133 years ago...

[ruemere]

Folks,

133 years ago, on 20th of August, in the year of 1890, a writer was born:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

 

[TerraDave]

I certainly not here to praise Lovecraft the person.

But there is no denying that his writing and its influence is as relevant and visible as it has ever been.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Terrible person, great literary contribution.

 

[overgeeked]

Absolute trash human, utter genius writer.

 

[Umbran]

Absolute trash human, utter genius writer.

Well... while he's got a lot of ideas in there that have been of great to others in there, much of his own prose is kind of... tedious?

 

[MGibster]

Well... while he's got a lot of ideas in there that have been of great to others in there, much of his own prose is kind of... tedious?

Even as a fan of Lovecraft, I've got to admit a lot of his writing is a slog to get through. For a man whose work has inspired the likes of Stephen King and Neil Gaiman, and has trickled into popular culture in a surprising number of ways including songs by Metallica and Black Sabbath, appearances in South Park, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and The Real Ghostbusters, and even the Archie comic book series Archie in the Afterlife, a lot of people have never read anything by Lovecraft. And while I don't think it helps that he died in relative obscurity and a young age, it's the prose that makes his work difficult for people to read. Oh, and the racist content too.

Broadly speaking, I find fans of Lovecraft typically fall into one of three categories.

1. Horror fans.
2. Authors.
3. Gamers.

I suspect if you ask the average person on the street who H.P. Lovecraft is that you'd mostly get shrugs.

 

[pemerton]

I'm another one who thinks his ideas are more interesting than his execution.

 

[Nikosandros]

Well... while he's got a lot of ideas in there that have been of great to others in there, much of his own prose is kind of... tedious?

It's not smooth-flowing, for sure, but - personally - I've never found it tedious. I know that however many consider it so.

 

[pemerton]

It's not smooth-flowing, for sure, but - personally - I've never found it tedious. I know that however many consider it so.

At The Mountains of Madness is pretty bad, in my view.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It's not smooth-flowing, for sure, but - personally - I've never found it tedious. I know that however many consider it so.

Personally, I find that his purple, antiquated, and overly verbose language actually heightens the effect of the cosmic horror.

But yeah, he's not Hemmingway.