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Old 04-15-2012, 10:56 PM   #1
Talon87
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Lovecraft question

Posting the thread like this because I don't want to declare a Lovecraft thread with such a crappy opening request post like this:

Has anyone here read any of Lovecraft's stories? If you have, could you please recommend to me a good one to start off with and a recommended way to find it (whether it's free online via something like Project Gutenberg or whether there's a particular commercial printing you recommend)? I figured I should probably do more than simply smile and laugh and pass around names like "Cthulhu" or terms like "Eldritch horror" without actually having read any of the books. Are they even any good? Or are they just some cult status books that for whatever crazy-ass reason have been getting a lot of attention in Japan over the past fifteen years? (We see it come up quite a bit in the anime community which is why I mention such a possibility, so ...)
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Old 04-16-2012, 06:39 AM   #2
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Gotta say I wouldn't mind reading some Lovecraft either, but aside from some stuff on TV Tropes I haven't really been able to find anywhere to get into it. So I wouldn't mind anyone helping out in this thread either.
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Old 04-16-2012, 12:21 PM   #3
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Zanma Taisei Demonbane.

...ok, just kidding, but there's one called The Dunwich Horror which is a Lovecraft staple.
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Old 04-17-2012, 04:51 PM   #4
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"Read" the story The Call of Cthulu here. And when I say "read," what I really mean is "read the first three or four paragraphs, was mega-bored, started to skim, was still mega-bored, started to grossly skim, and before I knew it said 'Fuck it -.-' and read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia ... which I also found boring. ^^;"

Can any Lovecraft fans tell me whether The Call of Cthulhu is one of the most boring of the stories? is one of the most entertaining? For now, I'm put off reading any more by Lovecraft himself, though I may look into reading one of the stories written by the other person who seems to have had a big hand in this whole Cthulhu Mythos. But if it turns out that Call of Cthulhu is the worst of his works, then I'll give Harry another try.

Also: l-o-fucking-l at how just about every ethnic minority you could imagine is a cultist in that story. "Negroes," "mestizos," "kanakas," the whole works. I've heard that Lovecraft was a racist. I wouldn't point to these examples and say "RACIST! " But I would point to them and laugh. As I am doing. Because it is just damn funny, racist or not, that he went and did this. It's almost like he went out of his way to do so, hahaha. ^_^; Every hero was white (the Norwegian boat captain, our American friends) while every cultist was some non-whitey.
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Old 04-17-2012, 06:37 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Can any Lovecraft fans tell me whether The Call of Cthulhu is one of the most boring of the stories? is one of the most entertaining? For now, I'm put off reading any more by Lovecraft himself, though I may look into reading one of the stories written by the other person who seems to have had a big hand in this whole Cthulhu Mythos. But if it turns out that Call of Cthulhu is the worst of his works, then I'll give Harry another try.
Yes, it's very boring. I remember reading it in 10th grade and putting it down because it was about a detective talking about some dumb cult.

Kind of ironic Cthulu is the mascot of Lovecraft's work when it's such an inconsequential Great Old One.

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Also: l-o-fucking-l at how just about every ethnic minority you could imagine is a cultist in that story. "Negroes," "mestizos," "kanakas," the whole works. I've heard that Lovecraft was a racist. I wouldn't point to these examples and say "RACIST! " But I would point to them and laugh. As I am doing. Because it is just damn funny, racist or not, that he went and did this. It's almost like he went out of his way to do so, hahaha. ^_^; Every hero was white (the Norwegian boat captain, our American friends) while every cultist was some non-whitey.
I don't even know what a kanakas is.

I don't think those cult demographics apply to his other works, but several others don't talk about cults. Like I said, The Dunwich Horror is a much better introduction to World of Lovecraft, although its ending is at odds with other writings.
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Old 04-17-2012, 06:49 PM   #6
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Yeah from what I've heard Lovecraft stories aren't as exciting as you'd think given the amount of Eldritch Abominations running around. From what I can gather this is due to Lovecraft taking 'Nothing is Scarier' to a new level so that books such as At the Mountains of Madness don't even have the narrator see the featured beasties. Not alive, anyways.
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Old 04-17-2012, 11:01 PM   #7
Talon87
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I don't even know what a kanakas is.
Here you go. It's a very old term. Lovecraft uses it in The Call of Cthulhu to no doubt refer to the Maori, the only clue to this being that these particular "kanakas" herald from New Zealand.

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Yes, it's very boring. I remember reading it in 10th grade and putting it down because it was about a detective talking about some dumb cult.

