New weird fiction and the oneirologic of both-and

Abstract

ABSTRACT Sigmund Freud discovered that in the unconscious a both-and dream logic prevailed. In his critique of the either-or binary oppositions of Western philosophy, Jacques Derrida appropriated this oneirologic, e.g. arguing that the incest prohibition derived from both nature and culture. In this article, I adopt a deconstructive approach to analyse this both-and oneirologic in a selection of New Weird fiction, namely The City & The City (2009) by China Miéville, the Southern Reach trilogy (2014) by Jeff VanderMeer and The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again (2020) by M. John Harrison. Not only do these New Weird fictions embrace the dream logic of both-and, they deconstruct the binary opposition proposed by Miéville between the Weird and the hauntological in that they combine the uncanny with what Miéville terms the ‘abcanny’. In other words, they are both Weird and hauntological. Furthermore, I argue that the ‘real externality’ H.P. Lovecraft associated with Weird fiction is always already inside, marked with the oneirologic trace of the unconscious.