Il-Parabboli tal-Imġienen
by Keith Borg
Maltese oral and folkloric tradition has its own share of horrors: the magical beasts and casual violence of the folktales in Magri's collection; stories of hauntings, ghosts and revenants; the fixation with death and cronaca nera of 19th century pamphlets documenting crimes and executions... Yet, Malta’s Romantic authors seemed less interested in the horrific and supernatural themes which inspired Gothic fiction both in England and on the Continent. In this arid context for lovers of the Gothic, Anton Grasso emerges as the key exponent of the horror genre in Malta. Writing prolifically in the 70s and 80s, against the backdrop of a literary environment with no real “horror” or “Gothic” tradition, and at a time in which other authors were breaking away from the mould of the realist and/or historical fiction of their predecessors, Grasso experimented with horror as a way of exploring themes dear to his contemporaries (such as alienation of the individual, the collapse of established morality, the claustrophobia of the traditional village communities and persecution of the “outsider”). His works cross the gamut of the genre, from folk to body horror, supernatural and occult stories to slasher fiction, realism to the grotesque and, sometimes, the grotesquely farcical.
Though Grasso remains the Maltese benchmark for horror (earning him an inclusion in Valancourt Books’ critically acclaimed World Horror anthologies) other authors have, in the meantime, incorporated tropes of the genre into their works, even if they are not primarily associated with this style. One thinks, for instance, of the fantastic world of the Fiddien trilogy (written by Loranne Vella and Simon Bartolo), the darker works of Trevor Zahra (not only in his works for children, but also in several of his adult short stories, such as “Ħġieġ”) or even Walid Nabhan (in the ghost story “Pamela” in Bejn Bejnejn or the crime novel L-Iżvijati with its deranged killer/narrator).
Which brings me, in a rather roundabout way, to Il-Parabboli tal-Imġienen (“Parables of the Insane”), a short story collection by Keith Borg (b. 1984). This volume of ten, terse short stories was published by Merlin just before Halloween in 2021. The timing was certainly apt, since several of the ten stories in this volume are works of in-your-face shock-and-horror, starting off with L-Attur Famuż (“The Famous Actor”), a tribute to Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum”. There are other disturbing tales in this vein, for instance one narrated by a plastic bag (!) – “sex-and-gore” stuff is not really my line, but I must admit that this work stands out because of its original approach.
Other works in this collection are definitely stranger albeit equally discomfiting, blending speculative fiction with philosophical concepts in a manner which, I feel, is quite innovative in a Maltese context. Logħba Ċess (“A Chess Game”), for instance, is a sort of allegory about love, with imagery reminiscent of “The Seventh Seal”. The Borgesian Il-Villaġġ (“The Village”) is purely conceptual: a fable-like narrative whose characters are geometric shapes. Some works are almost playful, featuring absurdist scenarios, including a meeting in a cafe’ with a character who might just (or might not) be the Son of God. In such stories, Borg moves away from outright horror and closer to weird fiction of a more literary/philosophical bent. Yet, the worldview remains the same, characterised by a heavy sense of dread and nihilism, not unlike the cosmic horror of Thomas Ligotti.
The volume closes with Repubblika (“Republic”). With this work, Borg returns to the here and now, with a story inspired by events in recent Maltese history – namely the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and its aftermath of political uncertainty. Quite ironically (or perhaps not), the work most rooted in reality is also the bleakest of the lot.
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