Freudian Poe

Posted on By caracabe

Currently reading: Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe, by Emily Ogden.

What is it about Poe that draws the Freudian literary critics?

Why does anyone take seriously psychoanalysis of long-dead individuals the analyst never spoke to?

I’m enjoying this book, there’s a lot of interesting info and commentary in it, and it’s not as heavy with Freud as Daniel Hoffman’s Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe (which interprets pretty much everything Poe wrote as a desire to return to the womb), but still… Can we not?

Reading

Recently read: Invaginies by Joe Koch

Posted on By caracabe

Invaginies, Joe Koch, CLASH Books, 2024

The author’s bio says “Joe Koch (he/they) writes literary horror and surrealist trash,” and that seems accurate. (Keeping in mind that “trash” isn’t always pejorative.) The stories in Invaginies remind me sometimes of Lautréamont, sometimes of Kenneth Patchen*, sometimes of nobody else. I’ve read some of them before, in anthologies such as Antifa Splatterpunk, Your Body Is Not Your Body and The Book of Queer Saints. The first story, “Bride of the White Rat,” is relatively straightforward in its twisted way. The last, “The Wing of Circumcision Hands,” defies linear understanding. Koch uses body horror and sometimes irrational but always vivid imagery to maximum effect, and his prose is fantastic in both senses of the word. Just about every page has phrases that will drive you mad if you linger on them too long. My favorite horror read of the year so far.

* Kenneth Patchen of the novel Sleepers Awake. Patchen’s The Journal of Albion Moonlight is more well-known, but in my opinion inferior.

Reading

Podcast episode 2-5 transferred

Posted on By caracabe

Another few podcast episodes have been copied to the website, for your listening or downloading convenience. I have no plans to remove episodes from RedCircle, Bandcamp, etc., but streaming platforms come and go and sometimes change their terms of service.

The episodes now newly available directly from this website:

  • Episode 2: “Ryan” by Eve Ott
  • Episode 3: “My Dog’s Murder Weapon” by Jim Calvert
  • Episode 4: “August 2021” by Celeste Oster
  • Episode 5: “Sky Aflame – Escape” by Ida Fogle

Podcast

Recently watched: The Odyssey

Posted on By caracabe

Watched The Odyssey, and I can see why a classics scholar might not care for it: it’s not so much a cinematic interpretation of as a horror movie based on. But it is an excellent horror movie. There were several moments when, despite knowing what was going to happen, I felt genuine suspense. Some of the monsters, especially the Cyclops and Scylla, are Lovecraftian terrors. The (spoiler) slaughter of the suitors is some satisfying carnage.

I do have notes:

  • Some scenes go on too long.
  • The sound doesn’t need to be so relentlessly thundery.
  • The whole “Zeus’s Law” thing seems more plot device than an organic part of the story’s world.
  • The casting is mostly spot on, but I’m not sure Matt Damon is the best choice for this Odysseus. Damon’s deliberative acting style works wonderfully in The Talented Mr. Ripley—another trickster figure—but it feels a little off here. Too opaque, maybe, for a character we’re supposed to empathize with.

Overall, would recommend to horror fans, but don’t expect a faithful adaptation of classic literature.

(NOTE: I haven’t read Emily Wilson’s review of the movie. If I repeat or dispute any point she made, that’s coincidental.)

Watching

Recent reading: The Night Library of Sternendach, by Jessica Lévai

Posted on By caracabe

The Night Library of Sternendach: A Vampire Opera in Verse, by Jessica Lévai; Lanternfish Press, 2021.

This book announces itself as “a vampire opera in verse.” It’s not an opera (not dramatic in structure, more exposition than dialogue), but the story of a romance between a vampire nobleman and a young woman from a family of vampire hunters is operatic. Most modern novels in poetry opt for free verse, but The Night Library of Sternendach uses the onegin stanza, and mostly uses it well. There are spots where a word or phrase is obviously dictated by rhyme, but those are few and minor. More often, the verbal music enhances the story, and sometimes the rhymes remind me of Byron.

