Pretty sure this counts for new weird even though I still don’t understand the definition because it was pretty weird. The book is broken into different chapters, each a confession told to a Catholic priest, Vicar Jerome Savoie, a heretic priest in nineteenth century Montreal, relating to the penitents’ confessions about their encounter with a young woman who has a scar on her lip and how this encounter lead to their afflictions of deformity or malady. It’s a really weird book that’s a combination of a magical, sinful mash up of orientalism, magic, demons, lust, pride, desire, vanity, and hubris.

It’s also got a very strong anti-disability sentiment, where disfigurement is a symbolism for sin and a punishment of sinful actions. The whole narrative of white men travelling the world to steal environmental wealth or for their own enlightenment, fetishizing the cultures they visit, then being seduced by a beautiful young woman with a cleft lip, and finally being disfigured or disabled as punishment for their hubris and sins, put a really bad taste in my mouth. Disability and deformity have long been interpreted as physical symbols of sin and it’s an old, old trope that needs to end. Disability is not a symbol of evil and sin and these depictions need to stop.

The writing in Maleficium is really beautiful but it’s not worth picking up due to the orientalism and anti-disability sentiments.