/lit/ - Literature

almost everyone, but he wasn't without merit, still

>>6186778
Yeah definitely, I think the stories in themselves are actually very interesting.

>mfw trying to read ANYTHING by him

His plots are so good too, what a waste.

Every single pleb that has read him think so.
There's no escape from this. People who give too much attention to prose, think that the ultimately worthless distraction that is literature undergoes changes and becomes something more worthwhile due to writing style, and have formed a fixed idea of what "proper" prose should be, are plebs, and will be butthurt by Lovecraft's writing style. There is bad prose, and there is prose that you think is bad because your mind is closed with iron walls. Lovecraft's writing falls into the second category.

If any such people want to get slapped out of their plebness, they can read what S. T. Joshi and Thomas Ligotti have to say on the subject, reading Joshi will further point out to scholars that have exclusively studied Lovecraft's prose.

>>6186807
>there is prose that you think is bad because your mind is closed with iron walls

>the being moved blasphemously

yeah mang it's just bad because your mind is closed, smoke some dank erb and you'll see mang

>>6186809
>everything will be resolved if I greentext!
kek

At least contrast it with writing you think is good. Not that it will mean anything.

>>6186807
Is this copypasta?

>>6186815
No.

>>6186807
The Lovecraft fan has gone mad from excess of criticism towards his favorite author.

I actually think his prose is beautiful. he has a stuttered eloquence, yet is robust and luxurious.

I hear this idea that he has bad prose all the time, but i honestly have zero idea what someone would expect form him and his style. Do people have a hard time reading him?

>>6186821
le ad hominem face

>>6186809
>the being moved blasphemously
I haven't even read Lovecraft but that phrase doesn't sound bad to me.

Blasphemously, this word transmits "dark" and "wrong" feelings to me.

>>6186841
Lovecraft actually never wrote that by the way. He did use "blasphemously" in some stories, but never in this sentence.

>>6186821
>dude goes mad from reading too much about people who go mad reading

He was a Poe-humping oldboy born in the 19th century, what the fuck do you people expect? Stephen King? That being said, it's not at all difficult to understand what he's trying to convey. If you're finding it hard, you should probably just stick to more modern genre fiction.

>what the fuck do you people expect? Stephen King?

kek

>>6186846
>/lit/ telling someone to read MORE Genre Fiction
>we have come full circle

This thread is like Borges' wet dream

>>6186851

I was trying to be stealthily condescending.

>>6186825
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Purple_Prose

>>6186846
It isn't so much that it's hard to understand, it's just bad.

Does anyone have the "can't even fathom the madness" picture?

>>6186774
Post your face when it was intentional

>>6186879
>calling art pretentious.

Jesus plebs are fucking disgusting. I hope you are all buried up to your heads in hell and raked with claws forever.

>>6186880
i would not even put lovecraft at a 4 on a 1-10 of difficulty. 9 being finni's wake.

if you really think his prose if too hard there is no hope for you.

>>6187026
If Finnegans Wake is 9, what the hell is 10?

>>6187033
Heidegger's ghost --summoned in nazi seance unsung the virgin blood of Hegel's descendants-- did to finnegans wake what Joyce did to the Odyssey.

This work is kept secret from the pleb masses. You are only permitted to even know its name once you have reached true patrician status and been contacted by the secret society of non-faggot-readers.

It's bad in the sense that it's bad.
But it's not bad in the sense that it's never bothered me it's just inherently Lovecraft.

There's something quite stilted, in an Emily Dickenson sort of way, in Lovecraft's work. He didn't have a high opinion of his writing, but he had a very unique perspective on the world and the direction that America was taking in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Just listen to this work he composed after living in Brooklyn for about a year, this is sheer poetry and you could never adapt this to film.

http://youtu.be/THn5jKet0IU

>>6187033

finnegans wake is still actually readable across sentences, and across paragraphs, and in many cases across pages if you have a good set of annotations, knowledge of Gaeilge, French, Latin, and some greek, AND you have a good eye for patterns. It takes a lot of work, but you can do it.

>>6187050

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22731617-heidegger-s-ghost

There's just something about Lovecraft.

He's got a very keen, clashing poetic sensibility, and although he is critical, he only chooses to criticise someone he partially understands, and he never concentrates solely on aesthetic denunciations. In practical terms, this means that Lovecraft is Judicial where a modern writer would choose to be Forensic. Lovecraft's characters are thoughtfully imbued with a personal ethos even when they are alien to us.

