H.P. Lovecraft: Worth my time?

Cafe Society
21

Per Scumpup’s critique, what little I know of HPL has left me worried that reading such turgid prose might leave me not so much skeeved as annoyed. However, I see enough positve reviews above that I’ll give ol’ H.P. a go and see how I like it. As I am developing a gnat-like attention span (I blame the internet), I think I’ll go for some short stories…looks like any of the anthologies above would be a good place to start, perhaps “Best of…”.

Anyway, I sometimes feel I just have to know what this Cthulhu business is all about. I’m not aware of any fictional god/monster/thing that inspires as much pseudo-worship (I have to wonder how “pseudo” it is with some people) as Lord Cthulhu and his tentacled visage. I mean, randomly searching the 'net one day for stuff to shed some light after seeing a particularly weird Cthulhu-themed T-shit, I came across this little gem (sung to the tune of “She Loves You” by the Beatles, I guess).
*
I know he’s come for you
Though my madness makes me blind
He’s reaching out right now
To crush your puny mind

Cthulhu’s risin’
and you know that’s pretty bad
Cthulhu’s risin’
and you know he’ll drive you mad

Oo, Cthulhu, ia, ia, ia
Cthulhu, ia, ia, ia
With a god like that
You know we’ll all go mad
*
Whah? Well, here’s hoping that reams of exposition and a massive overdose of adjectives don’t drive me insane!

Thanks all! And please, do continue!

22

I came into this thread to make this point, only to see I was partially beaten to it.

Lovecraft’s mythos was inconsistent in many things, but it was consistent in that the Elder Gods weren’t necessarily evil—well, yes, the human sacrifices and the devouring of innocents and this and that, but that’s just who they were, they were horribly incomprehensible but not abjectly evil, won’t someone please think of the children—but August Derleth, in his attempt to unify the mythos, ended up with a sort of good vs. evil matchup with humanity caught in the middle. It’s a distinctly different flavor of writing than Lovecraft, and I ended up using my copy of August Derleth’s The Cthulhu Mythos to prop a window open.

23

I have read some of Machen’s works. The one closest to Lovecraft is probably The Great God Pan. The most interesting one is probably The Archers (? the title might also be The Bowmen, it’s been over twenty years since I read it, in French), since it gave birth to a UL.

If you think Derleth is bad, avoid at all cost anything by Brian Lumley :smiley:

24

Derleth was more than a follower. Whatever you think of his own mark on the Mythos, his publishing The Outsider and Others–and his founding of Arkham House in general–was instrumental in getting Lovecraft read beyond pulp circles in the 1940s.

If nothing else, the guy deserves props just for keeping Cthulu “above water” back in the day.

25

Sorry to hijack – but you’ve piqued my curiosity. Can you elaborate on this? I know I’ve read Pan, but no the Archers – What’s The Archers about, and what UL did it engender? (spare me from digging up a Machen anthology)

26

The Archers was writtent at the beginning of WWI, it relates how the British forces at the battle of Mons were saved from annihilation by the ghosts of the archers of Agincourt, led by St-Georges ! the UL it started is that, after the story was published, several veterans of Mons claimed that it is the way it happened.

27

Actually, the bizzare posthumous popularity of Lovecraft, which has inspired legions of imitators, admirers and rip-offs of all sorts (from Cthulhu plush toys and slippers, to sly references in various places) is far, far more interesting as a phenominon than his actual works - although Lovecraft is amusing and his universe interesting, I have never really understood why he gets so very much attention. Heck, when even Borghes stoops to write a “Lovecraft” story, you know something is up. :smiley:

BTW, I highly recommend “Resume With Monsters” by William Browning Spenser. Most Lovecraft imitators are crap; Spenser’s book is not so much an imitation as a very funny and ironic commentary on the phenom of Lovecraft imitation. Great stuff. He also wrote the equally good (if not better) “Zod Wallop”.

28

I’ve heard about The Angels of Mons, but never the connection to a short story. Thanks!

