Electronic Music 411 - the reason I'm not on em411 lately....

I really enjoy the aesthetics and the use of language in his stories, but I just finished an anthology and I feel like every story was mostly the same. I think he's one of those people who's worth looking at because of the effect he had on modern film and TV, but not that interesting without that in mind.
My biggest pet peeve about Lovecraft is that he always tells the reader that something was unspeakable, unimaginable, etc. rather than actually describing it! It's like he's describing a story, not telling one.

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07/20/08 + sweettrip

rad, i started reading Necronomicon about 2 weeks ago

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07/20/08 + RogerRoger

I like how Lovecraft always brought science into the fore of his stories, but yeah agreed that he could be vague about what was terrifying in them. Also, there's that whole bit about him being a racist. I'd much rather read Poe, myself.

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07/20/08 + Otterfan

Everything deltasleep says is true. HPL is like Phillip K Dick in the sense that he's a god-awful writer. Just as bad as could be. It's one of the charming things about him.

But the amazing thing is how tightly he stays on message: "The universe is insane and wants to destroy you. You will never understand it, and you could never escape it. The only hope is to play dumb and not look beyond what's right in front of you."

It's like Thomas Hardy, only without any literary skill.

The worst thing about Lovecraft, IMHO, is the absolutely vile racism that pervade most everything he wrote. Houellebecq (a big Lovecraft fan) is a modern equivalent--but again, he's a better writer.

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07/20/08 + Otterfan

OT, but I'm into ghost stories lately.

I've been reading a lot of [urlhttp://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=robert+aickman]Robert Aickman[/url] who, except for a shared mistrust of the modern world, is like the anti-Lovecraft. It's all subtlety, all the time.

And you get the feeling that David Lynch lifted a lot from him, though he denies having read Aickman.

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07/20/08 + astroid

at the mountains of madness

the description of the ruins is pure engineer poet porn

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07/20/08 + jogn

yeah mountains of madness!

There's a lot to be said about holding the book and reading it rather than online though. But it's really obvious though why he never fully describes his terrors --- yep they're nameless, unimaginable, terrors. It wouldn't be too nameless & unimaginable if he could name & imagine them.

Just like writing a story without naming the protagonist, i especially love his works just to marvel at his tenacity at maintaining his writing style.

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07/20/08 + license

cool ass thread. I read a little Lovecraft when I was younger and forgot about it, for whatever reason. glad to say this is mostly pretty new to me, and it's fun stuff!

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