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BottledBodhisvata posted:Is it? I mean, besides run-on-sentences, I didn't really see any major technical flaws with how he wrote. He basically just emulates/rips-off antiquated styles of writing, ranging from Poe to Edmund Spencer probably his most grotesque crime against style is his outrageous overuse of hyperbolic adjectives
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Dec 22, 2014 19:09
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Is it? I mean, besides run-on-sentences, I didn't really see any major technical flaws with how he wrote. He basically just emulates/rips-off antiquated styles of writing, ranging from Poe to Edmund Spencer its extremely bad.
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Dec 22, 2014 19:12
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Bob James posted:The first story of his I read featured a cat named "friend of the family Man". i remember reading this story in an office setting and the whole time i was worried someone would glance over my shoulder and be like "wtf are you reading weirdo"
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Dec 22, 2014 19:14
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nomadologique posted:probably his most grotesque crime against style is his outrageous overuse of hyperbolic adjectives But without that we wouldn't have "cyclopean"!
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Dec 22, 2014 19:14
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BottledBodhisvata posted:Is it? I mean, besides run-on-sentences, I didn't really see any major technical flaws with how he wrote. He basically just emulates/rips-off antiquated styles of writing, ranging from Poe to Edmund Spencer he contributed a lot to the horror genre yes but his use of the words 'eldritch', 'cyclopean', 'Euclidean', 'antiquarian', and 'abnormal hideous nameless bas-relief' gets groan-worthy after you read them 100 times
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Dec 22, 2014 19:19
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He wrote a contemporary 50 Shades of fhtagn, got it.
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Dec 22, 2014 19:23
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Happy Bear Suit posted:imma stop you right there your posts are ichorous
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Dec 22, 2014 19:26
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I've been to west virginia and his story checks out. They're so loving weird they don't differentiate between the living and the dead, and spend all day sunday in the cemetary having long, vivid conversations with their dead relatives, whom they claim to be able to hear. I have Lovecraft style fears about turning into one of them, since I know for a fact my granddad was one of them. If you hear about a man clad in blue overalls immolating himself in public, that will be me, and it will be because I wake up one day knowing how to play the dulcimer, proof that I have quickened and soon I will be a thrall of nyarlathotep
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Dec 22, 2014 19:55
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A good satire of Lovecraft is Neil Gaiman's Shoggoth's Old Peculiar, Here's him reading it (Part 1 of 3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN1HElM_ECA
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Dec 23, 2014 01:55
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nomadologique posted:what the gently caress is this, antarctica wasn't a wintry wasteland when they were active, it was a tropical freakin paradise Could be the last one standing, like the story described.
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Dec 23, 2014 02:01
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i really like The Colour Out of Space because it is tripped teh gently caress out. i mean that story is nuts
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Dec 23, 2014 02:08
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I hated everything written by the not-lovecrafts but i read http://www.amazon.com/Necronomicon-The-Wanderings-Alhazred-Series/dp/0738706272 And it was really cool. Guy eats spiders and poo poo in the desert to see ghosts. Fandyien posted:i really like The Colour Out of Space because it is tripped teh gently caress out. i mean that story is nuts Yeah that poo poo locked up in the attic was hosed. EmperorFritoBandito posted:Nobody ever mentions "The Temple" even though it's a badass little story. I really liked the temple too. Always thought it would make a good movie or videogame. BottledBodhisvata posted:until somebody pointed it out to me, I read nothing racist in his writing
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Dec 23, 2014 02:21
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which lovecraft story is the one where its like a narrative history of an pre-ancient kingdom that destroys a black obsidian fish city and it the city in its hubris and orgiastic celebration implodes horribly i thought that one was interesting
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Dec 23, 2014 02:29
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TEAYCHES posted:which lovecraft story is the one where its like a narrative history of an pre-ancient kingdom that destroys a black obsidian fish city and it the city in its hubris and orgiastic celebration implodes horribly The Doom That Came To Sarnath?
