetitive and superfluous, I agree completely with his evaluation of the authors. Those who enjoy good literature, and think they might perhaps enjoy scary stories if such works weren't so poor in style and extravagant in conception, should heed Joshi's well-considered recommendations.

Joshi's criticism is somewhat marred by his antipathy to theism. I'm not a fan of William Peter Blatty myself, but Joshi spends too much time and energy ripping into him merely because he holds traditional Catholic views. Although I can see how one could make the case that any rigid form of belief in an all-powerful, all-good God precludes the profound metaphysical disorientation which is a precondition for supernatural terror, this is not the argument which Joshi makes here. Instead, he merely attacks Blatty with obvious hostility, and by so doing puts the objectivity of his criticism in question.

[Neale · Rating 3 out of 5]

S. T. Joshi, the eminent Lovecraft scholar, is not so much a literary critic as a bibliographer with opinions. Strong ones. But his opinions are invariably worth reading, even – perhaps particularly – at their most truculent and (occasionally) pedantic.

He is unashamedly elitist, while at the same time aware that the literature that he loves most is considered, by other shameless elitists, as rubbish. This makes him simultaneously critical and defensive, which may be why he often seems in a bad mood. He is also in the ambivalent position of being a card-carrying sceptic and liberal in a field that is dominated by the illiberal and the obscurantist.

‘The Modern Weird Tale’ will probably be most controversial for Joshi’s unrelenting critique of Stephen King. Personally, I am happy to see the King bubble pricked: King is not a bad writer, and in some ways he is an admirable one, but he is certainly overrated, and most of Joshi’s critical barbs strike home, even if his overall attack seems a little unfair.

The most rewarding chapters, though, are those dealing with the authors that Joshi admires: Jackson, Aickman, Tryon, Campbell, Klein, Ligotti. In these his style is generous, warm and clear-headed – although his section on Robert Aickman he is curiously led astray by a philosophical red-herring. In a way, it is the Aickman section that shows Joshi at his most interesting, and conflicted: an intelligent, rational man trying to come to terms with his engagement in a field that goes against so many of his dearly held principles...

[Nicole Cushing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of literary criticism focusing on several late-20th century authors of what is often called "horror fiction" and sometimes called "the weird tale". Joshi focuses on the following authors: Shirley Jackson, William Peter Blatty, Stephen King, T.E.D. Klein, Clive Barker, Robert Bloch, Thomas Harris, Bret Easton Ellis, Thomas Tyron, Peter Straub, Robert Aickman, Anne Rice, and Thomas Ligotti.

I greatly enjoyed the Shirley Jackson essay. I've not read a huge amount of Jackson's work (just a handful of her short stories), but Joshi's essay certainly whetted my appetite to read more of her. The essay on Thomas Ligotti's work (which I have read a lot of) was also impressive.

I felt Joshi went on a little too long about Ramsey Campbell (and I say this as someone who is gaining an ever-increasing appreciation for Campbell's work). Joshi devotes forty-two of this volume's 278 pages to analyzing Campbell, often delving into a level of detail that seems unwieldy in a volume that's intended as a survey of the field. I felt that Joshi's discussion of Campbell was so detailed that it probably could have been expanded to become a monograph in and of itself (and if anyone is up to the task of writing that monograph, it'd be Mr. Joshi).

Most of the essays in this book assume a scholarly tone, and the volume benefits from this approach. The major exception to this, it seems to me, is Joshi's piece on Stephen King. I'm willing to grant Joshi that the vast majority of his insights into the problems with King's work are spot-on. However, Joshi's tone in this essay (sarcastic, bordering on seething) is quite jarring (at least, to this mild-mannered Midwesterner). For me, everything Joshi had to say about King ended up overshadowed by how he said it.

In spite of this, I highly recommend the book. Joshi approaches modern horror fiction criticism with a high degree of earnestness and vigor. One gets the sense that Joshi is only so venomous about the authors he dislikes because the horror field is so important to him.

[Benjamin Uminsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I can't say I entirely agree with Joshi's views on everything in this book, but by and large, his evaluation of the modern weird tale is well researched and reflective of a quality review and assessment. Much of this book is one chapter after another deconstructing an author who he sees making very little literary contribution through their work, juxtaposed with another chapter evaluating an author whose work has literary merit. Joshi is of course very high on the less commercialized but critically aclaimed authors such as Klein, Ligotti, Campbell, etc, and pretty down on those authors whose work has been commercially successful but very suspect in its literary contribution to the weird tale field.

