The Fisherman

Though much of The Fisherman follows the tenets of realism in its characterizations and detailed verisimilitude, other aspects embody a darker, more fantastical vision. In these sequences, which subvert the setting’s façade of normalcy, Langan draws copiously from the tropes and imagery of “cosmic horror,” a subgenre of horror fiction. In 1927, the author H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) codified this cul-de-sac of terror in his classic essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature” (edited by E.F. Bleiler, Dover Publications, 1973), drawing a stark line between genre stories that seek only to shock and truly “weird” tales that are designed to unsettle the reader’s faith in a stable, rational universe. In this discussion, Lovecraft suggests that conventional fright stories of “secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains” merely reinforce the formal sense of order, whereas the “true weird tale” conjures a “certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces.”

In addition to tracing the so-called “weird” tale’s evolution through the 19th and early 20th centuries, Lovecraft offers thumbnail sketches of pioneers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, Robert W. Chambers, and Algernon Blackwood.