I read three Lovecraft stories this week and my opinion of them varies pretty greatly:
>1. The Music of Erich Zann - 6.5/10,
enjoyable in its creepy setting and use of liminality and 'lost places', proto-Mandela on some level, kind of fun but mostly enjoyed for its tone
>2. The Dunwich Horror - 8/10,
from the well-described setting to the various seeming biblical allusions (i.e. sacrificing on the high places, seeming immaculate conception for Lavinia's unholy spawn, etc). But the part that I felt was the main event were the whipporwills. I don't think I ever liked an element of a story quite as much as I did the whipporwills. I never heard one before so looking it up I can definitely imagine them mimicking dying human breaths like organic heart rate monitors. I was more horrified by the whips than by the monster itself.
>3. Nyarlahotep - 3/10,
this one sucked so bad that I'm annoyed that I ruined the streak so early. So vaguely written, so half-committed, not much description of why I should be so afraid of this being and a somewhat weird ending that, as he himself reports, was just someone's non-sequitur bad dream. I'm glad that he expanded upon the ideas in this for Zann but I didn't much enjoy reading this
So knowing this, where should I go next? He doesn't exactly have a lot of material so I want to savor it.
The Shadow Out of Time is my favourite.
Charles Dexter Ward I feel is maybe one of his better written stories.
Dreams in the Witch House, Shadow Over Innsmouth, and the Color Out of Space are very worth checking out.
I would also not particularly recommend The Call of Cthulhu, which I don't like very much.
The Call of Cthulhu is mad overrated.
Charles Dexter Ward is hammy, but I love it.
Shadow Over Innsmouth was my first and got me hooked.
I'd recommend
>Cool Air
>Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
>Pickman's Model
>The Lurking Fear
>The Rats In The Walls (this might be his best work)
>The Temple
>The Thing On The Doorstep
>The Shadow Out of Time is my favourite.
>Charles Dexter Ward I feel is maybe one of his better written stories.
>Dreams in the Witch House, Shadow Over Innsmouth, and the Color Out of Space are very worth checking out
All good but I liked Call of Cthulhu too.
I'd definitely add Rats in the Wall, At the Mountains of Madness, and of course Reanimator.
Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath too for something different
Why are dark cults worshipping increadibly powerful alien gods in the middle of nowhere so cool? Is the American NorthEast countryside really as comfy as Lovecraft makes it out to be?
The The Music of Erich Zann is my favorite. Also the last one I read in the lovecraft barns and noble collection book I have. Only one after that I read is mountains of madness because it’s famous. Maybe I’ll read the rest one day.
>..."the boundless daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, mindless Other Gods whose soul and messenger is the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep."
>" It is understood in the land of dream that the Other Gods have many agents moving among men; and all these agents, whether wholly human or slightly less than human, are eager to work the will of those blind and mindless things in return for the favour of their hideous soul and messenger*, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. "
I'm confused, how can Azathoth and the Other Gods be described as mindless yet have a will and a "soul and messenger"? What did Lovecraft mean by this?
>"are eager to work the will of those blind and mindless things"
This seems like a direct contradiction or oxymoron in terms. Was this descriptive dissonance intentional? Is he implying they have some vague will that doesn't necessarily account for a mind? Is he implying they are only mindless from out perspective? Is he just throwing adjectives around? IS he suggesting they don't have rational thought the way we understand it, but more alien drives?
>"These are the nameless larvae of the Other Gods, and like them are blind and without mind, and possessed of singular hungers and thirsts."
This seems to point to the later, but I don't know. Can anyone give me a good explanation? I'm confused.
>the will of mindless things
Plants are mindless but they still want to orient their leaves to catch the most sun, see it like an urge more than a will.
Most importantly though, Lovecraft never really intended for there to be a strict order with these 'deities', they mean different things in different stories and mood was much, much more important to HP than plot
I understand them in the way that Schopenhauer describes the Will, which is mindless and “blind”, it simply strives. There are a lot of Schopenhauerian themes in Lovecraft’s work. Thomas Ligotti takes a lot from that in his Lovecraft inspired horror stories as well.
I'm assuming "mindless" in the case of the Other Gods/Azathoth only really means "lack of rational thought" rather than lack of any kind of mental-existence whatsoever. The fact Azathoth dreams and has a messenger is more or less testament to this. I imagine they possess alien and chaotic impulses that Nyarlathotep that is somewhat "translated" through Nyarlathotep. What do you think?
