Remina

Junji Ito, Remina (Shogakukan and VIZ Media: 2005, 2020).

Ito’s work surgically draws a sharp contrast between human-caused horror and cosmic horror. The cosmic horror of this story hits on a grand scale, highlighting our insignificance in terms of time, speed, size, and causal impact. As Remina nears Earth, it remains totally indifferent, utterly destructive, but morally neutral and uncriticizable. But, despite our insignificance, humans cause an immense amount of suffering. Even our loving connections turn poisonous and lead to disaster. This book is horror through and through. It manages to show how vulnerable and insignificant we are and, at the same time, how much terror and pain we have the power to cause. We are immensely horrible, pathetic and feeble. 

Comments

Post a Comment

What did you think about this story?

Popular posts from this blog

The Death of Odjigh

Image
  Nebachadnezzar, William Blake (1795) Marcel Schwob, "The Death of Odjigh" in The King in the Golden Mask  translated by Kit Schluter   (Wakefield Press, 2017). Schwob's story can be read through the lens of Thomas Ligotti or Peter Wessel Zapffe, that is, as a work of philosophical pessimism. As the dying world comes to its end, the wolf slayer Odjigh faces his own personal crises of an emerging conscience. Odjigh, by gaining a kind of self-awareness, regrets his role as a hunter and positions himself as an observer and critic standing outside of nature. As he sees the violence around him and pities the suffering of living creatures, he laments existence itself: "Odjigh, deep in his heart, regretted the jigging of the nacreous fish in the meshing of the nets, the serpentine swimming of the conger eels, the heavy gait of the tortoises, the sidelong trot of the gigantic wall-eyed crabs, and the lively yawns of the earthly beasts, hairy beasts decked in scales, beasts...
Read more

"Going, Going" and "Resistant to Change"

Image
Meghan Arcuri, "Going, Going" and Adrian Ludens, "Resistant to Change" in  Where the Silent Ones Watch , ed. James Chambers (Hippocampus Press: 2024). In William Hope Hodgson’s novel  The House on the Borderlands , little is said of the Recluse’s sister, Mary, and, in part, it is this absence of information that makes her a fascinating character. The reader can’t help but wonder about the old man’s sister. Two short stories from the James Chambers edited anthology  Where the Silent Ones Watch  pick up on themes of Mary’s story, albeit in two different ways. In her short story “Going, Going,” Meghan Arcuri takes the strange and awkward background role that Mary plays in Hodgson’s work as an opportunity to explore the psychological horror of not being seen. The protagonist of Arcuri's story gives a little away and those around her, particularly her partner, take much, much more. She slowly loses herself and disappears from the view of those around her. It is a cre...
Read more

Night Hearing

Image
Michael Cisco, "Night Hearing" in  Where the Silent Ones Watch , ed. James Chambers (Hippocampus Press: 2024).  This is the short story that got me to finally tackle William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land , which I read for the first time last month. If you haven't read The Night Land , Cisco's "Night Hearing" will excite your imagination and likely set you craving for more一it certainly did that for me. Or, if you've already made the journey in search of Naani/Mirdath and are looking for something that shows tremendous respect to the Hodgson while adding more to sink your teeth into, "Night Hearing" isn't to be missed. Cisco imagines the Night Land before the sun has completely died. The monsters are on their ascendancy, and people await the call to the Redoubt. It is wonderful to discover (or re-discover more about) the Monstruwacan, The Master Word, The House of Silence, The Towers, the ab-humans, and the Young Watchers. If you need an...
Read more