| Author | Message | ||
     Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
He'll be telling us that Kafka just had problems with his dad next: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/dec/20/necronomicon-hp-lovecraft More Western binary logic for your perusal... | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.186.240 |
The opening paragraph alone is glaringly erroneous. Lovecraft moved to New York City for a brief period of his own free will, but the way Harrison writes it makes it sound like he was actually born into abject poverty and squalor in Red Hook. I don't know whether I should read on, or whether that would just make me madder... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
The last paragraph is almost Cthulhulian in its condescension. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.186.240 |
I missed the '1924' right at the beginning of the paragraph. That part makes more sense now, but it's still a pretty shallow and condescending write-up, in my opinion. | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.244.26.28 |
i did like the reference to Houllebecq's essay, which is a wonderful read and in my opinion much more interesting than any of the dry papers that Joshi churns out. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.141.70 |
M. John Harrison is a leading genre author and critic, as I'm sure you know, and this account is no more shallow than, for example, Geoff Ryman's critique of M.R. James. It's an informed and considered view, and a far more intelligent one than, for example, Dirk Mosig's incredible claim that "Lovecraft is without peer as a materialistic philosopher". There is a lot more that can be said about Lovecraft, but Harrison's view is certainly a valid part of the overall critical picture. It took me over two decades to realise that Lovecraft's much-vaunted 'cosmicism' is essentially a strategy for perpetuating the attitudes of the more grand variants of Christianity – pompous elitism, anti-humanism and an abdication of social responsibility – within an atheist framework. In other words, it's a kind of High Church atheism. Also, I assume the Harrison article is part of an ongoing dialogue with China Mieville, who writes eloquently about Lovecraft's politics in a recent paperback edition of AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. Mieville sees that story as part of a highly skilful and well-achieved polemic whose content he rejects, but whose presentation he admires. Harrison is focusing more on the emotional side of Lovecraft in order to argue that his entire project was immature. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.141.70 |
Houllebecq's book, though lively and provocative, misses the point of a lot of Lovecraft's best work. Racism was a strong component of Lovecraft's psychological and intellectual development (at a time when much racism used scientific and historical scholarship as a front). But by the time of, say, 'The Shadow out of Time', it had surely ceased to be the primary issue – while other, equally powerful emotional drivers underpin the likes of 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'. Houllebecq's strongest point, I think, is identifying the New York roots of 'The Call of Cthulhu' and the extent to which the story is a diatribe against immigration and multi-ethnic assimilation. He makes a very strong case in that instance. The biggest problem with Houllebecq's book, and it really is an overwhelming one, is that he quotes many passages from Lovecraft that he appears to have made up – neither the translator nor S.T. Joshi has been able to find them in Lovecraft's published fiction or non-fiction. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.141.70 |
P.S. All best wishes to the RCMB for a festive Yuletide! "Things have learned to type that ought to scrawl." | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
I think it's probably true that Lovecraft's stories are borne of the 'immaturity' to which MJH alludes above, but it doesn't necessarily follow that this is what they're about - or perhaps more accurately, all they're about. My point above about Kafka referred to the fact that we can probably trace his own 'insight' to his experience at the hands of his father, but to reduce his work to that alone is to do it a disservice. That fraught relationship surely rendered him hyper-sensitive to other, less individually psychological elements of lived experience. Ditto Lovecraft, I'd argue. At any rate, I do feel that to reduce his work to a 'tantrum' is an example of psychological reductionism/imperialism. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
Oh, and yes, Merry Xmas and all that. Have a good one. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.238.181 |
Do we really need another Lovecraft omnibus?... This is the problem with fading out of copyright: endless editions of the same old stories, different introductions being the only variation... and how exactly does one "edit" these, by this point?... Merry Christmas, all. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.186.240 |
I feel the same way as you, Gary. Joel, I'm not saying Harrison's view is not valid, but I certainly disagree with some of it, and think he's being way too dismissive by saying what amounts to "Lovecraft wrote what he did because he couldn't grow up". Now I'm off to make a snow shoggoth - happy Christmas everyone! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.82.181 |
Do we really need another Lovecraft omnibus?... I guess it's not a matter of needing it, more whether the publishers can sell it. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.245.103 |
I guess, Mick. So far, superfluous editions of Lovecraft, and dvds of The Satanic Rites of Dracula, are neck and neck....  | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.22.37 |
Houellebecq's slim book is a good basic introduction to Lovecraft and Lovecraft criticism for (European) readers who are entirely unfamiliar with the Providence scribe's work. It offers nothing new; if you want a valuable European view read Maurice Lévy's Lovecraft, ou du fantastique, or my translation of Lévy's "Le fascisme et le fantastique: le cas Lovecraft". | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.230.191 |
