H.P Lovecraft

J

Jebadiah_Smith

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Jul 28, 2004
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878
When I first heard about H.P Lovecraft, I thought he was some kind of porn star. (Heeey, baby, guess what the H.P stands for...) I remember crouching im the horror section at Borders and looking at some of his books. They all looked pretty different from what i usually read and I remember passing them up for a copy of The Stand by Stephen King (a great book itself).

This last trip back I was again lured to the horror section and this time picked up one of his books. I bought Crawling Chaos, which is a compilation of short stories. I have been reading it and it has blown me away.

The stories are so vivid, beautiful, and unlike Stephen Kings, actually scary. If I read them before going to bed at night, and I just know that ill be having some weird dreams. I really love them all. Insanity and drug use seem to be reoccuring themes. This guy must have really been on the brink himself.

I think I remember some people here talking about Him awhile back so I figured I'd post. I was just wondering if any of you had read anything by him and, what did you think?

Thanks,
Brian
 
I you really enjoy Lovecraft, you should avoid the many later writers who have taken his material and turned it into the so-called "Cthulhu Mythos," which totally betrays the original spirit of his work.
 
I've read the first 2 Arkham collections of his short stories. Truly a visionary writer. I've not yet visited his house, but I've driven through some of the towns he wrote about, and hiked through the area that "The Dunwich Horror" ends in.
 
I totally disagree with Ruel.
Some authors are better than others,
but I really enjoy many of the stories written by later authors.
 
There were a lot of people in his circle of influence, including Manly Wade Wellman, who wrote the 'Silver John' stories, plus a lot of others who escape me at to moment. William Hope Hodgson, who preceed him somewhat is also an excellant writer.

You know that the 'H.P.' stand for Howard Phillip, right?

He also played something of a role in 'The Illuminatus Trilogy', the ultimate conspiracy story (the whole thing starts back in Atlantis).
 
Yep, them's good reading, Jeb. Id say read "Dreams of Terror and Death" next, another compilation of short stories with a bit fo crossover with the ones you've read. After that you MUST read "The Dream Cycle of HP Lovecraft", which ties so much together it rocks.

The guy who taught em all how to write like that was August Derleth, so do check him out.

N2S, Gladta see ya blac online, thanks for the link! I take it the storm is passed, or still comin?

Keith
 
Another member of his circle of friends was Robert E Howard, author of the original Conan stories.

They went back and forth a lot and a bunch of the Cthulhu elder gods figure into some of the Conan strories.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to walk my shoggoth.
 
The first Lovecraft i picked up was "At the Mountains of Madness". I instantly fell in love with his writing. Sometimes a difficult read, but well worth it in the end. Lotta good short stories in that book. I plan on reading a lot of his works once business slows down in the fall. I heard somewhere that del Tormo the director of Blade II and Hellboy was going try his hand at "At the Mountains of Madness". If done well, it should be a pretty good flick. Although not flat out based verbatum on his books, he has had a lot of influence on sci fi and horror movies. Reanimator, Cast A Deadly Spell, and Castle Freak all had H.P. Lovecraft's name attached to the title. The Sci-Fi channel did an OK dirrect to video movie called Dagon based on some of his stuff not too long ago. As you can see, I'm short on time and lazy to boot so i have to draw my exposure to great writing from the tid bits i pick out of the crap of movies. Excellent thread:) Good to have you around the cantina, Jebadiah:)

Jake
 
If I remember right, Lovecraft's theme was that regular people were on a totally different level from these alien entities... there was really no way they could fight back, or even understand it all, and this was why it was so horrifying. I think that any movie adaption would not be faithful to this theme, in order to have some sort of "winner" in the conflict.
 
Aardvark said:
You know that the 'H.P.' stand for Howard Phillip, right?
Click to expand...

Yes I knew that, my comment was a joke about how his name sounds like that of a porn star. :footinmou

Im glad alot of people responded to this. I knew a few people here had read him but not so many.
 
I love his stuff, and while I have read those who write in the universe he created, HPL was and is the master. Probably not the best stuff to read if depressed. :eek: :( (Don't know if our cat "Lurker" likes it though. He's not talking.)
 
