| Author | Message | ||
     Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.5 |
I have often heard friends and read critics lamenting Lovecraft's prose being soddenly hysterical and basically formless with excess of revulsion, a screamer among writers, wanting to affect his readers too much. Not a good one, according to them. That's like objectors to jazz or soul music because that's jarring to their sensitivity. Yes, that's a jarring prose but has structure which is extremely coherent with theme, undergoing the same flaking and putrefactive process as its motives, sort of perfect word-story "isomorphism". That's what makes him great, imho. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Maybe, Giancarlo, and I like jazz, but I think the two don't bear much comparison. When Lovecraft gets it right, it's a symphony, when he doesn't, it's lyrically bereft.  Like Zed, it's a love, hate relationship. I feel that Lovecraft was monumentally influential, and deserves to be read and reread for this, but I don't always enjoy his work. But I don't deny his importance. What he gave writing and the genre is of huge significant importance. But, he wasn't Joyce (of course nobody is), but when referring to prose, I don't think he manages it half of the time. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.68 |
Agreed, Giancarlo, and let's not forget his sense of structure! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Lovecraft's wonderfully archaic and atmospheric prose, like Poe's before him, was instrumental in making the dark world he created so convincing. I can't start a Lovecraft story without being sucked wholly into that universe. The best of his imitators, like Ramsey, are able to create the same effect but no one writing in that style has ever been as convincing as the man who created it. I would compare his horror stories to the fantasy fiction of Robert E. Howard or the crime fiction of Hammett or Chandler - they all share that same passion, energy and total committment to the fictional worlds they created. Reading them is always a joy, after no matter how many re-reads. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
My first reading of Lovecraft left me submerged in a suffocating gloom. I didn't get all of the Cthulhu babble (let's face it, I was only eleven when I discovered "The Thing on the Doorstep"), but oddly enough I could relate to the main character's hysteria and his sense of being usurped by something from outside. An unforgettable experience. Schoolmates would come to me and ask me if there was anything wrong. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Yes, the stories envelope you in gloom - that's a great way of putting it, while thrilling the imagination at the same time. That's all down to the dense otherworldliness of his prose, the sheer amount of passionate detail he crams in and the narrative skill with which the action unfolds. The man created an entire mythology that resonates with more power today than anything even Tolkien created. He remains my all-time favourite horror author. | ||
| Skip (Wolfnoma) Username: Wolfnoma Registered: 07-2010 Posted From: 72.218.209.123 |
I have always felt that Lovecraft was the Shakespeare of Horror and that in order to completely understand the nuances of his prose you must make a concentrated effort in understanding his language. And, like the language of Jazz, as perfected by Miles Davis, it is an ever changing language with new terminology, abbreviations and slang that needs to be nurtured and kept alive through understanding. Shoot, I am getting all maudlin here. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.44.164 |
What I love about Lovecraft's tales is the gradual accumulation of detail and atmosphere. 'The Call of Cthulhu' is a good example. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
like the language of Jazz, as perfected by Miles Davis Are you by any chance a player yourself, Skip? | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Steve - I don't deny the power of his stories to suck you in. You're spot on there, mate. Skip - you would have done wonderfully in my old band...they thought they were jazz musicians...shame cause we weren't...but it at least made it interesting | ||
| Skip (Wolfnoma) Username: Wolfnoma Registered: 07-2010 Posted From: 72.218.209.123 |
I play clarinet, dabble with the piano and plunk a mean but ugly tune on a six string acoustic. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Now you're talking. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
Ha, clarinet. Lovely sound. I play mostly guitar with a bit of bass on the side. Final year of the local music academy, but I'll probably do additional years. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.253.194 |
"Schoolmates would come to me and ask me if there was anything wrong." The only possible answer, of course, being a quote from Star Trek: "There's nothing wrong with me, so it must be the universe." | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
At that point there was a marked feeling of losing my foothold on reality as I had known it up to then. I felt lost and my old schoolmates started calling me The Horror or The Gloomy Bastard. I kid you not. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Okay, enough ribbing guys, I realise, even though I am incredibly drunk on Old Rosie cider, as I type this, vety slowly, with many stops for deletes, but I wrote that appreciation of 'Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos' spontaneously and from the heart... so here it is again, in all its unordained splendour: 1. 'The Haunter Of The Dark' (1935) by H.P. Lovecraft - this is my second favourite of all Lovecraft's tales, after only 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth'. Every time I read it, within the first few paragraphs, I feel my sense of self slipping away, like my mind is not my own, and all I can hear is Lovecraft's voice, beckoning me on into a shadowy, disorienting world of cold sweats and shudders. I am walking those streets, seeking that sinister steeple, standing outside, the black church filling the sky, entering(!) the cavernous interior, climbing those stairs, making weird discoveries, hearing strange sounds, ascending, like a man in a dream, screaming inside to turn and run, but trapped in the nightmare, unable to turn back, my soul lost, my identity discovered, the darkness come rushing to collect me... I'm terrified now just thinking about this story again. How in the name of God, and all that's Holy, did he do it!?!? 2. 