The Secret Life of Puppets

Nelson’s book is a revelation in how it explores the work that both religion and popular culture can do – her readings of Lovecraft’s work are particularly evocative. I’m not on board with the sharp line she draws between high and low culture, but it’s one of those books that’s fascinating even when you disagree with it.

Nelson’s book became an instant classic when it arrived in 2001, and it has only become more relevant since then. Her thesis is that modern secular culture has ejected the innate human religious-visionary impulse from the belief system of above-board, “respectable” intellectual culture, and that this impulse, which is ineradicable, has now crept in the “back door” of popular horror, fantasy, and science fiction entertainments, which therefore increasingly serve as religious texts. But there’s so much more to her presentation than this. It carries the feel of a darkly electrifying spiritual revelation, as if it’s changing the one who reads… show more.