The Falling Glass

 

Algernon Blackwood, "The Falling Glass" in Tongues of Fire: And Other Sketches (1924).


Cosmic horror is at its best when it is less about the immediate danger posed and more about the horror/awe evoked by the thing's very existence. This often emerges because of its unfathomable scale, total indifference to us, and/or incomprehensible otherness.

While thunderstorms are often used in horror to invoke fear based upon the danger they pose to life and limb, Blackwood taps the weather for a different kind of horror. These massive natural forces, not in the least concerned about the things we value, continue to humble us and stand to remind us of our insignificance.

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