(no subject)

[phosfate]

"...Lovecraft draws on the Puritan impulse to scare the living bejeezus out of his audience with a mad xenophobia and a deep disgust that perhaps compensates for the (unacknowledged?) knowledge that it was his people who persecuted the Quakers and murdered the Indians. Lovecraft's dread of the Old Ones is suffused with guilt. It wasn't sex that he most feared but the return of a historical repressed."

http://www.villagevoice.com/vls/0520,vls7,64039,21.html

Comments

[tully-monster.livejournal.com]

Oh, boy, another profile of H. P. Lovecraft! What fun.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Lovecraft loves you. As long as you're a WASP.

[tully-monster.livejournal.com]

Naah, Lovecraft was the original self-loathing WASP.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

^_^

[dwinghy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. That's a really interesting article. I had no idea Lovecraft was married for a time-- to a Jewish woman from New York no less! Sorta puts those "I married a fish/ape" stories of his into sharp relief. *shudder*

What a strange, strange, strange, strange man.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

I think that, in real life, there's a chance that Mr Lovecraft might have been annoying as fuck to have around.

synchronicity

[marlo.livejournal.com]

Yay! My boyfriend and I were laying in bed last night talking (probably till too late - me am tired) about Lovecraft. He sings in a Lovecraft-themed band called The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, so the subject comes up pretty often, but still, it's been months since we've talked Lovecraft. I was saying that I like Lovecraft's ideas, and his stories are great for re-readability (probably because the prose is so dense), and it's annoying when people classify him as a) pulp fiction or b) a literary genius. He's no Charles Dickens, but his stories have a really great feel and he has a wonderful imagination.

What's your favorite Lovecraft story? I like The Shadow Out of Time for its imaginative sci-fi-ness, Haunter of the Dark because it's the scariest, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth because it's fucking classic.

Re: synchronicity

[tully-monster.livejournal.com]

Shadow over Innsmouth. That is definitely my favorite.

Though we nicknamed our white cat "The Lurking Fur."

Re: synchronicity

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

susanmgarrett and I once compared him to Gene Roddenberry -- not a particularly good writer, rife with personal issues, but came up with a compelling mythology. Though this is a bit unfair to Mr Lovecraft, since he could entertain on his own, while Mr Roddenberry writing alone gave us stuff like Captain Kirk reciting the Declaration of Independence for aliens...who already knew it.

I haven't read the complete works, but I like At the Mountains of Madness and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kaddath.

Re: synchronicity

[ymfaery]

Mr Roddenberry writing alone gave us stuff like Captain Kirk reciting the Declaration of Independence for aliens...who already knew it.

...

That certainly gives new meaning to his nickname "Great Bird (of the Universe?)". Maybe he was a parrot.

[nitasee.livejournal.com]

I've always had a love-hate relationship to Lovecraft. His writing is full of over the top purple prose and rich lovely unspeakable dread. (Or at least he says that it's unspeakable for paragraphs at a time.) He was not a great writer such as a creator of a great imaginative atmosphere and mythos of dread. What I know of him as a person makes me very uncomfortable. It feels weird to enjoy the writings of someone I suspect would have been biased against me because of my heritage. You can write if off as coming from his time period, but not really.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

You can write if off as coming from his time period, but not really.

Oh, hell no. There's casual, culturally-instilled racism in, say, Angela Brazil. You grit your teeth and move on. Lovecraft's stuff is vitriolic and bizarre. He makes Cartman look like a moderate.

[nitasee.livejournal.com]

He was also highly class conscious in the sense that he felt like he was *sniff* of a much higher class than everyone else around him. He would never be a member of the Klan because they were so beneath him - not that he wasn't every bit as racist.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Dear Diary:

That dreadful Grand Dragon man came round again. I finally gave him a half-dollar to go away. Thank God the wife was out, or there would have been even more trouble.

White robes so tacky.

[nitasee.livejournal.com]

*sprofle*