Co widzisz? "Profesor" Johna Katzenbacha jako horror psychologiczny. Kilka uwag

John Katzenbach’s novel — What comes next (2010) — does not seem to be a horror, because it tells a crime story: the kidnapping, imprisonment of a teenager, and the creation and sharing of an Internet series with the audience, the motive of which is the sophisticated abuse of the girl. However, the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Anna Gemra
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe 2025-06-01
Series:Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich
Online Access:https://journals.ltn.lodz.pl/Zagadnienia-Rodzajow-Literackich/article/view/2757
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1850095119420620800
author Anna Gemra
author_facet Anna Gemra
author_sort Anna Gemra
collection DOAJ
description John Katzenbach’s novel — What comes next (2010) — does not seem to be a horror, because it tells a crime story: the kidnapping, imprisonment of a teenager, and the creation and sharing of an Internet series with the audience, the motive of which is the sophisticated abuse of the girl. However, the issues related to what is happening in the psyche of the characters and what their behavior says about their personality traits come to the fore. The narrator skillfully builds an ambience of horror, based on traditional comprehensions of normality and abnormality, health and illness; using an extremely closed and extremely (seemingly) open space, knowledge and non-knowledge, certainty and uncertainty, a state of a permanent (yet impossible to interpret unequivocally) threat. Following Charles Brockden Brown, Katzenbach relinquishes ‘classic’ monsters such as zombies or vampires in favor of a potential monster, which may be the human mind. This is the proper locus horridus: an area completely inaccessible to human recognition, in which the most terrifying fantasies and the beasts that grow from them can lurk. In the novel by Katzenbach the real monster is not therefore ‘some stranger’, but ‘our stranger’ — the one we carry inside, usually without noticing it.
format Article
id doaj-art-cdf70473b75749b2865f09bbeca2e2d6
institution DOAJ
issn 0084-4446
2451-0335
language English
publishDate 2025-06-01
publisher Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe
record_format Article
series Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich
spelling doaj-art-cdf70473b75749b2865f09bbeca2e2d62025-08-20T02:41:30ZengŁódzkie Towarzystwo NaukoweZagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich0084-44462451-03352025-06-0168110.26485/ZRL/2025/68.1/15Co widzisz? "Profesor" Johna Katzenbacha jako horror psychologiczny. Kilka uwagAnna Gemra0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2389-4337Uniwersytet Wrocławski, Wydział Filologiczny, Instytut Filologii Polskiej John Katzenbach’s novel — What comes next (2010) — does not seem to be a horror, because it tells a crime story: the kidnapping, imprisonment of a teenager, and the creation and sharing of an Internet series with the audience, the motive of which is the sophisticated abuse of the girl. However, the issues related to what is happening in the psyche of the characters and what their behavior says about their personality traits come to the fore. The narrator skillfully builds an ambience of horror, based on traditional comprehensions of normality and abnormality, health and illness; using an extremely closed and extremely (seemingly) open space, knowledge and non-knowledge, certainty and uncertainty, a state of a permanent (yet impossible to interpret unequivocally) threat. Following Charles Brockden Brown, Katzenbach relinquishes ‘classic’ monsters such as zombies or vampires in favor of a potential monster, which may be the human mind. This is the proper locus horridus: an area completely inaccessible to human recognition, in which the most terrifying fantasies and the beasts that grow from them can lurk. In the novel by Katzenbach the real monster is not therefore ‘some stranger’, but ‘our stranger’ — the one we carry inside, usually without noticing it. https://journals.ltn.lodz.pl/Zagadnienia-Rodzajow-Literackich/article/view/2757
spellingShingle Anna Gemra
Co widzisz? "Profesor" Johna Katzenbacha jako horror psychologiczny. Kilka uwag
Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich
title Co widzisz? "Profesor" Johna Katzenbacha jako horror psychologiczny. Kilka uwag
title_full Co widzisz? "Profesor" Johna Katzenbacha jako horror psychologiczny. Kilka uwag
title_fullStr Co widzisz? "Profesor" Johna Katzenbacha jako horror psychologiczny. Kilka uwag
title_full_unstemmed Co widzisz? "Profesor" Johna Katzenbacha jako horror psychologiczny. Kilka uwag
title_short Co widzisz? "Profesor" Johna Katzenbacha jako horror psychologiczny. Kilka uwag
title_sort co widzisz profesor johna katzenbacha jako horror psychologiczny kilka uwag
url https://journals.ltn.lodz.pl/Zagadnienia-Rodzajow-Literackich/article/view/2757
work_keys_str_mv AT annagemra cowidziszprofesorjohnakatzenbachajakohorrorpsychologicznykilkauwag