What are you currently reading?

[karlhenning]

Why Begins with W, presented by Hamish De'Lamet & Chandral Ramon . . . it was a lot of fun the first time, and remains great fun on a re-read

Is That What People Do?, collected short stories by Robert Sheckley . . . in the wake of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Sheckley's publisher reissued some paperbacks with a blurb from Douglas Adams: "I had no idea the competition was so terrifyingly good." While I have something of a fond preference for Dramocles: An Inter-Galactic Soap Opera, some of the short stories I like scarcely less well.  In particular, "The Robot Who Looked Like Me."

[Lethevich]

Does anybody know any authors who wrote things similar to the short stories of MR James and Lovecraft? Specifically from their generation - earlier writers such as Poe and Shelley are too well-known and write in more florid English: there is something about James and Lovecraft which feels so direct and clearly-written, yet also ideally retaining vestiges of the Romantic "afraid of the shadows" feelings.

[karlhenning]

If anyone know, MN Dave will . . . .

[Grazioso]

Does anybody know any authors who wrote things similar to the short stories of MR James and Lovecraft? Specifically from their generation - earlier writers such as Poe and Shelley are too well-known and write in more florid English: there is something about James and Lovecraft which feels so direct and clearly-written, yet also ideally retaining vestiges of the Romantic "afraid of the shadows" feelings.

Well, I disagree with your assessment of Lovecraft's style: it's awkward at best, filled with inappropriate anachronisms and descriptions that range from florid to turgid. One could argue against Romanticism in his work, too, as he was more rooted in a modern or even Modernist aesthetic.

But as for some similar authors of his day, many of his friends and correspondents wrote somewhat similar pulp horror, fantasy, or SF: Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, etc. Check out The Horror in the Museum, which gathers most of his editing or ghost-writing work for contemporary authors writing in that vein.

[Scarpia]

Well, I disagree with your assessment of Lovecraft's style: it's awkward at best, filled with inappropriate anachronisms and descriptions that range from florid to turgid. One could argue against Romanticism in his work, too, as he was more rooted in a modern or even Modernist aesthetic.

But as for some similar authors of his day, many of his friends and correspondents wrote somewhat similar pulp horror, fantasy, or SF: Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, etc. Check out The Horror in the Museum, which gathers most of his editing or ghost-writing work for contemporary authors writing in that vein.

I disagree with your disagreement.  Lovecraft's style, although not a high literary form, is perfectly suited to his purpose.

To the original question, this collection may give some hints as to other writers who might be similar to Lovecraft

[asin]0679601287[/asin]

[karlhenning]

I disagree with your disagreement.  Lovecraft's style, although not a high literary form, is perfectly suited to his purpose.

Hear, hear.

Grazi, I think your remarks on the Film Music thread have sound application here:

You raise an interesting point. I think you're absolutely right in that the fair--and often the most edifying--way to approach an art form is to get inside it and approach it on its own terms . . . .

Or (as I've said before) historically, it is not that part of the audience which finds itself out of sympathy with the artist, to whom it is ultimately given to evaluate that artist.

[The Diner]

I disagree with your disagreement.  Lovecraft's style, although not a high literary form, is perfectly suited to his purpose.

To the original question, this collection may give some hints as to other writers who might be similar to Lovecraft

[asin]0679601287[/asin]

I second that recommendation.

[Grazioso]

Hear, hear.

Grazi, I think your remarks on the Film Music thread have sound application here:

Or (as I've said before) historically, it is not that part of the audience which finds itself out of sympathy with the artist, to whom it is ultimately given to evaluate that artist.

I understand your point, but fwiw, I spent years reading, enjoying, and studying the life and work of our dear friend from Providence. I've read all his fiction (and most of his obscure non-fiction), all the published letters, almost all of the biography and criticism then available, etc. In other words, I'm sympathetic 

As much as I enjoyed his work, I have to admit that his prose style leaves much to be desired, with too much circumlocution, awkward archaisms (heck, he would have printed the stories with the long S if he'd be allowed!), and mannerisms that seem almost self-parodic by the time you've read the entire oeuvre.

"It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to show by this statement that I am not his murderer. At first I shall be called a madman - madder than the man I shot in his cell at the Arkham Sanitarium. Later some of my readers will weigh each statement, correlate it with the known facts, and ask themselves how I could have believed otherwise than I did after facing the evidence of that horror - that thing on the doorstep."

"On the right of the hole out of which they wriggled, and seen through aisles of monoliths, was a stupendous vista of cyclopean round towers mounting up illimitable into the grey air of inner earth. This was the great city of the Gugs, whose doorways are thirty feet high."

= not good

That said, one could argue that his style works, after a degree, precisely in that it often apes a dead mode of expression ultimately rooted in the Enlightenment ("There has never been any prose as good as that of the early eighteenth century, and anyone who thinks he can improve upon Swift, Steele, and Addison is a blockhead."). One of HPL's chief philosophical aims in his tales is to undermine the smugness of rationality by exposing it to truths--"scientific" truths, crucially, and not supernatural ones--too difficult to handle. So, we get an interesting frisson when his men of reason are undone by the truth:

"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 light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. "

Ironic, of course, that HPL was fervent in his espousal of mechanistic materialism, and of science over dogma.

