WEEK 4: New Weird | Borne Response

This week’s topic focuses on the New Weird. I chose to read Borne by Jeff VanderMeer. When it comes to dissecting the overall book and Jeff VanderMeer’s writing, the language and writing he uses is very fantastical and supernatural. It’s somewhat beautiful and horrifying all at the same time. 

This book, based in a mysterious, futuristic world, is told to us by the main character Rachel. She lives in this futuristic city that is ecologically destroyed and ravaged by human ignorance. She lives with her partner Wic next to a river that is technicolored because of the pollution. There a several creatures of fantasy throughout the book, some being the dictating woman named Magician and giant bear who can fly. Rachel climbs into the bears fur one day and discovers the main creature Borne. The book then deals with the phycoloically battle that Rachel has with this creature as she wants to nurture it, while trying not to get harmed. 

As we get more technologically inclined and our eco systems become less and less, I think this genre and topic in itself is a horror for us to imagine. The thought of everything we know vanishing and being left in a familiar yet strange planet is a frightening thought and something most of our world is in denial about. We sometimes don’t need jump scares or blood to be considered horror. Most often times our mental states in themselves can create a horror. This new trend of supernatural horror is developing rapidly and is seen and influences almost all films we watch today.

I thought this overall book definitely met the standard of weird but wasn't entirely horrific or grotesque.  


-Abigail