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Article: David Gilmore. Monsters, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Utopian Studies
- Article date:
- March 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Society for Utopian Studies. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. 210 pp. $24.95.
AS THE TITLE of David Gilmore's new monograph indicates, this is a sweeping catalogue of sundry fiends from various cultures. Gilmore sees these imaginary beings, such as the North American Windigo, the Canadian Bigfoot, and the Japanese shokera, or "roof monster," as grotesque embodiments of human fear and subversive desires. Frequently hybrid (human-animal combinations), monsters are "sources of identification and awe as well as of horror, and they serve also as vehicles for the expiation of guilt as well as aggression: there is a strong sense in which the monster is an incarnation of the ...