I think Joshi asks some very critical but fair questions. Ultimately, I can see how such an approach can make a "fan" very uncomfortable. Nobody wants to feel that by enjoying "hack" work that their tastes are poor or lacking in sophistication. However, I think it is worthwhile to draw some of these kinds of lines in the sand. I am positive that I have read and enjoyed plenty of stories that have very little artistic merit, but I think as readers it is worth moving beyond the bounds of our comfortable tastes in books and trying to challenge ourselves with works that have more substance but may be more difficult to consume. I think Joshi is trying to get at this point, but in a highly polemical style that may turn off a lot of fans of mainstream horror (such as King, Barker, etc.)

This is a very worthwhile books to read, but be aware that you may not like everything you read in this book, at least you will be challenged to evaluate your own reading interests in the horror genre.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I disagree with Joshi on many, if not most of his points.

There are plenty of reasons to criticize Stephen King, but "he doesn't give reasons for the weird stuff" seems a poor one, especially since plenty of the authors that he praises don't give any justification (scientific or otherwise) for the weird phenomena in their stories.

The larger problem is that too much of this book is a summary of plots, which gets tedious quickly. I would rather Joshi spent more time analyzing fewer works.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Out of the cannon of horror writers since the pulp era (particularly the 50's onward) who can be considered truly "weird"? This is the underlying topic of The Modern Weird Tale by S.T. Joshi, preeminent Lovecraft scholar.

What I learned from Joshi regarding the "weird" authors of the post-Lovecraft/Machen/Blackwood era:
Shirley Jackson,T.E.D. Klein, Ramsey Campbell, Robert Aickman and Thomas Ligotti are class A writers.

Peter Straub, Anne Rice, Clive Barker and Stephen King are shite.

It is clear there is an obvious bias against the best sellers. From the outset, he appears to demarcate those who are the true authors of the weird and who are not. He spends time setting up why certain authors are not considered "weird" and although it was entertaining to hear his opinions, I wasn't sure why some were even regarded. It would not occur to me to included Bret Easton Ellis, Thomas Harris and William Peter Blatty in this discussion, more or less the other noted best sellers, but he makes a case for horror to be a subgenre of the weird. I have never known Rice, Straub or even King to claim being weird. Although Barker has been in several weird fiction anthologies, despite a heavy tendency toward his brand of physical/violent horror, his work appears to still reflect that "cosmic-terror" that is clearly Lovecraft-influenced.

Some lines of discussion:
Supernatural vs non supernatural horror. Issues of psychological horror (Bloch vs Campbell). Short story vs novel form. Religious didaticism as a source for themes (Blatty)

Some areas of criticism:
Overused tropes. Derived plots. Depth of characters. Unnecessary sentimentality. Long winded tomes (Hello King!) Motivations and explanations for the appearances/purposes/uses of horror devices in a piece of writing.

I was generally entertained by Joshi's clearly elitist views of Weird writers of the modern age. The inclusion of a bibliography designated with "Primary" vs. "Secondary" works is very beneficial overall. This was for me clearly an introduction to authors I was familiar with and haven't read and an initiation to others. I am excited to seek out works by Klein and Campbell, who despite their sales and low reputation, are lauded by critics as unsung masters of horror. I am most excited to pursue Ligotti's short fiction. Making a judgment only by way of the brief excerpts that were included, I feel I connected with his writing above the rest.

[Jim Phillips · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subtitle here is more correct that you might think. Joshi has very little complementary to say about any of the modern authors he covers. There are a few exceptions (T. E. D. Klien and Ramsey Campbell to name two) but otherwise is very aggressive about his dislike of most modern authors in the genre. An Joshi's strong (very strong) dislike of anything religious comes pounding through. Many of his entires (most notably Blatty, for whom Joshi is especially vituperative) come off as little more than poorly constructed arguments in favor of his own atheism.

If you have any interest in weird literature, then you're no doubt already familiar with the few authors Joshi has anything good to say about. If you do not have any interest, then ... well ... you don't. In either case, there's very little to like here and a great deal to dislike.

[John Haugland · Rating 5 out of 5]

S.T. Joshi is an invaluable resource for scholars and artists of weird fiction alike. There is a gargantuan amount of weird fiction which already exists, and the rate of its production is only accelerating, and the same is true for the secondary literature in the field, which is not limited to literary criticism and philosophy, but almost every field in the humanities. The scholar and artist of weird fiction is confronted with a complex navigation problem in merely finding material of interest to them, which only worsens when trying to find material of high quality, because enough experience of low quality material will influence what these readers take to be of interest. It is also true that certain trends in academic writing and theory can be more or less useful for the purpose of navigating the field in this way. Joshi, following Harold Bloom's example regarding Western literature more generally, seeks to solve this navigation problem by establishing a canon of weird literature rooted in literary quality. In this way he has written here a useful book. In this way (and this may seem like an absurdity, given its impressive scope) he has also written a myopic one.