Gary and Huw – I basically agree with you, but would put it less strongly, and do feel that MJH needs to be taken seriously as a critic. Lovecraft is multifaceted: his stories work in different ways and say different things. A badly judged selection of Lovecraft's stories could make him appear an intolerably bad writer. Actually, what Harrison says about Lovecraft is very similar to what Jack Sullivan says about Bradbury: fear of adult life, clinging to childhood, etc. It's true in both cases, but in neither case does it mean that other important things are not going on. Seeing the big picture does rather get in the way of putting a strong point across. I remain a huge fan of Lovecraft's work, but then my life has been characterised by loving what is not necessarily good for me. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Mike Harrison is a fine writer and a fine critic, but I don't think this is one of his better pieces. Was Michel Houellebecq really so significant to Lovecraft's reputation? Since when was it the case that if you "expressed a fondness for the works of HP Lovecraft, you were announcing yourself to the world as a weirdo"? Cocteau did long before his countryman - so did Borges and Bradbury and Leiber and Bloch and many others. I suspect Mike's text has been corrupted - I doubt he wrote "Innsmuth" - but can Houellebecq really be said to have written a paeon or even a paean? And it does bother me that Mike cites The Lurker at the Threshold as if it's a Lovecraft title. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.230.191 |
Hubert, I didn't know you were a translator. I'll look out for that. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
>>>it's more like a tantrum, a last desperate clutch at the undependable maternal skirt. Also quite a sexist last line. Upholds the classical psychoanlytic focus on 'mother', while overlooking more recent family- and social-based variants. No wonder we're stuck here in a reductionist perspective. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.215.191 |
And in fact, Lovecraft's father issues are written all over his fiction – Joseph Curwen and Ephraim Waite being the most obvious examples of undependable and corrupt fathers or father-figures. MJH definitely missed a trick there. Also, Lovecraft's family issues colour earlier stories than the New York period. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
Indeed. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.215.191 |
So yes, Gary, your first point would have been quite valid if you hadn't been being sarcastic.  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.215.191 |
Sorry, misread, you said Kafka and not Lovecraft. Am rushing due to haste. See you after the Yuletide. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
Silly old Joel. Have a good one! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.225 |
I think *any* treatment of HPL needs a good dose of the Intentional Fallacy before putting pen to paper. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
I find myself agreeing with MJH, a rare occurrence. (In my view,most of his reviews, even the positive ones, rely heavily on condescension.) And I agree with Joel's assessment about Lovecraft/Christianity, even though I'd never thought about his work in those terms before. >> Since when was it the case that if you "expressed a fondness for the works of HP Lovecraft, you were announcing yourself to the world as a weirdo"? Since forever, at least in my neighborhood. (Then again, expressing a fondness for reading at all is also somewhat damning around here.) Lovecraft has always been anathema among critics, hasn't he? Certainly in America his works are frowned on. (Admitting a taste for Lovecraft in an American university lit course is an invitation to laughter. It's true. I've seen it happen.) MJH suggests that Houllebecq's book changed that -- and although his book did predate the Penguin and Library of America volumes, I have my doubts that any opinions have really changed among American writers or critics. To them, Lovecraft is at best cultish, an icon for the socially inept, his fans the literary equivalent of Star Trek nerds. I think it will take a lot more convincing to bring them -- the Harold Blooms of the world -- on board with Lovecraft. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.14.32 |
Well, as I've said, Harold Bloom dislikes Poe intensely as well. He's just never gonna like Lovecraft. He does sorta like Bradbury. But he's crazily fond of David Lindsay's A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS. Go figure. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Do you know in which book Bloom writes about ARCTURUS, Craig? I'd love to check out his review. Oh and merry Christmas, everyone! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
>>>I have my doubts that any opinions have really changed among American writers or critics. To them, Lovecraft is at best cultish, an icon for the socially inept, his fans the literary equivalent of Star Trek nerds. Such a view presupposes one thing: that Lovecraft fans read either nothing else or what the 'critics' regard as similar dross. A typical elitist, patronising attitude. How, for example, would they account for many folk (including many on this board, as it happens) who admire Lovecraft as well as many other writers? Does a fondness for HPL invalidate one's love of Shakespeare? Etc. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
Socially inept? Any critic who refuses to get their psyches dirty by not admitting guilty pleasures (such as, for example, a fondness for HPL) is probably as fucked up as anyone they decry. Eternal sunshine of the spotless reputation = schizoid obsessive. Oh, and Merry Xmas, critics. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.226.179 |
Chris, I've been trying to remember... I came across it back in college... I distinctly remember it, because he speaks about how a collegue passed him the book, and then Bloom read it something like a hundred times... it *might* be part of an introduction to his single work of fiction? A gnostic novel, much like ARCTURUS? Not being in print any time in the recent past (it's supposedly execrable [I've not read it, but I remember coming across the book researching him at the time]), it would make the most sense... Bloom is a big gnostic-ist... but I'm not sure... I'll have to hunt for it.... |