'The Call Of Cthulhu' (1926) by H.P. Lovecraft - the grandaddy of all Cthulhu Mythos stories and a humbling lesson from the master in the art of less is more. This spellbinding horror/fantasy masterpiece has more detail and incident and atmosphere and freewheeling imagination than any number of novels, twenty times its length. In it Lovecraft created a world, a mythology, a style of storytelling, a soul-searing vision of cosmic terror the likes of which the literary world had never seen before, and is still reeling from... nuff said. 3. 'Notebook Found In A Deserted House' (1951) by Robert Bloch - imagine, if you will, discovering the notebook diary of an innocent 12 year old boy, staying with his relatives in the countryside, and struggling to understand, and put into words, the greatest Lovecraftian nightmare imaginable, unfolding gradually all around him. Bloch gets the language and sense of uncomprehending terror of a child under threat so pitch perfect right, that I can never read this story without every hair on my head standing on end, my heart racing, hands shaking, from first page to last. Perhaps the man's greatest short story and certainly one of my all-time favourites. A bloody masterpiece!! 4. 'The Salem Horror' (1937) by Henry Kuttner - of all the tales in this wonderful book, this is the one I consider most indistinguishable from Lovecraft himself, an unrelentingly terrifying supernatural nightmare, crammed with detail, and displaying a brilliantly structured narrative flow that is a joy to experience, right up to the mind-shattering conclusion. I'm going to get sick of saying the word masterpiece, but this is one of the greatest in horror fiction imo! 5. 'The Dweller In Darkness' (1944) by August Derleth - for me this is Derleth's masterpiece, and one of the greatest, most perfectly structured, Lovecraftian nightmare adventures ever written. It has haunted me ever since first reading it and bears comparison to Algernon Blackwood's 'The Wendigo' imo. 6. 'The Black Stone' (1931) by Robert E. Howard - all the energy and imagination and powerful conviction in the writing that makes his fantasy fiction so viscerally powerful, is turned full beam on the Lovecraftian horror genre here, to create one of the great masterpieces of supernatural fiction imo. 7. 'The Space Eaters' (1928) by Frank Belknap Long - the most genuinely nightmarish story here, that begins strangely and just gets worse and worse and worse, like some dark fever dream. A terrifying masterpiece! 8. 'The Hounds Of Tindalos' (1929) by Frank Belknap Long - one of the most terrifying explorations into the dark regions of the unconscious, by a fool scientist meddling with forces beyond his ken, ever written. Another masterpiece! 9. 'The Shadow From The Steeple' (1950) by Robert Bloch - an intensely poignant, as well as damn frightening response to Lovecraft's masterpiece, 'The Haunter Of The Dark', from a young fan turned into one of the greatest horror authors of his time. A brilliant and fitting end to a monumental trilogy of stories, one of the greatest achievements of his career, and another masterpiece lol. 10. 'The Return Of The Sorcerer' (1931) by Clark Ashton Smith - the most outrageously gruesome story here, pure grand guignol shock value at its very best, shudderingly good. 11. 'Beyond The Threshold' (1941) by August Derleth - another memorably structured tale of pure cosmic horror, that utilises the old theme of a haunted painting brilliantly. 12. 'Ubbo-Sathla' (1933) by Clark Ashton Smith - perhaps the weirdest, most hallucinogenic, story here, and hits a perfectly judged balance between horror and high fantasy, the work of a true poet. 13. 'The Shambler From The Stars' (1934) by Robert Bloch - read out loud this tale is an irresistibly OTT love letter to Lovecraft by a young starry-eyed fan, with talent to burn. The first part of a linked trilogy of stories, and the inspiration for 'The Haunter Of The Dark', to which Bloch responded brilliantly with 'The Shadow From The Steeple' - a joy to read. 14. 'The Haunter Of The Graveyard' (1969) by J. Vernon Shea - a wonderfully atmospheric piece of macabre black humour, with one of the most memorable protagonists in the book, I wonder who he had in mind? 15. 'Cold Print' (1969) by Ramsey Campbell - easily the best of the young pretenders, what always struck me about this tale was the convincing kitchen sink ordinariness of the descriptive detail and characterisation, and how Ramsey successfully jerks the reader into terrifying cosmic horror without a word of warning, the effect is memorably startling. 16. 'Cement Surroundings' (1969) by Brian Lumley - classically structured frightener that reminded me, in some ways, of Basil Copper's 'The Great White Space'. 17. 'The Deep Ones' (1969) by James Wade - shocking and subversive enough to have made it into a Pan Horror, while staying true to the feel of the best Mythos stories. 18. 'The Sister City' (1969) by Brian Lumley - fascinating in its attention to detail but lacks the crucial element of horror. 19. 'The Return Of The Lloigor' (1969) by Colin Wilson - a novella that is immense fun to read, in its encyclopedic density, but betrays a lack of narrative control and any sense of style in the writing. Put yourself in the position of a true fan, without any literary skill (except in my own mind), but yet endowed with an unstoppable ehthusiasm, judgement and unerring knowledge of what is right (like Councillor Trevise), and let me say my humble piece as the only method by which I am able to articulate my love of H.P. Lovecraft & Ramsey Campbell, and the whole wonderful universe of supernatural fiction. What was I just talking abot... ? | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Hey mate, I wasn't ribbing, both in my criticism and admiration. I don't think the other chaps were either | ||
| Degsy (Degsy) Username: Degsy Registered: 08-2010 Posted From: 86.134.41.203 |
Urgh, Old Rosie. Isn't that the one with floaty bits in it? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
It should be illegal, that's all I know. Turns a guy into a tool... and felt like I'd been trampled by a herd of elephants all day. Blecch! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
Poor Rosie. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
She's a big girl... and one I won't be dating again in a while. |