LIQUIDATED BODIES, DISASSEMBLED SUBJECTS

In the volume of sublime Attila Veres’s short stories Éjféli iskolák (Midnight Schools)

Abstract

The subgenres of weird and new weird are represented in relatively few works in contemporary Hungarian literature, but the two volumes by Attila Veres published so far are a worthy representative of the subgenre. This study examines Veres’ second volume – the volume of short stories entitled Éjféli iskolák (Midnight Schools) – primarily from the perspective of the sublime. According to the interpretation of Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, the sublime is accompanied by shivering, and often even dread. The cause of horror can be the encounter with eradication, the liquidation of body and language, the disintegration of the subject. The themes of Veres’s short stories are a good example of the intertwining of these problems – another concept that can be linked to both the subgenre and the sublime – with cosmic dread.