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Dec 23, 2014 02:37
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Nigmaetcetera posted:The Doom That Came To Sarnath? thats the one
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Dec 23, 2014 02:38
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TEAYCHES posted:which lovecraft story is the one where its like a narrative history of an pre-ancient kingdom that destroys a black obsidian fish city and it the city in its hubris and orgiastic celebration implodes horribly remade as Doom House
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Dec 23, 2014 02:42
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TEAYCHES posted:thats the one first story of his i ever read. next one was a story about azathoth, the blind, deaf, mute, insane, retarded god of all creation. all the n-words really came out of nowhere when i read his other stuff
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Dec 23, 2014 02:44
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into the mountains of madness is really good too, proves he can write longer-ish stories Robert E. Howard is still my favorite racist early 20th century fantasy author though, apparently he and Lovecraft were pen pals
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Dec 23, 2014 02:53
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Fandyien posted:into the mountains of madness is really good too, proves he can write longer-ish stories Except it's like 99% foreshadowing. "Oh, I hesitate to describe the horrors of what I feel I need to write next; but okay, here it is." x 9000
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Dec 23, 2014 02:57
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That non-elucidian negroid had an indescribably cyclopean cock looming from his blasphemous groin.
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Dec 23, 2014 03:19
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Happy Bear Suit posted:imma stop you right there his use of that stuff is way overstated though (probably because it's really easy (and fun) to parody) and mostly it's in his early and not-so-good period from the mid-1920s on, when he really starts hitting them out of the park, his writing is mostly very restrained and dry. he only deploys the overheated purple prose when there's a reason to. take the call of cthulhu--he really only brings out the 'gibbous sky' and 'membraneous wings' and all that stuff during the climax at r'lyeh (and it's for a reason, since at that point all the laws of reality are breaking down and everyone's going mad, so his style does too)
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Dec 23, 2014 06:50
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Clipperton posted:his use of that stuff is way overstated though (probably because it's really easy (and fun) to parody) and mostly it's in his early and not-so-good period I don't know, I think he'd have a hard time competing with   Kirk's Razer meltdown.
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Dec 23, 2014 06:58
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*Burbles fthulululuchuuuukkuully*
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Dec 23, 2014 06:59
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Except it's like 99% foreshadowing. "Oh, I hesitate to describe the horrors of what I feel I need to write next; but okay, here it is." x 9000 Fancy collaborating on a Lovecraft parody where an Ashkenazi Jewish guy travels to Israel and discovers he's a mixed blood mizrahi jew with  Palestinian ancestry?
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Dec 23, 2014 11:53
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I don't know, I think he'd have a hard time competing with Not a fair comparison, Kirk had SA to gently caress him up. If lovecraft had been a goon, his meltdowns would have been cyclopean.
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Dec 23, 2014 12:50
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I'm reading a biography about him. Sad, pathetic, wasted life. Really a proto-goon, who tragically too late realized how weird he was, then died
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Dec 23, 2014 12:53
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EmperorFritoBandito posted:They can look pretty cool, depending on how liberally you want to interpret Lovecraft's description. what is this AD&D monster manual poo poo. also the elder things are invertebrates ffs, and are supposed to be like giant sea anemones or some such poo poo. I'm p sure HPL overdosed on ernst haeckel illustrations because I can definitely see how you'd get a radial symmetry obsession that way
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Dec 23, 2014 13:40
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So did HP even know what 'non-euclidean' geometries are? cause it's not like spherical shapes and curved surfaces are really that other worldly This ain't particularly scary 
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Dec 23, 2014 13:42
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emanresu tnuocca posted:So did HP even know what 'non-euclidean' geometries are? cause it's not like spherical shapes and curved surfaces are really that other worldly 
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Dec 23, 2014 14:03
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yeah that's a bit better though really the freaky part is that the structures seemingly defy gravity
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Dec 23, 2014 14:22
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I always assumed when he busted out the dumb flowery language and phrases like non-euclidean, he was basically admitting "okay i'm an ideas guy, I just need you to picture weird impossible and scary poo poo now" because that's all I can ever do when I read him. That people have a definite idea of what cthulhu actually looks like is pretty weird to me honestly.
