/lit/ - Literature

Lovecraft

>>3267084
I heard he's a try-hard purple prose fag and a racist bigot. Convince me otherwise, please. I'd like to get into him but... meh.

>>3267088
he is both those things but he's fantastic.

>>3267074
>patrician tier

>>>/mu/

>>3267088
You heard shit. Just read him and think for yourself.

>>3267074
there are no horror/psychological thriller literature that is patrician. it is either cheap entertainment or manchild-tier.

>>3267115
Well, I'm looking for entertainment, since that's what most all fiction is.

Give me patrician level fiction that entertains me a great deal whilst still being of a high quality. Is that Lovecraft? I've heard differing opinions of him.

House of Leaves by Danielewski

>>3267119
>most fiction is just entertainment
You couldn't be more of a pleb.

>>3267119
You might like Gene Wolfe then, he's not exactly a horror writer, but some things can be outright disturbing. Book of the New Sun is his most popular work.

>>3267124
>Most.

Most is the key word.

Lolita by Nabokov is entertainment.

Prove me wrong.

>>3267128
There are tons of fiction books discussed on /lit/ daily that you would call boring but have tremendous literary value.

>>3267074
Sorry guys, I don't have any suggestions, but I agree with >>3267084

But I have to ask, who is the artist in OP's picture? I love that style.

>>3267131
That is why I said most. Just because I said most doesn't mean 99.9%. It could be 50%.

>>3267084
>Lovecraft
>patrician

>>3267135
Don't know man. I just found it on google images quickly.

>>3267139
>>3267097
>>3267084

You see the massive contradictions on /lit/ everyday? Who is one to trust?

>>3267137
Fifty percent isn't a majority, so it isn't most. If you meant fifty percent you would have said half, you are back peddling now.

Turn of the Scew, by Henry James

Thomas Ligotti

M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, Poe.

>>3267137
>50%**

>>3267141
Lovecraft may or may not be fun but he is not literature; he is pulp

see this guy
>>3267088

>>3267135

Don Kenn. He does his work on post-it notes.

>>3267151
Why do you link to a post with a guy parroting shit he heard on /lit/?

>>3267154
he probably heard it from me, no lie

>>3267154
>>3267156
I shit on Lovecraft every chance I get because he is shitty :)

>>3267154
That HP Lovecraft was a bigot isn't just nonsense one hears on /lit/. It's true. Also, if you'd like to argue for the economy of his prose, I could use a good laugh.

>>3267147
>>3267145

Only two people in this thread contributing at all.

ITT: lovecraft is shit. No he isn't. Yes he is.

Montague Rhodes James OM, MA, FBA (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936), who used the publication name M. R. James, was an English medieval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of Eton College (1918–1936). He is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre. James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James's protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story".

>>3267163
The point was the guy basically saw some hearsay then tried to pass it off as a legit opinion, and he never actually read Lovecraft or researched him. It's fucking stupid that's all I'm saying.

les chants de maldoror

make sure your parents don't catch you reading it, doesn't turn out well in my experience

>>3267211

This cunt still bitching and weeping cos his mum and dad threw his books away? How fucking beta can one boy be?

Ligotti is a good recommendation, though I've only read Teatro Grottesco. Richard Matheson is good, too, I think.

>>3267236
i got my books out of the trash and i'm moving out in a week, hardly beta
>>3267238
ligotti sucks

>>3267261
>17 year old black metal kid who wants to rebel by reading tame Anti-christ literature and cries when his parents find out.

>>3267261
Really, you think he sucks? I wouldn't go that far...I haven't found a better modern writer in a similar vein so far, at least.

The one thing I don't care for is his repetition of phrases. That really grated after a while.

I bought some 4 volume collection of Lovecraft's for the Kindle and so far have only managed to make it through the first volume. I started the second last night. So far I haven't hit too much of his Cthulu stuff, and I did read his first mention of the Necronomicon which was an extremely short and utterly shit story which didn't even come close to being scary.

I think this compilation is in chronoligically published order, but I'm not sure and so far it's poor fare. If I didn't really want to experience his Cthulu/Old Gods mythos personally I would have given up.

It really is pulpy and it's shallow and sometimes drudgery to finish. I'm hoping it picks up, but I feel like it won't.

You're just going to have to try him out on your own.

Stephen King.
Just messing with you. Try Mervyn Peake's Boy in Darkness.

>>3267088

>racist bigot

So what you fucking pussy. Do you avoid reading any author's books whose opinion you disagree with? Fuck you.

>>3267272
he isn't terrible, but i find him to be really overrated and his nonfiction work kinda bothers me
i think i more dislike him than his works
>>3267266
lol what even, nigga are you literally a projector

also pls rec me 'non-tame' anti-christ literature if you know of any, might be interesting...