The book simply does not have the space to discuss these stories and figures in much theoretical depth. It is concerned more with identifying whether an author's work fits into the category of the "weird," and then whether their work is of quality. This certainly INVOLVES a satisfactory treatment of the authors and their works - the book abounds with quotes and exegeses of post-World War II weird fictionists and commentators, including some of their most obscure work, and the insights he provides are useful on that basis. But one is merely tantalized by Joshi's intimations of his philosophy of life and literature, namely the broader theoretical concerns which seem to "rear their head" whenever an author trips one of his wires. These are, among others, an opposition to postmodern literary theory, the tensions in his thought regarding radical feminism and misandry (his work involves a radical rejection of misogyny and cisheteronormativity, but he seems to hate social movements), his affection for misanthropy, and some aristocratic sympathies only bolstered by the disdain he has for the products of bestsellerdom. One is seemingly intended, as I must admit I did, to take his statements at face value while merely extrapolating the underlying justification. It is true that these stray comments indicate, by and large, rather commonplace views in these circles, however contrarian they are more broadly, and so as it is they almost serve to replicate the sinister intimations of weird fiction itself - there is clearly some kind of bigger game at work, but he just keeps going on about classifications and the texture of prose.

It is worth restating that the book is useful. Indeed, it is not only excellent for precisely my purposes (I will be purchasing the whole of his oeuvre), but it is also a refreshingly unapologetic work aimed at cultivating new critics in the field.

I'm sure I'm going to feel like a fucking idiot when I read his other stuff and see that he's elaborated his whole system of thought elsewhere and that this is more of a specialist work which somehow gained more popularity than more theoretical works of his.

[Maurice Savard · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a very irritating book. Mr. Joshi expresses a strong dislike for such horror (he prefers the term weird) novelists as Stephen King, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, and Anne Rice. As far as I can make out, their sins are primarily (1). Being Popular, and (2). Being Insufficiently Literary. He recommends instead a group of writers I have never heard of, with the exception of the great Shirley Jackson. I looked for their bo0ks at our local library, and the only one I found was Jackson's Haunting of Hill House. I'm not sure why I picked this up, since my tolerance for "literary criticism" and "literary fiction"is very low. I think the fact that the subject was horror fiction caused me to let my guard down. This book was a real disappointment. I think I'll let Stephen King have the last word.

"I don’t understand this at all. I don’t understand any of this. Why does a story have to be socio-anything? Politics...culture...history... aren’t those natural ingredients in any story, if it’s told well? I mean...I mean...can’t you guys just let a story be a story?"

[Joshua Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little unprofessional in tone at times, full of unsupported blanket statements as well as carefully considered judgements. Covers topics few people should care about (who thinks Thomas Harris is a weird writer?) and skirts others of more importance to his arguments (what exactly makes Peter Straub's The Throat any better than the similarly wordy Mystery and Koko?). Interesting for its candor at times, though one wishes he would pursue some of these subjects with a little more exactitude.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful

[Nick Urciuoli · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Modern Weird Tale is an insightful and refreshingly unpretentious bit of literary criticism. However, I could have done without Joshi's compulsion to doggedly promote his atheistic worldview, especially given that many of his jabs at religion were not very persuasive. Take his dismissal of William Peter Blatty's belief that the presence of tangible evil proves the existence of good, or even of God. Blatty's position - as presented by Joshi - is of course too strong: evil can only serve as circumstantial evidence (rather than direct evidence) of objective goodness. But Joshi's position is even more overdrawn than is Blatty's. In calling Blatty's point a "false corollary," Joshi does not, as he thinks, dismantle the argument. From a logical standpoint, just because a given variable (like the presence of transcendent evil) is not a sufficient condition for a given conclusion (like the reality of forces of good) it does not follow that that variable cannot support that conclusion - it just means that the variable alone does not absolutely prove the posited conclusion is accurate. Unfortunately, strident atheists often make these types of logical missteps, as they regularly attempt to use (but in actuality frequently misuse) concepts imported from the legal world (e.g., the burden of proof) to "win their case." Given this sloppy logic, it was difficult to stomach Joshi's numerous attacks on theism, but the book's other content more than made up for this shortcoming.