29

Lovecraft excelled at atmosphere. His plots could be slow. His characters are often cardboard cut outs. But the atmosphere is magnificent.

“Man is adrift in a sea of ignorance, and it is not meant that he should voyage far.”

Lovecraft’s monsters inhabit not just distant stars and remote mountains. They swim through avenues of leprous coral just miles off the shores. They burrow beneath our streets and sate their vile hungers in great warrens under our cemeteries. And their half breed children walk unseen amongst us.

In his world, horror is everywhere.

I recommend The Festival. This tale of winter rite contains references to several of the tomes invented for the Mythos, brooding New England evil, secret cults, and it’s just ten pages.

CalMeacham What surprised you in The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward?

Semi Hijack

Hellboy contains numerous Lovecraftian element (the comic is inspired by various pulp elements). Mignola writes and draws excellent Cthulu Mythos. But AFAIK, he’s never done an official Cthulu project. Anybody know why?

30

Yep, it is “The Bowmen” rather than “The Archers”.

Incidentally, Chaosium Press has recently printed two volumes of the best of Machen. And Del Rey recently printed Shadows Over Baker Street, which is a collection of short fiction where Sherlock Holmes meets Lovecraftian horror.

31

You might practice reading the stories of Clive Barker. He seems heavily involved by this genre.

32

When you are done reading, get yourself a Nintendo Game Cube and the game ‘Eternal Darkness’. That game is what made me go and check out Lovecraft. It is a tale spread through time (thousands of years). You play as 13 or so different people who have all died or gone insane as a result of contact with Lovecraftian-type Gods. Like many other games you have a health meter and a magic meter. But, uniquely, you also have a Sanity meter. Every time you see an evil creature part of your sanity drops away. One of the ways to regain sanity is to chop the creatures up and cut off their heads. Charming. As your sanity meter lowers, strange things start happening. Blood from the walls. Bugs on the screen. Screams from an undetermined source. Ultimately, you get to see a couple of Gods fight (if you make it that far). Different endings encourage you to play it through at least 3 times. One of the best games I have ever played. Genuinely scarey and fucked up -just like good ol’ H.P.

DaLovin’ Dj

33

Thanks for the correction Hunter Hawk . Like I said previously, it has been about 20 years since I read the story, in French, so… I got the title wrong, oops.

For those interested in reading the story, here it is, with an introduction from the author explaining how the UL came to life

34

To put it simply, H.P. Lovecraft was the greatest horror writer humanity has yet produced. I definatly reccomend reading “At the Mountains of Madness”, “The Shadow over Innsmouth”, and a “The Call of Cthulhu.”

Now get reading, less the great and dreaded Cthulhu decides to plague your dreams and drive you mad and eat you.

35

If you like Lovecraft, here are a few other authors you might want to check out–a couple have already been mentioned:

Manly Wade Wellman
David H. Keller
E. Hoffman Price
Robert E. Howard
Algernon Blackwood
William Hope Hodgson
M.P. Shiel
Clark Ashton Smith
Henry S. Whitehead
Robert Bloch
Fritz Leiber
Arthur Machen
Frances Stevens
Robert W. Chambers
F. Marion Crawford
Lord Dunsany
C.L. Moore

36

Spoiler, of course.

When the doctor examined the catacombs under the old house, and found the half-formed beings starving away in the pits, and was told by “Charles” that they hadn’t been fed for a long time – not the few weeks since he’d been committed, but for the two hundred years since the locals had burned down the house. I should’ve expected it, I suppose, but I wasn’t. Hitchcock got me once, too. Although he’d usualy rather let you see what was coming, and squirm, he had a surprise hidden at the end of Psycho.

37

A few items of interest, perhaps.

Lovecraft was a nerd.

