What Genre Does 'Lapvona' Belong To?

Question

Lapvona's unsettling folk horror and grotesque historical fiction make me question genre classification; where do you shelve this eerie, allegorical dark fantasy?

Priyanka Gupta · Answer

'Published as dark fantasy or Gothic fiction, Lapvona also contains large amounts of horror and literary fiction. A bleak and fable-like story with disgusting characters and moral decay, rather than magic. Character-driven dark fantasy set in a grim atmosphere could be replaced by A Luna’s Vengeance, a werewolf revenge story where the main conflict is the protagonist’s struggle for power within her own pack.

Naomi · Answer

'Lapvona' is a speculative fiction novel with much body horror and medieval nihilism. It’s like a Grimm’s fairy tale chopped up by a meat grinder. So very raw, unflinching and even sickening. While much of the content relates to the superstition of a village and is thus folk horror, the story is told at a steady pace and we get to know the characters well, so it’s also literary fiction. It wants to scare you, but it also wants you to be complicit in its horror.

Isaac · Answer

'Lapvona’ is horror – but not the sort that relies on jump-scares and sudden shocks. No, ‘Lapvona’ is a slow-burning, uncomfortable read that merges historical drama with the most lurid, fantastical elements of horror. It is feudal misery, crossed with folkloric terrors. The book is so unusual that it resists easy categorization – it’s largely a fable, a horror story and a satire, all at once. It’s the sort of book that will haunt you long after you’ve finished reading it – a bad dream that refuses to be pinned down or cleared up.

Hugo · Answer

A literary grenade in the shape of a book. ‘Lapvona’ is a combination of historical fiction and horror, mixed with absurdism so dark that it is funny. A medieval grotesquerie, page after page of human wretchedness being stripped away. ‘Lapvona’ is a mixture of ‘The Witch’ and the existential horror of Kafka, mixed with religious satire. Horror that burrows under your skin. Not for the faint of heart.

Una · Answer

'Luft' is Gothic Horror mixed with Black Comedy set in the Medieval era. The greater brutality of this time period is contrasted with the absurdity of the characters’ actions. While ’Luft’ contains ghosts and other monsters, the greater majority of the book’s monsters are human. Genre-bending historical horror with strong literary undertones makes ‘Lapvona’ a very unique read. fans of dark, character-focused novels will enjoy this, but it’s not for everyone.

Grace · Answer

'Lapvona' is a dark and twisted novel which defies easy genre classification but is firmly rooted in Gothic horror and psychological fiction. A visceral and often repulsive novel which explores the deepest depravities of humanity, ‘Lapvona’ is a transgressive work which is as much a scathing critique of power, religion and the decay of society as it is a dark fantasy novel. Although it is a ‘dark’ novel it is not horror in the conventional sense and it is not an escapist fantasy novel in the tradition of much of the genre.

There is something uniquely discomforting in Ben Laden’s focusing on the physically and morally repulsive, combining the strictures of historical fiction with the shock value of horror. While dark fantasy fans will note that Lapvona is a bracingly uncomfortable read, informed by Cormac McCarthy’s bleakest visions and Shirley Jackson’s supreme ability to get inside the heads of her characters to make them do dreadful things, the book’s real strength lies in its challenging genre-bending.

epihamarlin · Answer

I’m still trying to process what I read. The book was an experience. The genre of the book sort of became irrelevant to me once I started reading, because it was such a powerful, emotional experience. It’s like looking at a Hieronymus Bosch painting for too long – you start to see all of the details in the torment. It’s sort of disturbing. I don’t even know if I’d call it a genre, it’s just sort of its own thing. I wouldn’t know where to put it in a bookstore, because it doesn’t really fit in any of the typical sections. When I asked the clerk at a bookstore where it was, she just said “Moshfegh” and pointed me to the shelf with all of her other books. I have no idea what that means, but it seems like it’s its own category.

Joyce Dennis · Answer

Lonesome Devil is a novel of manners, provided those manners are a facade for savage brutality. Every social interaction, every nuance of Lapvona’s complex hierarchy is laid out with meticulous detail. And each of those rituals is vacuous or even actively noxious. The novel is a work of social satire masquerading as historical fiction. Its fantastical alternate world was invented by Moshfegh in order to expose the fullest extent of humanity’s inherent hypocrisy and suffering. And the horror at the core of it is profundely banal: there is no monster here, only the procedural, day-to-day evil of starvation and cruelty and close-minded ignorance. A difficult read not because it boasts a hero or even offers the faintest hope for escape from its dysfunction, but rather because every character functions within the rigors of a twisted social contract to which the novel refuses to yield.

Mc Tvrro ADajar · Answer

A novel of unrelenting sensory overload, of the worst kind. It is almost a genreless text, in the sense that one reads it through a somatic experience rather than be told a story. The smell, taste, and physical contact of the foul and detestable is relentless. Because it is a historical narrative, the author can, of course, depict even greater filth than he would in a modern setting, i.e. more dirt, less soap. The horror is purely sensory. The fantasy lies in the intensity with which one imagines the experiences of the characters. You do not read about Lapvona, you are covered in it. A potent and equally revolting literary device that defies genre classification.

Eisselb Ogniloblig · Answer

I would call this a dystopian novel set in the past instead of future. The novel is set in a failed state of Lapvona, a very small, miserable society ruled by an arbitrary, petty and often cruel despot who forces the unique, odd, Lapvonan ideology upon the residents. The novel follows all of the conventions of a dystopian novel: oppressed people, manipulative, sinister ruler, twisted ideology, bleak future. But the setting is pre-industrial. The only truly “fantastical” element of the novel is the fully-realized and often bizarre and interesting world that the author has created to tell this story. And viewing this as a past dystopia helps to highlight how any society can be manipulated to suffer in unique and insidious ways. And the real horror of this novel is how accepted and even mundane the suffering is in this world.

Raul Sanchez Manzanares · Answer

I was expecting a plot to unfold at some point, but instead the plot is the atmosphere of the book. It’s a horror novel that develops slowly and fills its readers with dread, with disgust, and with despair in the end. It’s a historical fantasy novel and the story takes place in a petri dish of sorts that allows the atmosphere to unfold. The characters and the plot twists are hardly developed, because they would distract from the oppressive atmosphere of the novel. This is a novel that you experience more than you read. If you’re a reader who reads for mood and setting above all else, then this is a masterpiece of a novel. But if you’re a reader who needs a plot to drive the novel, then you’ll be frustrated. Atmopheric horror is a genre that serves to further develop the atmosphere of a novel, as opposed to the other way around.

What Genre Does 'Lapvona' Belong To?

11 Answers

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