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I am a huge fan of the works of H.P. Lovecraft (and the other authors of his circle.) His work and style are among my largest influences. But, it kind of seems (note I say kind of seems) like there arent a lot of people here that seem to be too familiar with the stuff. Or at least I rarely see the name come up, or the styles recognized.
So I am just curious...who has heard of Lovecraft?
How many have read his stuff?
Enjoyed it?
Written stories in a similar style/vein/subject matter?
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Lovecraft was, for his day, a genius. Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, At the Mountains of Madness, The Necronomicon, The Dream Cycle and innumerable short stories will forever inspire psychological horror in authors who write more than gorefests. I think it's funny that you'd assume nobody read Lovecraft (I've illustrated two of his flash stories for Flash Fiction Online). There's not much mention of Edgar Allen Poe, Robert E. Howard, Byron, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells or Edgar Rice Burroughs either, but I wouldn't just assume nobody's read them.
However, Lovecraft has been often imitated; never duplicated. When mimicking a writer's style, particularly that writer's, there are going to be people who notice the archaism of the prose, or that the plot elements are overused.
[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited May 12, 2008).]
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Thats why I said "kind of seems." :-) and thats why I said, note that I said, kind of seems.
I uncovered the "Collect call of Cthulhu" episode of the Ghostbusters cartoon on youtube a few days ago. So I'm feeling Lovecraftian and just want to see who else around here are fans.
quote:Lovecraft was, for his day, a genius.
Still is. the "day" doesnt really make much difference, to me at least.
I think the thing I love most about Lovecraft is he is one of few writers who when reading their stuff you feel like they truly loved and believed in the stories they told.
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I've read a lot of his work. And I second what IB said - I've seen people attempt to imitate it (myself included), but I've never seen anyone successfully imitate it.
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My Latin teacher read one of HPL's stories (I think it's called 'The Thing in the Museum', but I don't have it to check)to my class when I was 11. I read all his stories not too long after, but haven't revisited him for years.
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I think maybe his name doesn't come up here often because more of us are focused on fantasy and sci fi over horror (based on the number of entries in each genre I've noticed in FFSS and FFN). But I wouldn't assume that few have read him.
I've read through a collection or two. I guess I can see how he might have once been chilling. I think he's rather silly, personally, but then I find a lot of horror hard for me to get into. I've imitated his style, but when purposefully writing in an affected style evocative of that era and that genre.
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I also think people here are a little to hung up on concepts of "horror.."
Even tho he gets put in that section, I dont think of Lovecraft as horror...at least, not in the sense most people think of it...at all. Really, to me, he's a genre of his own. He called it "terror" of course. He was out to evoke a sense that to me is more like awe or dread than like personall fear.
"horror" is just anything meant to be scary. I think in the literary/publishing/literature retail community almost anything with supernatural elements that are...antagonistic and/or are set in something other than the distant past get slapped with "horror."
Its also weird to me that hatrackers seem to put "horror" (meaning Stephen King-esque supernatural tales set in the present) so far seperate from sci fi/fantasy. To me stories come in 2 types: those with "unusual" (or speculative or whatever) elements, and those without
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I've heard of Lovecraft, but mainly from fans of his work. An adequately educated person could probably identify him as "an author" after some thought, he's not exactly a household name. But I'm intrigued...
For a Lovecraft neophyte, what do you recommend as the best story to start with?
quote:An adequately educated person could probably identify him as "an author" after some thought, he's not exactly a household name.
What?!?!?! Lovecraft not a household name? You've probably watched movies based on his work. Just curious: is Robert E. Howard a household name to you? Bram Stoker? Isaac Asimov? Robert A. Heinlein? J.R.R. Tolkien? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? John D. MacDonald? Patrick O'Brian? (A fair mix of genres...)
quote:For a Lovecraft neophyte, what do you recommend as the best story to start with?
Thats a tough one, as I love them all. Theres a couple different ways people classify his stuff...there Cthulhu Mythos, and Dream Cycle, and I also some times think in terms of his earlier stuff (a lot of which is also Dream Cycle) and later stuff.
His work is mostly collected in volumes of short stories. The Dunwhich Horror and Others is always good. The Road to Madness (The transition of H.P. Lovecraft) is a favorite of mine and contains early works.
As far as individual stories...well theres The Dunwhich Horror, The Call of Cthulhu, The Dreams in the Witch-house, The Haunter of the Dark,The Music of Erich Zann, The Whisperer in Darkness....those are some of the iconic Cthulhu Mythos stories.
Favorites of mine also include The White Ship, the Horror at Red Hook, The Festival, The Temple and The Shunned House.
Ohh do be aware though, he was a child of his times and the earlier stuff especially contains descreptions that are racist in nature. He also does not write in the modern "transparent" style.
[This message has been edited by Merlion-Emrys (edited May 12, 2008).]
quote:What?!?!?! Lovecraft not a household name? You've probably watched movies based on his work. Just curious: is Robert E. Howard a household name to you? Bram Stoker? Isaac Asimov? Robert A. Heinlein? J.R.R. Tolkien? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? John D. MacDonald? Patrick O'Brian? (A fair mix of genres...)
With the possible exceptions of (recently) Tolkien and maybe Bram Stoker, for the average person none of those are household names. Most people read very little, and even less do they read "genre" stuff.
