Lovecraft thread! God, he's so racist, but also really good? But yeah. It's really, really good, and deeply, deeply racist. Tumblr should hate this guy.
More coherent thoughts: I have recently read the story Polaris. Which has a very very interesting idea, that can either be interpreted as the main character being genuinely delusional, or the cursed to dream spirit of an otherworldly person. The narrative doesn't say, either way, and switches incredibly cleverly half way through. Unfortunately, the villains that this person is guarding his city against are explicitly racist caricatures of Inuit people, described as grotesque inhuman fighters. Which is something I've noticed throughout most of his work that isn't entirely introspective on the pov character in nature. The Tomb didn't have this because the narrator of the tomb barely talked to anyone.
Lovecraft had some of the most intriguing concepts but I've found it was others that played with them best. If you like Lovecraftian stuff track down "The Birthday". It will blow your socks off in the best ways. Also play or watch an LP of Cthulhu Saves the World its the most humorous affection love note to the mythos. Also there's a great youtube 'podcast' of sorts of my fav lper and his buddies playing Call of Cthulhu campaign: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvwKQHVid4aCGKdPM74ngDnAej9xaDn0
More slightly more coherent thoughts. So, death of the author is an incredibly useful concept. The positions, thoughts, etc, of the author of a piece of media should not always effect how one perceives that piece of media. Of course, one should still remain aware of the problematic nature of some media, and be willing to discuss this in a nuanced, contextual manner. The problem of Lovecraft's stories though is that he uses these racial caricatures, and in some cases ethnic or cultural caricatures (Beyond the Veil of Sleep has, as a central plot point, a character who, because he's a "hillbilly from Appalachia" is too stupid to carry the spirit of the ethereal creature trapped in his mind, which leads him to madness and eventually confinement and death, and only once the (also white, but from New England more refined, obviously) protagonist uses a Mysterious Device to communicate with him telepathically is the intelligence of the creature in his head revealed.), because these people are supposed to be horrifying and inhuman because they are based on people unlike him. And it's utterly fascinating (not in a good way, but in a what could have made this man so afraid, even beyond the general racism/classism/sexism of the people he lived with in upper class new england). @Allenna, thank you for the recs! I'll watch that when I have the chance, but I'm genuinely enjoy Lovecraft, despite the racism, which is something I'm not trying to ignore, but more to- acknowledge it, but also acknowledge the beautifully written imagery that the stories also contain? I've heard of that game, too, and I'll look into it.
Only a few of the original stories by Lovecraft himself hit that right atmosphere for me. I think that's why more people are using the phrase 'mythos' then Lovecraftian because they're playing more with an atmosphere and sometimes even setting Lovecraft didn't even come up with. Like we have more to thank for the Mythos to those like Robert Chambers (who wrote King in Yellow) than Lovecraft.
I used to really, really like Lovecraft. This was about in freshman year, and I got a huge book with all his available stories put together. I still really, really liked him until I read "Rats in the Walls" and got to see what he named the protag's cat. That was a very unfriendly wakeup call. Now I'm annoyed both by the overt racism in otherwise astounding stories (LOOKING AT YOU "The Dream Quest of Uknown Kadath"!!!) and the COMPLETE lack of any female presence that actually gave them a personality and who didn't immediately die to further some man's agenda. Of course now that I'm older I like to take the Mythos and make it as opposite what he would have liked as possible, and so far that hasn't steered me wrong.
