A cosmic oversight by Liliana Blum

Original language: español

Year of publication: 2023

Valuation: highly recommended

In the literary world, it is often presumed that we can know a writer’s character through his works. Authors like Charles Bukowski, Franz Kafka and Alice Munro offer windows into their inner worlds that seem to directly reflect their complex and sometimes tormented personalities. Their books act as mirrors of their lives, and readers can feel like they really understand these writers from an intimate and personal point of view. However, Liliana Blum challenges this notion with “A Cosmic Carelessness.” At first glance, with her kind nature, her quick wit, and her dedicated life to literature and her five dogs, Blum seems a far cry from the dark recesses of the imagination that she explores in her stories. This dissonance creates a curious tension: how can a person who radiates such warmth conjure up such disturbing stories?

This contrast between the author and his work offers a rich area of ​​exploration into the hidden obsessions that can live in the most unexpected corners of the mind. In Blum’s case, his stories not only serve as an outlet for such macabre fantasies, but also raise questions about the source of creativity and the boundaries between personal experience and imagination. Through his writing, Blum reveals that what we show to the world is only a part of our complex internal reality. The horrible (I mean that as a compliment) things he writes, while surprising in light of his friendly personality, are testament to the human spirit’s ability to navigate multiple realities, sometimes in direct contrast to the facade we present. .

Influenced, on the one hand, by horror writers such as Stephen King, and on the other, by horror creators, such as the serial killer Edmund Kemper, Liliana creates a range of scenarios where the daily lives of her protagonists are twisted by some unusual element, from the more or less disturbing, to the grotesque. Her stories invite readers to explore the limits of morality and revenge, through characters who, although seemingly ordinary, face extraordinary dilemmas.

From a woman who makes a pact of revenge with a murderer, to another who turns to witchcraft to fill a maternal void, Blum explores how desire and desperation can lead to acts of extreme horror. The author’s ability to instill terror in the mundane is notable, making each story resonate with palpable anticipation and tension.

In one of my favorite stories, Liliana invokes the shadow of Ed Kemper, a serial killer whose notoriety infiltrates the plot in a surprisingly intimate and disturbing way. In this story, Blum does not limit himself to recreating the figure of Kemper, but transforms him into a spectral entity, like a mythological ikiryo, who interacts with a young exchange student. This approach to Kemper as a possessing and manipulating spirit not only intensifies the terror inherent in his true story, but also explores the posthumous influence of such figures on popular culture and the collective imagination (the fact that Kemper is still alive makes makes it even more chilling). Through this tale, Blum challenges us to consider how infamy and fear are perpetuated in our memories, offering a meditation on the legacy of monsters in the modern world.

The mentions of these stories are only so that they can measure the water in the sweet potatoes. Discovering each of them is really worth it.

“A cosmic oversight” is, without a doubt, a work that defies expectations, showing that true terror can arise not only from monsters, real or fantastic, but from the human heart. This collection is highly recommended for those looking for a reading that combines the psychological with the paranormal, thus creating the possibility for those supernatural elements to materialize, as Hesse would say.

If you want to delve a little deeper into the world of Liliana Blum, below is the link to the talk I had with her a few weeks ago. We had her dogs as special guests.