Bizarro fiction
Bizarro fiction is a contemporary literary genre noted for its focus on "high weirdness." The term was appropriated from popular culture in 2005 by the independent publishing companies Eraserhead Press, Raw Dog Screaming Press, and Afterbirth Books in response to the rising demand for unique and outlandish fiction. In the introduction to The Bizarro Starter Kit, Bizarro is described as "literature's equivalent to the cult section at the video store" and a genre that "strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read."[1] According to Rose O'Keefe of Eraserhead Press: "Basically, if an audience enjoys a book or film primarily because of its weirdness, then it is Bizarro. Weirdness might not be the work's only appealing quality, but it is the major one."
While works of Bizarro may have literary merit, the primary focus of the genre is to entertain. In this respect, Bizarro has more in common with speculative fiction genres (such as science-fiction, fantasy, and horror) than with the postmodern literary movements (such as surrealism, absurdism, and beat), with which it is commonly associated.[citation needed]
Prominent exponents of Bizarro include Steve Aylett, D. Harlan Wilson, Carlton Mellick III, Jeremy Robert Johnson, and Chris Genoa.
Books by Bizarro authors have been awarded the World Fantasy Award[2], the Bram Stoker Award[3], the 3:AM Magazine Literary Awards [4], the Philip K. Dick Award[5], and have been made into live-action[6] as well as animation[7] movies.
Origins
Bizarro literature can trace its roots at least as far back as the foundation of Eraserhead Press in 1999, but the description of the literature as "Bizarro" is a more recent development. Previous terms used to refer to the burgeoning scene include "irreal" and "new absurdism," but neither of these was used with consensus. On 19 June 2005, Kevin Dole 2 released "What The Fuck is This All About," a sort of manifesto for the then unnamed genre.[8] While the essay does not feature the word "Bizarro," subsequent discussion about the essay led to the name as well as the inauguration of the Mondo Bizarro Forum.
With regard to the place in literary history this movement occupies, the British magazine Dazed & Confused has opined that "The bastard sons of William Burroughs and Dr. Seuss, the underground lit cult of the Bizarros are picking up where the cyberpunks left off."[9]
In his essay, "The Nab Gets Posthumously Bizarroized[10], Tom Bradley, a scholar as well as practitioner of Bizarro, traces the genre's roots back in literary history to the time of Vladimir Nabokov's "gogolization," and his cry of despair and horror at having his central nervous system colonized: "...after reading Gogol, one's eyes become gogolized. One is apt to see bits of his world in the most unexpected places."[11] Bradley claims the Bizarro movement is continuing and fulfilling that gogolization process, under the name Bizarroization: "...we have been completing the preposterous project which [Nabokov] took over from Gogol nearly a hundred years ago.."[12]
Elsewhere [13], Tom Bradley follows Bizarro's origins further back, to the letters which Ovid wrote while exiled on the Black Sea two thousand years ago.
Response to the movement
Thirdeye Magazine has this to say about the Bizarro movement:
The bizarro world is a quickly growing literary genre. It’s not that the storytelling style is new, it’s simply catching on in the mainstream. The stories are not quite horror. Nor are they fantasy. In fact, many of the tales told in this subculture are flat out absurd. That’s the whole point. They take place in worlds where anything goes and nothing is predictable. The lack of form and literary rules used in Bizarro fiction can at times be confusingly entertaining while actually managing to make sense through the tangled wording.[14]
Author and screenwriter John Skipp has written as follows about practitioners of the Bizarro genre:
They are genuine, hard-working weirdos, in service of a legit and time-honored aesthetic. They are self-made artists, not corporate shills; and they built their beautiful scene from scratch, out of love and fun and sincere art-gnosis...
I love the name Bizarro: for all the reasons mentioned above, and also because it reminds me of Frank Zappa's Bizarre/Straight label, back in the early '70's. There, Frank created a home for musical freaks like Captain Beefheart, Wild Man Fischer, The GTOs, and his own Mothers of Invention.
I think Frank would love our modern-day Bizarros very, very much...
I, for one, hope that Bizarro causes great ripples in the publishing norm-o-sphere, and rallies freaks around the world. It's a beautiful thing, and I am a fan, and will support it any way I can.[15]
Aesthetics
In his essay "The Four Rules of Bizarro," Kevin Dole 2 observed four traits common to contemporary Bizarro writings: "Provocative Offense," "Meaningful Transgression," "Experimentation," and "Brevity." The essay was met with some skepticism, the chief criticism being that as an experimental genre, Bizarro has no official "rules."[who?]
Bizarro claims it does not "defy categorization so much as deny it," but there are some distinct styles: the isms (surrealism, magic realism, irrealism, absurdism, metrosexualism) and some self-invented tags (like blender, brutality chronic, “tweaker lit”, “Walronian fiction”, the horrible)...The Bizarro writers are very much an acquired taste, and with more books expected from them, they will likely remain fringe material, something...they wouldn’t have any other way. [16]
In an interview, Tom Bradley has said:
...that is the true miracle and transformative revelation of Bizarro: its alchemical wedding of trash and serious literature, its transmutation of base pulp metal into literary gold—which I trust will be lining all our pockets someday very soon.[17]
Major authors
References
- ^ The Bizarro Starter Kit. Bizarro Books, 2006. p.5
- ^ Forrest Aguirre, for his editorial work on Leviathan 3
- ^ John Edward Lawson, for The Troublesome Amputee, and Michael A. Arnzen for Grave Markings
- ^ Tom Bradley, for Fission Among the Fanatics, Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2007
- ^ Steve Aylett, for Slaughtermatic
- ^ KID SHIRT: EGG
- ^ Project: Beebody
- ^ Bizarro Central
- ^ Dazed & Confused Magazine, London, Vol. 2, Issue 53
- ^ The Nab Gets Posthumously Bizarroized
- ^ back cover blurb, The Overcoat and The Nose by Nikolai Gogol, trans. Ronald Wilks. Penguin Books (1995)
- ^ The Nab...ibid
- ^ Review of Jordan Krall's Piecemeal June
- ^ Review of Bradley Sands's It Came From Below the Belt
- ^ Bizarro Central
- ^ 3:AM Magazine »» The Bizarro Starter Kit
- ^ Bizarro is My God-Baby