/lit/ - Literature

>>11113427
back in the day, the gothic was originally - he says, more or less arbitrarily - a sign of the Deep and Skooky romantic intelligence variously trying to break through the cracks of a more rationalistic, morally upright sensibilities. the vampire, for instance, was a kind of original pervert like this - the one being in england who actually wanted to have sex with somebody else, and enjoy it. the vampire was one of the earliest beings who, like heidegger, we can say had a being whose being was an issue. the libido is primary mimesis: your enjoyment is predicated on the being of another person. the undead life-drive, the thirst for blood, but also importantly: the *contagiousness* of pleasure. get bitten by a vampire and, good god, you might begin to enjoy undead life as well. vampires are wonderful literary tropes like this. as are the zombies of a consumer society, a century or so later.

today we have a lot of horror about the concept of fascism: i think it evokes many of the same fears. but we also have post/transhuman superheroes in tight pants Defending Humanity From Evil. it's not like there's nothing going on at all in that correspondence. or the well-memed joke that Black Panther was also an uproariously well-received argument for a conservative, monarchical ethnostate. the cinema doesn't just tell us what we desire, it tells us that in fact we often desire a whole lot more than we actually think we understand.

and that is a *good* thing. literature isn't supposed to be preachy or polished to an ideological sheen so bright that there is nothing left for us to do but chew popcorn. human beings are an *incredibly complicated and fucked up species of chimpanzee.* we do not know what we want or want we want. and we have art for this.

pic rel because tristram was just such a dope setting. a nice, quiet little town, and with that mysterious red glow coming out from the little chapel that goes directly to hell. a wonderful setting and perhaps a microcosm of the jungian unconscious. or the victorian sensibility. if we didn't like the monsters, why would we set up shop right near them? why wouldn't we just move away?

because we are *curious* about What Lies Beneath, that's why. and that's a healthy instinct that makes for good literature.