I read HP when I was pretty young just for the thrills and chills. Sadly I don't recall much about his stories except that they created chills even in the daytime.:eek: And they gave me nightmares sometimes.

Mom & dad got caught in the early encyclopedia sales craze and bought me a set of them when I was 7 years old (1947) and could just barely read.
What was really nice is that the encyclopedias came with a set of about 10 story books created for different ages and ability. I started with the first one of course but I didn't stop there, Mom had to help me with a lot of words at first but I learned to read at several levels above my age with those books.
When I was about 13 we lived next door to a used book store and I discovered Sci-Fi much to my mom's chagrin. She didn't like me reading the stuff but never stopped me, just tried to steer me into different avenues.
I read a lot of strange stuff for my age way before my time. Didn't understand it all but enjoyed it nonetheless.:D

I gave the story books to my daughter for her kids and she never taught them respect and now they're gone forever. Another thing I wish I had of kept.:( Those books meant a lot to me and I wish I still had them. If I ever find a set I'm going to buy them even if I have to sell a lot of my khuk's to do so!:eek:
 
Thats a shame Yvsa :( .

Maybe you can give us some clues so we can maybe find them on the net. Like what year was it? What was the company? It seems like you can find everything online of you look hard enough.
 
Just finished reading The Call of Cthulhu again after many, many, years of forgetfulness. It is still a horror story worth remembrance and I hope it doesn't awaken old nightmares again. That's a subject for another thread.;)
I don't know if I'm looking forward to reading anymore of his stories or not, if so they will most definitely be read in the daytime!:eek: :rolleyes: :D

Was there another author that wrote something of Cthulhu or similar a few, many, years later, or did Lovecraft himself revisit it?
It seems like I read another story of similar content but it seems it was more octopus related, or am I just confused?:eek: :confused:
The story I seem to remember bothered me greatly at the time but then again it may have been Lovecraft's original and I'm just not recalling it acturately but it doesn't seem so.
Maybe it's just because I repressed it for so long that I can't recall it....
 
Walking Man said:
I totally disagree with Ruel.
Some authors are better than others,
but I really enjoy many of the stories written by later authors.
Click to expand...

Maybe, but I think the "demons locked in another dimension waiting to be set free and wreak havoc on mankind" is alot less sophisticated than Lovecraft's original concept, which was that there are forces in the universe so vast and powerful that even the mere awareness of them drives mortals to fevered insanity. The effectiveness of Lovecraftian horror is in the idea that our everyday normal existence could be utterly destroyed and swept away at any moment by even a small, chance encounter with one of these ancient powers, which are far beyond the ability of humans to impose our limited notions of good and evil upon. All the things we use to make sense of our lives, like values and faith, mean nothing in the face of this higher, hidden reality.

That, I believe, is what gets lost in nearly all the subsequent derivative "Cthulhu Mythos" fiction.
 
There are several references to the "Cthulhu Mythos" on Google.

I found this one to be nicely informative.:D

Edit:
Be sure and click on the links in the place above the main page when you get there. Evidently there's quite a following of the
"Cthulhu Mythos!" There's some cute things for sale there.:D
 
I actually wrote my senior paper on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. He's one of my favorite authors. I can re-read all of his stuff and never get tired of it. I hope to visit his musem in Providence one day.
The very basic idea behind his work is the fear of the unknown. Lovecraft himself was said to be very xenophobic. In my research I found several contradictions. I saw one article that spoke of how he would never leave his local area and rarely his house, while others said that he took many "secret" trips around the world. Who knows? Its all very interesting though.
Something else that I found funny was that even though Lovecraft himself insisted that both the Necronomicon and Abdul Al-Hazred were fictional creations of his, many fans and other people insisted that at least the book was real. There have been many discussions that I have read where people believe that Lovecraft himself discovered the Necronomicon and knew a great deal about the elder gods from personal experiance. :eek:
I just treat them as stories and one of my favorites is Dreams in the Witchhouse. I personally think that Lovecraft influenced more writers than Hemmingway. If you look closely you can see traces in just about all of the modern horror writers and many sci-fi ones as well.

- D
 
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