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Dec 23, 2014 14:25
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The common depiction of Cthulhu is a lot more handsome than what HP described, people usually draw cthulhu as this buff humanoid with massive wings and a squid head, the head thing is pretty accurate though the body is pretty off, Cthulhu should have disproportionately large legs, a small torso and tiny wings, he describes them as 'rudimentary wings'. More like the original Godzilla than a winged egyptian deity really.
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Dec 23, 2014 14:32
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The one about getting lost in back alleys of a city that gradually became creepier and more confusing was pretty good
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Dec 23, 2014 14:41
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Words had different meanings back then. Every time he says "non-euclidean architecture" he means "built by wops".
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Dec 23, 2014 14:50
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EmperorFritoBandito posted:Nobody ever mentions "The Temple" even though it's a badass little story. Agreed. I think a lot of the 'complete' collections miss it out, for some reason, which might be why.
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Dec 23, 2014 15:04
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emanresu tnuocca posted:Maybe I missed something but the old ones are not even malevolent beings, from what I remember they actually fought against Cthulhu and the fish deities (and "the abominable snowmen" lol) and would probably ally with humanity as both have rather similar social structures and don't seem to have conflicting interests at all, the massacre at Antarctica was mostly cause that particular party was just raised after eons of hibernation and erroneously assumed that that the dissected corpses of their compatriots were proof that the squishy humans murdered them, there's nothing in the story that suggests they'd try to eradicate humanity. That's actually a common misconception that Lovecraft himself admitted fault for. See, the things up in Antarctica are Great Old Ones, older by far than Cthulhu and his Old Ones down in R'lyeh. The GOOs are the good guys, that fight to save the universe from the more squiddy OOs. Unfortunately, it's a losing battle. The Great Old Ones are also the ones doing the mindmelds outside time and space iirc. Something to remember, At the Mountains of Madness was an unofficial sequel of sorts to Edgar Allen Poe's The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which is surprisingly racist for Poe, even the animals are all black down there, so it's not so shocking that Howie would want to keep the ball rolling. For those who now want to read the story, be warned, it stops right when it finally gets good. Regarding the attitudes of HPL, much like how I can still enjoy the films of say, Roman Polanski or Victor Salva despite them being pedophiles, I'm able to enjoy the stories, even if sometimes I have to stop and say "drat man, cool it with that stuff". (seriously Vic, can you even make a movie without a half naked boy in it?) My favorite Lovecraft stories are The Haunter in the Dark, which you can really see as it was his last story before death, where his writing style was starting to move towards with its abstract and psychological subtexts, and the unnerving Rats in the Walls with it's best portrayal of his unreliable narrator going insane trope, ending with the narrator literally devolving his language right before your eyes.
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Dec 23, 2014 15:16
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Cthulhu had a hangover OP Imagine if its u. Party all aeon, wake up with a headache, and bam some dick hits you with a fuckin' boat "gently caress this poo poo I'm going back to bed"
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Dec 23, 2014 15:18
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Lovecraft's narrative pacing is terrible, his characters are always shallow and melodramatic and his prose is overwrought garbage. His ideas about aliens are cool and influential. here's some of the better stuff he wrote Nyarlathotep The Colour Out of Space
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Dec 23, 2014 15:30
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Choco1980 posted:That's actually a common misconception that Lovecraft himself admitted fault for. See, the things up in Antarctica are Great Old Ones, older by far than Cthulhu and his Old Ones down in R'lyeh. The GOOs are the good guys, that fight to save the universe from the more squiddy OOs. Unfortunately, it's a losing battle. The Great Old Ones are also the ones doing the mindmelds outside time and space iirc.
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Dec 23, 2014 15:37
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aside from the old god mythos, let us not all forget about Herbert West: Reanimator, which was responsible for the legitamitely good 1985 film and this kickass flash game.
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Dec 23, 2014 15:47
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