Kind of ironic Cthulu is the mascot of Lovecraft's work when it's such an inconsequential Great Old One.
That does strike me as strange. I always figured that Cthulhu was the strongest being in the Lovecraft universe but it's looking increasingly like that isn't the case. Then I thought, "Well, maybe he's the one who shows up most frequently," but that doesn't seem to be the case either!

In any event, I will try to find the one you've plugged several times now, Doppel. The Dunwich Horror, is it? I'll see if I can't find a public domain version online.

EDIT: Of course it was on the same site as before, as expetced. (Link here.) And once again, I find myself bored out of my mind. -.- I am currently here, at "In 1747 the Reverend Abijah Hoadley, newly come to the Congregational Church at Dunwich Village", and already I feel like reading the plot summary on Wikipedia again. This man does not weave narratives well in my opinion! Perhaps he had good ideas, I don't know, but good lord is he putting me to sleep with how he informs us, the readers, of the details of his tale!

Last edited by Talon87; 04-17-2012 at 11:26 PM.
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Old 04-18-2012, 12:01 AM   #8
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I don't think it was as bad as The Call of Cthulhu. There was a lot more action and intrigue, although it's age shows, especially with Lovecraft's vowel-less incantations to represent alien tongue.

One caveat with Lovecraft - he relies a lot on the reader "filling in the blanks" with his suggestions. Similar to Stephenie Meyer, I'd wager.
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Old 04-19-2012, 11:05 AM   #9
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Finished reading The Dunwich Horror. It was okay. =\ The several plot twists ...

Spoiler: show
Wilbur killing his own mother ...
Wilbur having half the body of an Eldritch horror ...
The sacrifice in the attic actually being Wilbur's fraternal twin ...

These were okay, I guess, but they really seemed to lack punch. Whether that's because of Lovecraft's soporific execution or because of an innate dullness I've no idea.

I really don't care for how Lovecraft writes. I have to scrunch my brows and decode what he's trying to tell me: not because his vocabulary is too difficult to follow but through a combination of (by contemporary standards) poor syntax and unnavigable plot progression. To be honest, his writing -- and the boredom and frustration I get from reading it -- reminds me a great deal of some of the authors whose works we were assigned to read in high school. Joseph Conrad and Willa Cather would surely call Lovecraft "friend," but I ... I cannot. His writing bores me. Which you know must be a ridiculous feat to pull off when the subject matter of his tales is so outlandish and (theoretically) exciting.
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Old 04-20-2012, 01:51 AM   #10
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Quote:
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These were okay, I guess, but they really seemed to lack punch. Whether that's because of Lovecraft's soporific execution or because of an innate dullness I've no idea.
Lovecraft hasn't aged well, both in subject matter and writing style. I imagine to the youth of the 1940's, who were innocent to fantasy as we post-Tolkein are innately familiar, Lovecraft's writing would appear quite shocking.

But to us, who've grown up with derivative writers taking ideas Lovecraft may have pioneered, and featuring them in lesser fanfiction that unintentionally approach's Lovecraft's writing style, his original ideas in their original form can't really be appreciated.

Given this, what's best to appreciate out of him is the world and atmosphere he's built, which isn't your cup of tea. Most of his horror stories end with a main character going insane or dying, hence why I recommended Dunwich - it's got a non-standard ending, and posits humanity as fragile and vulnerable to many other-worldly powers. Cosmic indifference resonated with a lot of people, because myths and legends throughout history have always assumed humanity to be the focus of the universe.

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Willa Cather would surely call Lovecraft "friend,"...
Woah, where did that come from? Now this topic did get me thinking about Cather but only because I actually read a bit of Lovecraft in high school. Cather weaves a good narrative if you get the right book (Death Comes for the Archbishop?) but there's absolutely no comparison between her and Lovecraft!
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Old 04-20-2012, 12:39 PM   #11
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Woah, where did that come from? [...] there's absolutely no comparison between her and Lovecraft!
But I say there is. The two write incredibly similarly, not in subject matter or themes but in writing style. Reading Lovecraft reminds me of reading My Antonia. I hated My Antonia. Terribly-written book, the most boring immigrant story I've ever heard. If Cather's story has captivated generations of Americans then my dad ought to pen his life story and collect the Pulitzer now. But putting aside how boring the tale itself was, Cather's writing style was itself also very boring. How she wove her tale was as bland as what she wove. And I feel that Lovecraft is a similarly boring weaver of tales. What he wants to discuss, his subject matter, is quite interesting: but how he wants to discuss it, his writing style, is not.
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Old 05-26-2012, 08:31 AM   #12
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I'm not a fan of his writing style either, but it works really well for this article on cats vs dogs. The snooty tone of his prose just adds to the hilarity. A must read if you're a cat lover, will probably hurt your feelings if you're a dog lover.
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