I personally like The Dreams in the Witch House, which most critics hate. I like the other-dimensional imagery throughout
Play the point and click game. It’s surprisingly good, done by some lone autist in finland. Multiple endings, death is very possible and you have an rpg element with stats, so it’s not the p&c bullshit with rubbing cat hair on everything to see what works.
Damn, you're saying the output of a writer who was writing X stories a week for publishing in various magazines isn't all of a consistent quality and you have to decide for yourself which ones you like? That's messed up.
I recommend reading them all (you're wrong in saying he doesn't have a lot of material, but there's a lot of short stories so you can read however much you want) and deciding foe yourself which ones are good.
For me, At The Mountains Of Madness cannot be beat, and anything related to 'le Cthulhu mythos' feels rather weak.
The Colour out of Space is perhaps the closest in tone and scope to Dunwich, so that should be good.
Read some of his ghost-written and collaborative works as well. Out of the Aeons is pretty good.
>that one story where talking cats from the moon help him defeat eldrich monsters
???
I recommend reading these:
Pickaman’s Model and Rats in the Wall are good earlier stories.
Call of Cthulhu is also good but contrarians have come to hate it because reddit turned Cthulhu into a meme. It’s not HPL’s best but it’s a perfect summation of his style and his themes, even if it’s more pulpy than some of the other stories.
In the Mountains of Madness is HPL’s masterpiece, I would either follow Cthulhu with this or leave it for last. Shadow Out of Time is his second best story.
Shadow Over Innsmouth, Colour out of Space, Whisperer in Darkenss, and Haunter of the Dark are all solid horror narratives and essential HPL. imo these are all Dunwich Horror quality or better.
Dreams in the Witch House, Thing on the Doorstep and Charles Dexter Ward are also worth reading.
Besides this you have the deeper cuts, some good, some ok, some bad, I would avoid unless you really enjoy HPL. If you do, you might want to read his Dream Cycle stories.
I honestly just find Call of Cthulhu way too boring and meandering. Like half of that story is the side story about the detective. The part with the main character encountering Cthulhu is the good part.
>Like half of that story is the side story about the detective.
That’s the best part. The ending where they defeat an eldritch incomprehensible horror by crashing a boat into it is the stupidest part.
Skip dexter ward, the autismal and repetitive descriptions of new england are a chore and add nothing to the horror feels like filler, no wonder lovecraft hated editing it
Man, why is late 19th century/early 20th century horror fiction so much more creative than the stuff thought of nowadays? I'm reading the Night Land atm and it has some really great and cool imagery in it. I suppose people had less to do so they improved their imaginations more or something.
Videogames and movies have largely ruined the imagination of mankind, which is ironic because a lot of movies and most videogames are directly or indirectly inspired by the literature from that era.
You're looking at it the wrong way. Video games is where a certain kind of fiction aimed at young men mostly transitioned to (after comics kind of faded out in the 90's).
There's a straight line there. The pulp magazines gave way to comics, and then comics gave way to video games.
Now video games are overly corporate and gay, so we need to find some new form of expression that maybe hasn't quite arrived yet, but will probably come on the back of AI advancements.
>death of the author and rise of the committee
Sad. The nexts step will probably be more efficient tools to find exactly what you want to read / play / watch etc.
I mean that sort of thing is already 20 years late, banks and insurance agencies (who were in position to apply these measures and counterbalance media and political interests) obviously dropped the ball
>AI will save us!!!
And then you wonder why creativity is dead. Keep playing videogames, I’m sure they will really stimulate your imagination.
He's the personification of 'hit and miss'. His later stories (The Book, What the Moon Brings) are his best work imo.
It's a personal autism of mine, but I liked the doom of Sarnath very much.
The Doom of Sarnath is also a favourite of mine. Lovecraft lovingly describing this opulant massive fantasy city with its own empire, rich and powerful at its height to be blown away and destroyed as a consequence of the actions of its founders .
It reads like being a little kid lining up your little soldiers ust to have them all killed, or building a city just to destory it with your cool monster/dragon/dinosaur.
Also the 'men' of Ib did nothing wrong and one of the alien races of Lovecraft that are genuinely portrayed as being wronged by humans and are not monstrous due to their inhumanity/ alien nature.
The Color Out of Space was Lovecraft's own favorite and is probably his most influential story, all things considered. If you had to read only one, I'd recommend that.
Whisperer in the Darkness is tense, well paced, and an unusually told story. Might be my favorite.
Rats in the Walls is more gothic than cosmic, but still has the Lovecraft flavor.
Herbert West: Reanimator is a good read, but there's nothing about it that's especially Lovecraft, aside from his total contempt for Black folk. Still entertaining.