His use of the transferred epithet slows us down, and his use of anatanaclasis spins us around.

He has an unlimited sense of scope when describing localities, giving us its history as well its apparent future.

Although the use of crescendo and the abstractions he chooses appear lifeless in an audiobook, they are always effective on the page. Reading Lovecraft's crescendos, you see the film in your mind sped up. When you read his abstractions, you're allowed to collect your visual faculty long enough for an image to loom into view -- then it creeps, drifts, or plateaus out of sight.

Although the magic of McCarthy is that he can make an archaism feel intrinsic, Lovecraft exercises a lot of taste in emotional affectation (especially in deliberation and apprehension), abstraction and the creation of very particular idioms.

Favourite lovecraft story

go

>>6187278
Rats in the Walls

>>6186807
sounds like SOMEBODY's had a few manuscripts rejected

>>6187129
everything that qualifies for the scale is still actually readable, else there is no metric for 'difficulty' in understanding

>>6187278
dream quest of unknown kadath

>>6187278
Music of Erich Zann is objectively his best.

>>6187033
>What is a 10?
The Book that Came from Sky or whatever in China

>>6187573
I really think this is true.

>>6187577
>the best fiction book is one you cant actually read
kekked

>>6187610

It's his most "literary" work in some ways, it never has that moment in a lot of his stories where you think in the back of your head "hey, this is kind of goofy". He published it in National Amateur so it's clear that the effect was deliberate, and it's cool that he could write like that, but I can't say it is his best. Colour out of Space has to be the best for me, it is one of the pinnacles of science-fiction and among the most effective short stories ever written.

Whatever you might say about his style, he's one of the most talented writers I've read when it comes to naming, either characters or places. The names really become a part of them and are extremely effective, without falling in the easy referential/allegorical thing plenty of more skillful authors than him tend to use.

>>6187086
Lovecraft wasn't racist or xenophobic, he just had a thing for ancient and unaltered things, so, of course, he didn't want no mongrel throng tainting his old, dear Providence with alien and dangerous cultures.
I can't blame him, though.

>>6186774
Yes, but I still think he's a great writer

>>6187278
Whisperer in Darkness

>>6189047

He supposedly descended from an old Devonshire aristocratic family, and he could trace his ancestors back to early 17th Century America. Naturally, he felt some responsibility to America, and he even appeared to believe he was owed some debt by the colonials his family saw through so many past centuries. He believed in paternalism for that reason, and he abhorred the Civil War with its accompanying industrialism.

He thought in long, totemic verticals and not in short, spasmodic horizons. He certainly comprehends race on a deep level, far transcending the liberal's awareness of 'colour', even going so far as to adjoin Coppersmiths in his short story 'Under The Pyramids' (an allusion to Idumaeans which he was most likely unaware of). Yet with all of Lovecraft's civilizing instincts, he doesn't arrive at a Christian sensibility, so I can't quite feel sympathy for his endeavours.

>>6189047
>Lovecraft wasn't racist or xenophobic
No, not at all. Why would you even think that?

>I can't blame him, though.
What a fucking surprise.

>>6187278

Mountains of Madness

>>6186774
De monstah wuz 2 scurry 4 u 2 undersadn

>>6189157
>He thought in long, totemic verticals and not in short, spasmodic horizons
>he certainly comprehended race on a deep level

>>6187278

Polaris is my favourite

>mfw no one agrees

>>6189588
I do, anon. Lovecraft's short stories are like candy to me.
What's up with the gif's filename, though?

>>6189617
GFYcat names them like that because it's more memorable than strings of numbers and letters.

>>6189508

>>6187086
>this entire audio series

I listened to this every night before bed even though I've read it all before.

Its perfect.

>>6186774

one of the few writers than can get away with mediocre prose because his stories are just great

>>6187278
The Shadow over Innsmouth

If I were to describe the story in this post it would sound utterly retarded but the execution is amazing, my hair was on end during what would seem like some of the silliest sounding stuff.

>>6186774
Nothing wrong with his prose, but his stories are written for autistic virgins who want to read horror stories and feel good about themselves. I know it, because I was one.

Horror is for kids.

>>6191485
Have you read The Thing on the Doorstep? It's another story set in/around Innsmouth and the shit that goes down there.