Now most of those are household names for people like us, but we're not like most people. I'd be willing to guess virtually everyone I work with wouldnt recognize...possibly any of those names, definitely not more than 1 or 2
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Although you are right, Mr. Babbly, that many people have probably seen movies based on, or at least heavily influenced by, Lovecraft. In terms of sheer number of references and inspirations, he is a very, very influential writer. A huge bulk of fantasy/sci fi/horror stuff has at least one or two Lovecraftian references.
Heck, Cthulhu's head is buried in one of the Night Elf areas in World of Warcraft :-)
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Ah, it's a sad fact of life that most of those authors you mentioned, IB, as being influenced by Lovecraft are actually more widely known than Lovecraft. Happens all the time -- the innovators either don't get the credit, or get recognized waaay after the fact.
Metallica had a song called "Call of Ktulu", supposedly inspired by Lovecraft's story. This may have been the first time I heard of Lovecraft. (and speaking of influences, mention "Budgie" to a typical headbangin' Metallica fan, and you'd probably get a blank stare).
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I think there are a couple Metallica songs with vague Lovecraft references.
He's all over Dungeons and Dragons...especially the Psionics stuff of Bruce Cordell.
Lots of action in video games too...and a good bit in television. Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer all have Lovecraft references and influences. I just read the Wikipedia pag for Yog-Sothoth...it mentions some Buffy fans think Dawn might actually be a manifestation of Yog-Sothoth. :-) that makes me oddly happy.
quote: Ah, it's a sad fact of life that most of those authors you mentioned, IB, as being influenced by Lovecraft are actually more widely known than Lovecraft. Happens all the time -- the innovators either don't get the credit, or get recognized waaay after the fact.
The authors I listed were not necessarily inspired by Lovecraft, though Howard might have been to a degree since they were friends. They had something in common with Lovecraft: they were all innovators in their genres.
quote: Metallica had a song called "Call of Ktulu", supposedly inspired by Lovecraft's story. This may have been the first time I heard of Lovecraft.
Metallica also had The Thing That Should Not Be in reference to Cthulhu. Metallica cites a plethora of artists (Chief among the King Diamond) as major influences, but that's another subject entirely.
The crowds I hang with know all of the names--rarely does someone not--if all they know are the names. And almost everybody knows their major products. Who hasn't heard of Conan the Barbarian? Master and Commander? Sherlock Holmes? Dracula? The Puppet Masters/Starship Troopers? I, Robot? Okay, so Travis Magee may not be as well known nowadays, but Stephen King used MacDonald's Alexis Machine in The dark Half and credited it.
[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited May 12, 2008).]
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I never heard of Lovecraft until fairly late in my history, maybe 4 years ago, when I finally read Stephen King's Danse Macabre, and since then researching writers who influenced modern writers. I don't think he shows up in many school curricula, and as far as I know, he never had a "breakout novel" akin to Dracula or Frankenstein. Relatively few people turn to short stories for their leisure reading.
I don't find it all surprising that his name is not a "household" name for most people. For those for whom he is/was, count yourselves lucky.
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I have read a few of Lovecraft's books/stories.
I found them very much 'of the period' in which he wrote them, ie underlying themes, prejudices and assumptions that continued to jolt me out of the story.
Similarly, the old master, M.R.James' stories are great too, but have an underlying attitude of english upperclass privilege that can hoist me out of the story and into doing the dishes or watching TV.
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None of those things bother me at all...usually the contrary. Even less so because from what I've read, he got over some of his racism later in life.
But the anachronisms are one (of the more minor) things I enjoy about his work.
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it was more the social hierarchy thing that got me, that's why I cited MRJames. However, it does lend context and is great that way.
I enjoyed Hounds of Tindalos immensely. (Frank Belknap Long -- Cthulu mythos).
It is one of those stories that emerges from the backrooms of my brain, covered in dust-bunnies and lint, blinks in the light and looks at me like it wants to say something.
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My main Lovecraft exposure is through role-playing. I used to LARP Call of Cthulu (yay for arm-length tentacle sleeves and unexpected demon babies!) and I've played a few tabletop campaigns.
It's hard to find a good group because most GM's don't know enough about psychology, but I recently had the amazing luck of meeting a psychiatric crisis clinician who's also a gamer, and whose everyday life can rather resemble a session of Cthulu.
The Cthulhu RPG interests me because its neat seeing Lovecraftian stuff given game stats. I'm not so sure about playing it though...since your pretty much doomed from the getgo.
Lovecraft has been a major influence on my writing (though perhaps not in his style!). Ramsey Campbell - who I consider to be one of the greatest stylists in ANY genre - has called this 'type' of fiction 'visionary horror' which maybe isn't quite accurate, because there is as much awe and wonder as there is fear and loathing...though Mr Campbell is so good that I don't really want to argue with ANYTHING he says!
I've written my fair share of Lovecraft-inspired pieces, but I've always used my own writing style, rather than imitating his. That said, I do enjoy reading work from an earlier period, and I also love MR James and Poe. I do think that, as writers, we should read anything and everything that grabs our interest, regardless of when/where/how/why it was written, or whatever genre it may end up being ascribed to.
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I have one of Shub-Niggurath's young in a field out back. It won't eat the grass, only the weeds. And don't ask what it's done to the tree in the corner.
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Late in the game, but...well, I've been a Lovecraft fan since I read Sprage de Camp's [somewhat suspect, I've been told] Lovecraft biography in the seventies. When I stumbled across the Arkham House editions of Lovecraft's work, sometime in the nineties, I bought them. (This was back before you could order anything online---well, at least before I could.)
I'd recommend his work to any aspiring horror or fantasy writer---though beware that others build upon what Lovecraft did, to the point where they really don't do it like Lovecraft did.
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