[Lethevich]

To the original question, this collection may give some hints as to other writers who might be similar to Lovecraft

[snip]

Hmm, there seem to be some older editions of this edited by one "Phyllis Fraser" - presumably prior to her marriage - for a lot cheaper. I picked up one of Amazon marketplace's popular 1p entries, danke!

[karlhenning]

I understand your point, but fwiw, I spent years reading, enjoying, and studying the life and work of our dear friend from Providence. I've read all his fiction (and most of his obscure non-fiction), all the published letters, almost all of the biography and criticism then available, etc. In other words, I'm sympathetic 

As much as I enjoyed his work, I have to admit that his prose style leaves much to be desired, with too much circumlocution, awkward archaisms (heck, he would have printed the stories with the long S if he'd be allowed!), and mannerisms that seem almost self-parodic by the time you've read the entire oeuvre.

"It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to show by this statement that I am not his murderer. At first I shall be called a madman - madder than the man I shot in his cell at the Arkham Sanitarium. Later some of my readers will weigh each statement, correlate it with the known facts, and ask themselves how I could have believed otherwise than I did after facing the evidence of that horror - that thing on the doorstep."

"On the right of the hole out of which they wriggled, and seen through aisles of monoliths, was a stupendous vista of cyclopean round towers mounting up illimitable into the grey air of inner earth. This was the great city of the Gugs, whose doorways are thirty feet high."

= not good

That said, one could argue that his style works, after a degree, precisely in that it often apes a dead mode of expression ultimately rooted in the Enlightenment ("There has never been any prose as good as that of the early eighteenth century, and anyone who thinks he can improve upon Swift, Steele, and Addison is a blockhead."). One of HPL's chief philosophical aims in his tales is to undermine the smugness of rationality by exposing it to truths--"scientific" truths, crucially, and not supernatural ones--too difficult to handle. So, we get an interesting frisson when his men of reason are undone by the truth:

"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 light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. "

Ironic, of course, that HPL was fervent in his espousal of mechanistic materialism, and of science over dogma.

Thank you for your response, most interesting!

Not that it necessarily applies in your case . . . but sometimes, being too close to / fluent in an artist winds up being a kind of toxic overload.  In all events, I do appreciate that you gave the fellow a couple of notches better even than a fair shake.

(FWIW, I haven't felt any affinity for Lovecraft.)

[Scarpia]

= not good

I find the anachronistic style of writing part an integral part of it.

[Scarpia]

Hmm, there seem to be some older editions of this edited by one "Phyllis Fraser" - presumably prior to her marriage - for a lot cheaper. I picked up one of Amazon marketplace's popular 1p entries, danke!

The edition I have mentions that is a re-issue of a very popular volume issued long ago.  I wonder if the line-up of stories has changed.

[Grazioso]

Thank you for your response, most interesting!

Not that it necessarily applies in your case . . . but sometimes, being too close to / fluent in an artist winds up being a kind of toxic overload.  In all events, I do appreciate that you gave the fellow a couple of notches better even than a fair shake.

(FWIW, I haven't felt any affinity for Lovecraft.)

Being too close to/fluent in an artist can also warp perceptions. It's salutary to take a step back now and then.

I'm sympathetic towards HPL but not uncritical. I'd certainly recommend his stories to anyone who likes classic horror, but I won't pretend he's a towering literary genius. I actually find his life and letters more interesting than his fiction.

I find the anachronistic style of writing part an integral part of it.

At times it suits the setting and characters to a degree (insofar as the stories actually have true characters--individuals are, per HPL's philosophy of "cosmic indifferentism," not important). You have all those narrators who are thinly veiled surrogates for Lovecraft himself, with their old New England roots, antiquarian propensities, & c. But he lays it all on rather thickly.

[karlhenning]

Being too close to/fluent in an artist can also warp perceptions. It's salutary to take a step back now and then.

I'd even say necessary rather than salutary.

[Grazioso]

I'd even say necessary rather than salutary.

With art, if one hasn't looked closely enough to see the flaws, one probably hasn't grasped the strengths very well, either. Too close an attachment, too unbridled an enthusiasm, and it becomes hard to see either critically.

[eyeresist]

= not good

I've read plenty worse. And I must credit HPL that if he failed he failed very much on his own terms, fully aware of what he was attempting.

[Grazioso]

I've read plenty worse. And I must credit HPL that if he failed he failed very much on his own terms, fully aware of what he was attempting.

It was a dark and stormy night at Miskatonic University  As for his terms, I'm not sure that's entirely true since for HPL it was almost literally a case of publish or perish for much of his adult life. As much as he wanted to see himself as a privileged Anglo-Saxon aristocrat above stooping to commercial realities, he had to make ends meet. And he seems to have had a love-hate relationship with the pulps in which he published. For all their faults, that was the only market for his stories, and that whole creative milieu provided him with most of his friends. He might want to complain about Weird Tales, or whatever, but he was deeply immersed in that world.

[CD]

[karlhenning]

"The Native Problem" by Robt Sheckley, which strangely I do not remember reading before (and I believe I would remember, if I had read it). Particularly good, even for Sheckley.

[karlhenning]

This:

On this day...

2006 – A man using a hammer smashed the statue of Phra Phrom in the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand, and was subsequently beaten to death by bystanders.

Which hardly seems like it's happened in the 21^st century.