He was a geeky little man who lived with his mother until he was in his thirties, and despite being pretty much penniless, operated within this sort of delusion of high-class New England aristocracy. The idea of “writing only for the money” was something he despised. He wrote to suit himself, and if the story sold, well, fine and dandy… but he said, on several occasions, that he was not going to rearrange his work to suit any given market.

Hence the weird, archaic, adjective-laden style. What we have here is a nerd, who taught himself to write by imitating older authors whose style he enjoyed. Imagine a clever twelve-year-old trying to write spy novels by imitating Tom Clancy, and you’ll have an idea how Lovecraft learned to write horror.

For all that, his later stuff wasn’t bad. His early material is downright wretched, drowned by his overblown style, and fit only for the most rabid Lovecraft buffs.

Nevertheless, he definitely blazed a trail. For one thing, most genre writers dealing in horror tended to deal in well-established bogeymen – mad killers, ghosts, undead, vampires, and suchlike.

Lovecraft thought this was lame. He found it much more terrifying to consider three possibilities:
(1) There is no God.
(2) There are hideous alien beings as powerful as we imagine God to be, and they do not love us any more than we love the termites that infest the walls of a house we intend to live in.
(3) There are other hideous alien beings that are not as powerful as gods, but nevertheless view us as toys or experimental subjects at best, a food source at worst.

…and once he really hammered this notion down, that’s when his work really began to take off. Lovecraft, at his best, inspires the kind of chills you might get when you lie down on a hilltop at night and stare into the sky and try to comprehend infinity… and come close enough to doing so that it makes you distinctly uncomfortable.

And even if you don’t like his style, you have to admit he was the first to throw out the ghosts and vampires, and go to town with total alien cosmic horror. Hey, man, there are things out there, and they do NOT want to Stop And Be Friendly. They will eat us if they can, and some of them are so insanely powerful and alien and Out There that even LOOKING at them can cause permanent psychological damage!

Nobody ever tried THAT before.

38

J. MIchael Strazynski, who wrote Babylon 5, must have read Lovecraft. His third season episode, “Passing Through Gethsemane” featured a monk, Brother Edward. Unbeknownst to the good brother, he had once been “mind-wiped” condemned as a serial killer, whose name was Charles Dexter Ward.

39

I hadn’t heard of that one. I recommend Alone In The Dark (NOT the New Nightmare which was awful). The first one. It may be difficult to find a copy. And you’ll need a utility to make it run. It will be worth it.

Prisoner Of The Ice. This game is a few years old, and much too easy. It’s a lot of fun though.

Shadow Of The Comet. Also old, and with graphics that are rather primitive compared to today’s games. The comet returns-and something unspeakable comes with it. What strange tainted blood runs through the veins of some of the village families? What lurks in the tiny islands just off shore? What undying things walk beneath the cemetery?

Infocom based the game The Lurking Horror on Lovecraft. I’ve never played it though.

40

I played Prisoner of Ice. In fact, it’s what got me into lovecraft in the first place. I realize now it’s a rather crappy game(far too linear, short, low on story and some puzzles are too difficult and make little sense) but it was enough to interest me in playing Shadow of the Comet. It’s sad that they took a great story(At the Mountains of Madness), and did so little with it other then placing a Nazi base above the old city.

Shadow I really enjoyed, and was creeped out by it at times. It seems to borrow mostly from the Dunwhich horror, but occasionally from “The Shadow over Innsmouth”. Oh, and the Old Gent(As Lovecraft liked to be called) makes a cameo in the game as a reclusive scholar named Mr. Underhouse.

Unfortunatly, the copy I have had problems with saving. In general, the mouse couldn’t be used for at least one key sequence(involving a map) and some of the timed/action sequences were a royal pain in the ass. But still a great lovecraft game.

The Lurking Horror was…alright. Not as good as I expected. Occasionally lovecraftian, but not particulary creepy.

There is a much better text-based game out there, by the name of anchorhead. Once again, invovles a comet and a creepy old new england town, but very atmospheric and well done. Parts are obviously derived from HPL stories but well implemented and combined, I felt.