I did my senior thesis on the Cthulhu mythos. Still not sure why I was allowed to do that. I'm a horror junkie. I don't expect horror to be unproblematic, it's literally about horrible things. The fact that H.P. was almost impressively racist is yet another thing I am practiced in ignoring!! It's easiest to understand it in the terms of his worship of 'civilization' and his terror of the 'uncivilized,' the semi-human, the lawless, the barbaric, the uncanny, which he of course relates with 'lesser' races. Thematically it holds up!! Sucks a lot, but it's thematically sound. Ha ha ha ha. Anyway. Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is my favorite Lovecraft thing, because I love his mysterious, dream-like atmospheres, and he really puts his purple prose to good use in that one. Also a sucker for the one that takes place in the Antarctic. Mountains of Madness. Good shit. He's better when he's talking about atrocious many-limbed aliens than when he's talking about other human beings, which he obviously doesn't understand at all. There was this text adventure made about Shadow over Innsmouth I've tried to play before and it was really cool but I am SO BAD at text adventure games >u<
I hate the name of the Cthulhu Mythos so fucking much that I refuse to use it. I just refer to his work generically as Lovecrafts. If I want to get specific I call things the Dunsanys, Dream Cycles, or Cosmics. Cthulhu Mythos as a name scheme can bite my dick. BITE IT GOOD. There's also my problems with people assuming he actually defined most of the so-called mythos when, no, that is more the aforementioned Chambers or my great and unending hatefoe Derleth. And the problem that people are ignoring his non-mythos work, so to speak. Such as the morbid pieces inspired by Poe and Dunsany. I also really, really, REALLY love Lovecraft. While he has his flaws like repeating words or phrases to the point where I want to bring him back to life just for the purpose of punching him when he gets his shit done right he gets it done really, really well. Personally my favorite of his works is The Colours out of Space. Or maybe the Dunwich Horror? The Shadow out of Time also has some of his most cosmic writing. He really nailed down that tone in that super fucking well. Caitlín Kiernan's Threshold hits that same sort of tone and atmosphere on that note. Kiernan in general I highly recommend, but Threshold is probably her most Lovecraft original work, in the sense of cosmic horror. It's a cosmic Lovecraft, but it's not the stars you need to be fearing or the sea. It's prehistory. Be warned though that Kiernan is very much influenced by writers like James Joyce, Virginia Woolfe, and William Faulkner. She also thinks plot is boring and cannot be assed to want to find out how to connect point a to point b. Kiernan also nicely nails the general sort of....thing I like from Lovecraft. Even with his not cosmic work. Things like The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl. They're both very Weird and I like that. Weird fiction is just. The greatest. The other thing that I feel really nailed down the Lovecraft feeling in a fun and unique way is Bloodborne. Bloodborne does Lovecraft very, very well. It's a sort of blend of cosmic horror and gothic horror, making use of several of their common themes to compliment one another. Like the beast in man is caused by and so very much worsened by the relentless pursuit of knowledge and progress. The game is pretty balls to the wall hard though and there is nothing to be said other than git gud (well, that or watch an lp and read the wikis). God though there are so many other stories of his that I'm fond of. Like Herbert West - Reanimator, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Cats of Ulthar, The Curious Case of Dexter Ward, The Silver Key...
Uh, how about we agree to disagree and not tell others to commit violent sexual acts on you? I don't like calling it Lovecraftian because most of what we think of is very lightly tied to Lovecraft anymore. Mythos also for a much more open idea of the 'canon'. But I don't think people have to agree with me because others are allowed to think differently from me and view the works, there interconnectivity and everything else about the Mythos differently.
We can agree to disagree on the naming scheme. My choice of wording? No. I will keep my violent hyperbole. And that makes sense, yes. Though I will note that I don't use Lovecraft to refer to the works of, say, Derleth. Derleth's work is Lovecraftian in the fashion that it may have tone and such I associate with Lovecraft's actual work. So Threshold is a Lovecraftian horror story due to its tone, atmosphere, characters and so on. It's not a Lovecraft though. Only works by Lovecraft himself are Lovecrafts. Derleth's works are Derleths and Kiernan's are Kiernans. However a Kiernan may be Lovecraftian. Generally I attempt to avoid referring to the mythos as a whole, and instead go by author names or by story names. But then I also don't really talk much about the non-Lovecrafts that use these characters so it's rarely an issue for me.
