H.P. Lovecraft

[Graphimancer]

Most of it was pure imagination. Some of it was a love of Poe. Some of it was the Babalonian mythos.

If you want to hear that there really was a Necronomicon, and Lovecraft read it, you'll be disappointed. If you want to believe that he channelled alien truths of elder horrors, then again you will likely still be disappointed. (Yes, he "channelled" his creativity, but I wouldn't call this supernatural.) Did he loose the difference between reality and fiction, something like Whitley Strieber? Doubt it. I think he always viewed his stories as fiction.

"The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward" is indeed a great story.

I often joke that, based on his creatures, Lovecraft had a phobia againts sea food.

[underdog]

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2001/...ovecraft.shtml

Here is a summary by Mack Knopf on H.P. Lovecraft, his writing and a very basic overview of his point of view of the universe. If all you want in the future is a piece of research, we have this thing called Google...maybe you've heard of it. There are over 3 million hits on H.P. Lovecraft. Enjoy.

BTW...as far as I can tell H.P. just had a vivid imagination and like many authors actually MADE SHIT UP. He explored the themes of fear, nihilism, and mans insignificant role in a universe, that just happened to be ruled by unknowable and super powerful gods and alien races.

Only Nodens (a God), sort of relates to man in any reasonable way and even he is capricious and unknowable. Nodens appears as a gigantic human being and is commonly seen to be the stand in for what Christians would call...God.

Most of the other races and gods have no direct correlation with any earth bound pantheon at all. Thats the whole point. Anything you know or can find comfort in, is not a part of the beings that rule the cosmos. There is no comfort, no protection, no safety, no recognition, no loyalty, no love out there. They hate you and they want to destroy you, or at best, make a slave of you. Nihilism would be a comfort compaired to what lies just beyond our doorstep.

I'll stop posting now to give the American lit. professors and the american horror editors a chance to help you out with your research...

[Experiencer7]

That's more like it., passionate discourse. I have done the research. I'm not looking for the grand grimoire. And I know the Necronomicon is bullshit. I also know that lovecraft was an elitist fuck who crafted his personal racisim into many of his stories.
I'm simply curious about the obvious similarities between his fiction and many of the current theories on ufos, cryptozoology and other paranormal phenomena. Charles Fort was an influence. A big one, I would imagine.

Oh!, thanks for the link.

[Tommy Allison]

Lovecraft was a misanthrope. Then again, if you lived his life, you'd probably be one too.

He hung out with some scummy people, and the funniest part about his life, is that so many losers believe that the Necronomicon is real.

So many people have been utterly duped by the fact that he made it all up.

I find it incredibly funny that he ever became as popular as he is. Posthumously of course.

[Experiencer7]

Originally Posted by Tommy Allison

Lovecraft was a misanthrope. Then again, if you lived his life, you'd probably be one too.

He hung out with some scummy people, and the funniest part about his life, is that so many losers believe that the Necronomicon is real.

So many people have been utterly duped by the fact that he made it all up.

I find it incredibly funny that he ever became as popular as he is. Posthumously of course.

You mean like L. Ron Heybubgotadollar?

[Mogwa]

Lovecraft did deal with truly fascinating subjects, but let's face it, the guy wrote like Philboyd Studge*. Whenever possible he avoided employing character dialog because, by his own admission, he simply had no talent for it. That's why so many of his tales are more than ninety per cent purple narrative that drips from the page.
I don't belive that criticism can be ignored by dismissing it as a reflection of contemporary literary style. When compared to many of his contemoporaries, such as H.G. Wells or the even earlier works of Abrose Bierce, Lovecraft seems to suffer from a serious case of literary constipation, to put it politely.


(*Philboyd Studge was a creation of the late Kurt Vonnegut. Whenever he produceed a book or article that seemed heavy handed and clumsy, Vonnegut would attribute its real authorship to poor old Philboyd.)

[underdog]

Agreed, Lovecraft was no master of the written word...however, he did lead the genre into entirely new ground.

If I had to give a modern equivalent to what Lovecraft invented I would have to point to Stephen Kings, The Dark Tower series. Everything that King has written in the past 20 years has in some way connected to that series, even if its only symbolic. He built a coherent universe and then hung stories on it and the stories intersected thematically, symbolically, even with cross over characters. What was happening around the main story of the Tower seemed to bleed over to seemingly unrelated but intertwined stories.

King does site Lovecraft as an influence in his book "On Writing" and I suspect he borrowed the idea of a coherent "book universe" from Lovecraft. Of course, King does it an order of magnitude better than Lovecraft, but H.P. should get some sort of props.

IMHO

[spookyparadigm]

His writing can actually be quite good when he wasn't trying. His letters read well, and some of his later works have good moments of clarity (typically early in the story). But then he starts to lay it on, and it was too much.

I think his influence is a bit more profound, but I'm not ready to give him the significance Colavito does in his book, where he argues that Lovecraft invented UFOs (well specifically, that he invented ancient astronauts, but he does try to argue the UFO angle). I started reading the book, but was interrupted and need to start again. I can see some of his point, but it misses a much bigger occult and cultural tradition that Lovecraft was influenced by. It's no accident at least some early contactees, like Adamski, were involved in such things before 1947.

[DBTrek]

I like Lovecraft's writing. I think most people are turned off to it because our educational system is graduating illiterates as if it's perfectly normal for someone to have 12 years of schooling and still not be able to read or write a coherent sentence.

[Tommy Allison]

If it were translated to that text language crap it would be readable for retards, but not the average person over the age of 30.

Our educational system in this country has book upon book of classic literature, and yet kids can't read anything above a 3rd grade level.

If the people in our educational institutions gave a damn, we'd have kids that could actually comprehend the works of classical masters, and might even know what our Founding Fathers truly intended. Explaining to the average 18 year old what their rights are, or what the Constitution means, is a lot like trying to explain particle physics to a goddamned goldfish.