[Nathan Sturm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This borderline-polemic survey of weird/horror fiction post-Lovecraft is entertaining as well as informative. Joshi's attacks on poorly-thought-out religious messages and on several of the dull conventions of popular writing approach laugh-out-loud territory, even if I don't fully agree with him on everything (as I feel that some of Stephen King's and Clive Barker's early short stories are actually quite good). However, even when critical of an author overall, he usually has nice things to say about at least one or two of their better works (such as King's The Running Man and Anne Rice's original Interview). Also encouraging is his promotion of excellent but less-well-known authors such as Ramsey Campbell and Thomas Ligotti. The only major faults with the book are the somewhat arbitrary selection of authors (Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson are omitted for some reason; perhaps because the former is more associated with science fiction and the latter more associated with TV and film work), the occasionally heavy-handed opinionation (fun though it may be), and, though it's hardly Joshi's fault, the fact that the book only covers stuff written up to about 1994.
Recommended for serious fans of this genre, though die-hard fans of King, Barker, Rice, Peter Straub, and The Exorcist may want to approach with caution.

[Jon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to rate this higher. After reading the first half though I was tempted to put it down and rate it even lower than I did after I finished it.[return][return]The problem is that the chapter on King and Barker are just too long. I tend to like everything that S. T. Joshi recommends, so I'm going to hunt down the authors I hadn't heard of. I'd rather he had focused more on those folks than lambasting other authors. Indeed, the inclusion of so much harsh material on Blatty seems odd, as it seems few folks I know would even be aware of Blatty's existence. [return][return]The latter part of the book feels more polished and less repetitive than than first, but a bit rushed. [return][return]I'd like to see S.T. Joshi write another similar book, but tighten up his definition of weird or just give more examples. I believe weird is very tricky, but I'm not sure it's subject. [return][return]The one criticism of his that he often levelled that I personally don't care much is about a sense of cause and affect. (I want to avoid saying realism) but essentially that there's a structure. However, I'm not convinced that this should be part of a a weird tale. (The concept is more difficult than I really have time to expand on.)

[Jail Flanagain · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like horror fiction or "weird" fiction as Joshi calls it, but I was hoping for a way more intellectual examination than what we get here. What you basically get is a laundry list of poorly written summaries of various horror writer's work. Joshi constantly ruins the endings and over and over again will write things like, " doubtlessly, this sounds silly when it is poorly summarized, but it's chilling when actually read." As if the problem is that all summaries of books are poorly written when in reality the problem is that the summaries in this case are poorly written and he overly summarizes the books in question.
The chapter on Aickman is particularly dissapointing given the lack of essays about Aickman's work. He summarizes many of Aickman's stories in the same clumsy way but also misses the point of most of them and dismisses several as "meaningless" when in fact if he had given them a more careful reading he could have easily figured out the meaning. Overall this book seems like a rushed job.

[Hesper · Rating 4 out of 5]

From an index card that fell to the floor when I dropped the book: S. T. Joshi, you are piquant. Let's go have mule kicks and shoot the bull.

I don't remember writing that, but I do remember actually laughing out loud a few times when reading this, and how often does that happen with literary criticism. There were also several oh-no-he-didn't moments (in the delightfully and deservedly scathing Stephen King chapter), much vigorous nodding (Shirley Jackson, William Peter Blatty), and a few exaggerated eye rolls (Ligotti, I think).

Translated, that means this is an enjoyable, snappy read. He does have a tendency to belabor trivialities, such as the necessity for all events to have an explanation, but that's a relatively minor, and debatable, snag. Overall, Joshi's criticisms are insightful, fair and informed by a genuine love of the weird tale.

[John Hughes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joshi's previous 'The Weird Tale' is an absolute cornerstone of Weird literary criticism. This later, lesser work is more problematic. It suffers in two major ways: the lack of firm editorial guidance, which may have pared away much of the casual, idiosyncratic put-downs and other personal foibles from the actual insights (of which, to be fair, there are many); and the fact that though published in 2001, there is little examination of any work after 1990. Given that it largely deals with current writers in mid-career flight, this is a major disappointment.

I am using the work as a guide in my reading (or re-reading) of many current weird writers including Campbell, Klein, and Ligotti. In this, Joshi always offers illumination and erudition. It is far from a definitive work however.

[Jack Wolfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the young person of discerning literary taste who wants to get into "weird" fiction, S.T. Joshi is a godsend. What he have here is a practically heroic undertaking: an effort to evaluate horror and science fiction stories purely on their aesthetic merits; i.e., not on their nerdy or sociological aspects. The man is incredibly well-read and a pretty damn aesthetic writer himself, so I trust him when he says, for example, that Shirley Jackson and Ramsey Campbell have captured the "weird" far more successfully than Stephen King and Peter Straub. I know now who I want to read next-- Aickmann, Ligotti, T.E.D. Klein, more Campbell-- as well who I never need to read ever! How handy is that?!?

[cristian m · Rating 4 out of 5]

- a level-headed overview of weird horror writers of the second half of the 20th century
- comprehensive, even providing summaries of most stories and novels
- the author's attitude is quite disparaging and arrogant at times (you either like it or hate it tbh)