/lit/ - Literature

>>19242820
>>19243180
>>19244237
Fucking based. He is one of the finest treasures of recent history and I am eternally thankful that he lived. I would throw out most other writers of the same century before I would be without Howard. I could live without Hemingway, and without Kafka, and without Orwell, but HPL is always and has always been near and dear to my heart.

Say what you want about his ten dollar words, his prose kept and still keeps me enraptured and hooked. The grim and cold terror that I feel when I read about a simple block of forgotten masonry in the snow of Antarctica is a testament to what a man like him can do to conjure up feelings of dread. He can make me feel threatened at the mere description of a rickety New England house. Or of a sleepy and dreary seaside town. He had me listening to my own breathing at 2am as I read about the final chase in The Shadow Over Innsmouth or the nail-biting closing paragraphs of The Statement Of Randolph Carter more times than I can count.

A great litmus test is this. Harold Bloom said he hated Harry Potter because it was totally without substance. When he was asked isn't it good that it got kids to read more, he said no, because now they are encouraged to read something that won't elevate them or make them grow as people. HPL is the total opposite of this. As a teenager I fell in love with his work and as a literal 30 year old boomer I go back and read it with fresh eyes and it entertains me for the same reasons, and for new ones. Anyone can enjoy Lovecraft, and he encourages you to read beyond your capabilities and expand into the genres he helped develop like Sci-fi and Weird Fiction. When people say "X got a generation of kids to read!" as a defence, it is often of some insubstantial author, but with HPL it is the highest compliment. I would not be the /lit/izen I am today without him.

Thank you Howard, you have given this young boy a world of joy and escape, in a young life that really didn't have much else to look forward to. I never had much, but I had you.