Re: virus: Re: gothic

Alex Williams (thantos@decatl.alf.dec.com)
Fri, 3 Jan 1997 10:11:28 -0500 (EST)


> It would be a mistake to think that this turn of the century is
> fundamentally different-- it's really century fever ten times hotter.

Can't argue that, simple observation'll turn that up.

> S'funny-- three years ago when I was initiating my studies into the
> gothic I mentioned the turn of the millennium axiety to my committee and
> they said-- No, No it's just some revival of the victorian gothic.

Strange. I suppose, from a business sense, it was in their best
interest to say its a real and valid change in the cultural content of
the population, not oh, just something that happens every hundred
years or so.

> BTW-- Lovecraft is a wonderful modern novelist. I havea link to a good
> Lovecraft site on my homepage.

Between Lovecraft, Moorcock's Elric, Donaldson's Thomas Covenant and
Hickman's Raistlin was my young psyche forged. No /wonder/ I'm so
screwed up. :)

> But the aspect of the gothic thatmost interested me is that it is an
> *inherently* subversive text. It sets itself up to disregard any
> delineation between good and evil, moral and amoral-- and in the finest
> works-- unseats our faith in reason. It is the one literary form that
> provides *no* position on anything.

I'm not sure it presents no position on anything; it must actively or
passively assault the belief in good, evil, morality, amorality and
reason, and as such take a position that Nullity is Preferable. It
may not be a /deep/ position, but it is a position ...