>>3267261
>i got my books out of the trash and i'm moving out in a week, hardly beta

Sounds pretty beta to me - you should have chinned your old man.

And I don't believe you're moving out, You're going to suck it down, go back to the basement and cry your weakness out, then come back up for dinner with a smile as you ask your mother to pass the peas.

>>3267294
>are you literally a projector
Coffee out nose.

>>3267074

Misery - Stephen King. As good as any other post-modern metanarrative published at the time.

What about Lord Dunsany /lit/? I know he influenced Lovecraft. Are his works worth a read?

>>3267334

I hated him, personally. But then I also hate Tolkein, who ripped off Dunsany mercilessly. If you like one, you'll probably like the other.

>>3267295
dude i'm like the least emotional person ever and i'm from the south, we don't even have basements

>>3267425

Methinks the bitch protesteth too much.

>>3267478
>>3267425
You're both bitches. Please shut up.

>>3267489

No U.

>>3267103
>Rats in the Wall by Lovecraft
>cat is named N*igger-man

>>3267088
Fuck what you heard. Yeah he's a little racist, but does that honestly ruin a work for you? Read At the Mountains of Madness or, if you're looking for something shorter, Call of Cthulu or The Color out of Space

>>3267478
i just like talking about myself
>>3267489
yes sir, sorry for the derailing

a few other recs for op:
the king in yellow by robert w. chambers
the dreams of cardinal vittorini by reggie oliver
the white hands and other weird tales by mark samuels

>be on /lit/
>nobody likes mainstream plebs
>everybody recommends a given author's most popular work as his most worthwhile

dat contradictory logic 2012

I thought The Fall of the House of Usher by Poe was good.

I also liked House of Leaves by Danielewski.

>>3267514
>little racist
>cat named Nigger-man

>>3267541
>implying lovecraft didn't have a great sense of humor
c'mon you know that shit's hilarious

>>3267541
>Nigger was a male black labrador retriever belonging to Wing Commander Guy Gibson, V.C., D.S.O., D.F.C. of the British Royal Air Force, and the mascot of No. 617 Squadron. Nigger died on 16 May 1943, the day before the famous "Dam Busters" raid, when he was hit by a car. He was buried at midnight as Gibson was leading the raid. "Nigger" was the codeword Gibson used to confirm the breach of the Möhne Dam. Nigger's grave is at Royal Air Force station Scampton, Lincolnshire.[1] He had often accompanied Gibson on training flights.[1]

>Nigger was portrayed in the 1955 British war film The Dam Busters, in which he was mentioned by name frequently. The word nigger, which was in general use as a dog's name at the time, has since become culturally unacceptable. In 1999, British television network ITV broadcast a censored version of the film, with all instances of the name removed.

This shit was common practice in earlier times. It's only now that you're a raging ultra-liberal PC faggot that your politically-incorrect alarms are being set off by something so trivial. Stop being such a small-minded accusatory little faggot.

>>3267532

I find that consensus is usually fairly 'accurate' (inb4lolsubjectiveopinionsbeingassignedobjectivemeasures) when it comes to literature.

>>3267163
Accusing Lovecraft of being a bigot is like calling Mark Twain inappropriate due to his use of the word nigger, or calling Greeks gay. Applying modern sensibilities to historical figures is simply ridiculous. Woodrow Wilson would be an avowed racist in our time, but in his time he was an opinionated gentleman of letters.

If your gonna hate on Lovecraft, hate on him for prose, not his storys, dedication to creating content, or personal feelings towards minorities. If you want real racism, see Howard and Solomon Kane, who is also an awesome choice for OP.

>>3267541

Back in the day lots of black animals were called nigger. The dog in the Dam Busters has been re-named by overdubbing to Nipper, but I remember seeing the movie as a kid and all the guys are like "here, Nigger, good boy". Quite unusual to hear these days.

>>3267088
faggoty fag fag nigger fag

>>3267088

So he was racist, so what?
Read some of his stuff. The Music of Erich Zann is the best fucking story.

>>3267564
Mountains of Madness bro

>>3267088

The purple prose thing is valid - Lovecraft is a horrible writer, but the racism thing is irrelevant. Should people ignore Eliot because he was an anti-semite, or Celine Dion because he collaborated with the nazis? Racism was the norm in the 20s and 30s.

America only ended Apartheid in the fucking 60s, ffs.

>>3267572
I always felt that Lovecraft saw all of his stories as either an entry in a journal, peer-reviewed publication, or news story, and that it reflected non-fiction victorian works of the time.

>>3267577
Like, read some of Author Conan Doyles Non-fic, and it has the same type of writing.

>>3267569

Erich Zann allows ALL of the horror to be in the mind of the reader. Madness was a bloated novel that is hard to get through.