Reading

Recent reading: Issues with Authority, by Nadia Bulkin

Posted on By caracabe

Issues with Authority, Nadia Bulkin; Ghoulish Books, 2025.

Issues with Authority is a collection of three stories by Nadia Bulkin.

The first story, “Cop Car,” is a fascinating but flawed tale of sociopathy, cultism, covert ops, and a doomed attempt to build a family. One of the plot elements is “a hat on a hat” — leaving it out wouldn’t change the story much, but included, it’s an additional implausibility to swallow. The prose is beautiful and the characters wonderfully drawn.

“Your Next Best American Girl” is a scorching fantastic satire built on body horror. It reminds me of Bulgakov, whom I’ve recently read, and also of The Beauty, which I’ve been watching. Bulkin cuts deeper than the TV series, though.

This collection saves the best for last with “Red Skies in the Morning.” The premise is similar to the movie The Ring, but the approach is original, mixing family drama, serial killer thriller and police (or at least government) procedural. It’s the most moving of the three stories, and I’d love to see it adapted for television.

(I wasn’t paid for this review, and don’t get any kind of affiliate compensation.)

Reading

My horror reads in 2025

Posted on By caracabe

Out of the 68 books I read in 2025 (that I logged), 27 of them were horror-related. Going by the page counts listed on StoryGraph, that’s a total of 7,314 pages of horror, but that’s almost certainly an overestimate. 19 of them were fiction (including 4 graphic books), 5 were nonfiction, 2 were poetry, 1 was an anthology with both fiction and poetry.

The list, roughly in the order I read them:

  1. Horror: A Literary History, edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes
  2. Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry, edited by David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli
  3. Uncanny: The Origins of Fear, by Junji Ito, trans. Jocelyne Allen
  4. Supernatural Detectives 4, by Jessica Douglas Kerruish and Ella M Scrymsour
  5. The Reformatory, by Tananarive Due
  6. Familiar, by Jeremy C. Shipp
  7. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones
  8. Flowers of Mold, by Ha Seong-nan, trans. Janet Hong
  9. Monstrilio, by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
  10. The Deviant Vol. 1, by Joshua Hixson, James Tynion IV
  11. Antifa Splatterpunk, edited by Eric Raglin
  12. From the Belly, by Emmett Nahil
  13. Moonflow, by Bitter Karella
  14. Tono Monogatari, by Shigeru Mizuki, trans. Zack Davisson
  15. No Trouble at All, edited by Alexis DuBon and Eric Raglin
  16. Macbeth, by William Shakespeare and Gareth Hinds
  17. Strange Stones, by Edward Lee and Mary Sangiovanni
  18. The Salt Grows Heavy, by Cassandra Khaw
  19. Feral & Hysterical: Mother Horror’s Ultimate Reading Guide to Dark and Disturbing Fiction by Women, by Sadie Hartmann
  20. Mourning Jewelry, by Stephanie M. Wytovich
  21. It Devours!: A Welcome to Night Vale Novel, by Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink
  22. Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature, edited by Becky Siegel Spratford
  23. Seven Legendary Monsters, by Clara Elena Garcia
  24. Vivia, by Tanith Lee
  25. All Your Friends are Here, by M. Shaw
  26. Capitalism: A Horror Story, by Jon Greenaway
  27. Tomie, by Junji Ito, trans. Naomi Kokubo
Reading

Recently Read: Macbeth, graphic novel by Gareth Hinds

Posted on By caracabe

Macbeth, by Gareth Hinds and William Shakespeare. Candlewick Press, 2015.

I might start seeking out graphic novel versions of Macbeth. I’ve read a bad one. Now, with the Gareth Hinds adaptation, I’ve read a good one. This book brings Shakespeare’s play to life, and makes me feel things. I appreciate the notes at the end, where Hinds talks about his historical research and explains some of his artistic and editorial decisions. If someone were asking for a graphic novelization of Macbeth, I’d gladly point them to this. However… I feel like there must be bolder interpretations out there.

Reading