Lovecraft, man. That guy had one hell of a way with words, I really like the writing style and the whole feel of it. The racism sucks hardcore, but that's what one is a critical reader for ::/
I actually have been reading through it chronologically, so I haven't really made it to anything to do with the Mythos yet. Also uh- I guess violent hyperbole is sort of okay, but I guess don't direct it at anyone else? This isn't meant to criticize, it's just so people aren't made too uncomfortable? //flails I'm honestly less interested in the Mythos than in how awesome his writing technique is- i'm probably going to look up the other works relating to the Mythos once I'm done reading this super long pdf of all of Lovecraft's works, but for now I'm just interested in enjoying the fact that these stories are mindbogglingly well written, and also incredibly racist. @Aondeug- I actually like his repeated words in some cases, because there are instances where that actually helps build what he's trying to say- I'm thinking of Polaris, specifically. I will read Color out of Space eventually but it's later on in the doc and i do better with an Order to Read Things In
I won't direct at someone personally. The above thing wasn't directed at them or a person at all, just for clarification. But the concept of the naming scheme. Anyway, you're going the chronological route too? That's how I first got through the bulk of his work. I really like his older macabre stuff, like The Rats in the Walls. Another of those that I really like is The Outsider. It has such lovely pacing though and a wonderful reveal. Also I can see that, with the repetition. If I think about it it is a thing of his that I do like when it isn't in excess. It's also honestly a thing I'm rather fond of doing in my own writing. Personally I tend to repeat in specific numbers if I can. Like repeating a particular opening sentence to paragraphs three times throughout the work. I was thinking more in the case of his longer works like The Shadow out of Time. Which is a wonderful story but by the end of it you've heard the phrase quasi-familiarity far, far too many times. While his longer works are among some of his best, I do think there's a sort of fatigue that comes with them where the repetition is concerned. With shorter things like Polaris it ends fast enough that it's still in a realm of being pleasant for me. Lovecraft is one of the few authors whose actual life I care about. There's a lot more to him than the racism everyone knows about. I need to look more into it.
@Aondeug that's entirely fair. Yeah, I downloaded a pdf of all his works that's put it in the order of release dates. I haven't gotten very far in yet. That actually makes sense- and I haven't read any of his longer stuff, so I can imagine it would get frustrating in that case. Honestly all I know about Lovecraft is that he was racist, died of cancer in his forties and also I think had some issues with substance abuse?
@Aondeug I don't have a problem with violent hyperbole - I used bite me all the time - it was the inclusion of gentiles made my brain blue screen which isn't your fault. Oh yeah there's a tone more to Lovecraft than his racism, it's just what's made a lot of modern readers when they read some of his stories cringe back. I think a lot of people go in expecting a historical Neil Gamin, not a guy that was even wigged out by the Irish. Lovecraft was very much a product of his time though if I'm remembering an article I read once it did also not endear him to some of his fellow writers - even some that wrote in the mythos. I'll see if I can't find it. I do know his father was committed to a mental hospital when he was still very young, and any visits there probably had a huge influence on his writing since they weren't exactly nice places at the time.
Yeah his father was committed and died early on. One of his big influences was his grandfather, who was the one who schooled him. In addition to getting Lovecraft into astronomy he also read him his first gothic tales. Which got Lovecraft interested in that. This library of his grandfather had a large influence on his sort of...academic tone? As well as how he worded himself. Lovecraft really seems like the sort of person who was born a hundred years out of place in regards to what he modeled himself after. And yeah Lovecraft's views were extreme even for his time. This also caused problems with his ex-wife because well. She was Jewish. I think the funniest thing I know about him though is that he hated sex. He thought it was awful and disgusting and wrong. Up until the point that he had it. Which I feel just. Encapsulates a lot of what the man was. A horribly awkward and judgmental nerd who was afraid of everything. One who looked up at the stars with wonder and horror but who was never academically capable enough to study them. I wonder at times if his failure at becoming an astronomer plays into why he wrote about academics so much. That and his nervous breakdown in high school.
"All of the books are by attending authors. Well, except for Lovecraft." "Are you sure?" "You know, people keep saying that."