>>6191485

Well, if you want to see what the silly sounding stuff looks like without the amazing (or even competent) execution, you can always watch Dagon.

>>6186774
His style is unique and all those tards who try to write like Hemingway get jelly. Meanwhile, King, Houellebecq, Ligotti, and countless other actual writers admire the guy. Let's face it, you can be some kingly scholar pratician wannabe something, but if your story sucks it just sucks. No matter how got your writing is. There needs to be a balance but content comes first.

>>6191485
I tried discribing it once and the other guy just said "and that's what you like?" in a cunty voice. That filthy peasant.

>>6191651
Describe it to me. I'm someone who hasn't ever be interested in Lovecraft until now.

>>6186807
>ultimately worthless distraction that is literature
I'm triggered

>>6191687
It's about a guy who really is interested in culture and decides to take a little trip to some remote fisher town with a bad reputation. Partially because he learned during his studies that his own family had ties to the general region, even though it's all hush hush and nobody like to talk about it. So he takes a shady as fuck little bus to Innsmouth, driven by some fishy looking fella, who doesn't talk too much either.

Anyhow, the protagonist is forced to stay in town for a few days, because the bus broke down in an unfortunate conincidence, and meets this old sailor guy somewhere supposingly unseen by the locals. He bribes him with hard liquor and the old guy starts japping about some cult imported from the pacific, after the town got desperate because the their part of the ocean was overfished.

The old guy claims the cult made the city prosperous again, but there was a catch. That captain who had travelled to the pacific and was responsible for the whole trouble, had made a deal with an unknown species dwelling on the bottom of the ocean. So captain asshole had to throw offerings into the sea, which at some time wasn't enough either. Eventually the whole situation was so fucked up those guys from beneath emerged from the water and demanded to interbreed with the citizens of innsmouth. The father of the old guy died trying to defend the city in a futile attempt and was forced to participate in the cult, swearing oath of on some weird ocean god.

The conversation is over, the old guy starts to scream for no apparent reason while looking into the waves, and the protagonist goes back to his hotel or whatever it was.
During the night he grows increasingly paranoid and thinks he's hearing steps, quaking sounds, and whatever. They break into his room and he barely escapes. The rest him trying to get the fuck out of the city.

>>6191825
*and his kid was forced to participate

>>6191500
> I was one

you are one.

>>6191850
You guys are made for eachother.

prose is by definition prosaic (ie ugly)
poetry is by definition poetic (ie beautiful)

how do you plebs not get this

>>6192320
you're an idiot

>>6192607
There is literally nothing factually wrong with what I said.

The fact that you think there is means you are objectively retarded.

>>6192643
that feel when subjectively retarded

>>6192643
In itself it isn't wrong but it has little to do with the discussion in this thread. That's why you're an idiot.

>>6192676
Not even that guy, but it has a lot to do with this thread given that people who hate on HP's prose seem to find it ugly/hard to follow.

prose does not need to be beautiful or easy to follow to be good. It can contribute to many different effects and HP's prose does. Its not mindless in a hackish way its purposefully stuttered and paranoid and pseudo-academic.

>>6192690
I have to disagree. The way I see it Lovecraft could have gotten across what he wanted without some of the redundant adjectives.
I also don't understand why he writes how horrifying everything is in situations where it's obvious, although I understand that's more subjective.

>>6192747

Getting the point across, plot-wise, is hardly ever the point with Lovecraft.

I can honestly understand why that rubs some people the wrong way, but when you say Lovecraft is too verbose its like saying truffle oil is too rich.

Many of his stories are supposed to carry with them a sense of academic rigor, details are accounted for with little bits of information.
But over the course of the story where details start to make less and less sense he introduces more and more descriptions. The level of information remains the same, but the focus becomes more ephemeral and disembodied to try and highlight the limit of human speech and understanding.

Its not just his "style" its his intention.

>>6186774
shut up, op
you go and write 'the raven' and 'frankenstein' and 'the woman in black' then you can judge

>>6191598
Even Borges, who considered him "an involuntary parodist of Poe", couldn't resist writing a story imitating his style as an homage. There's something about Lovecraft that makes his stories incredibly effective and appealing, even when you recognize his limitations as a writer.

>>6192994
>Even Borges, who considered him "an involuntary parodist of Poe", couldn't resist writing a story imitating his style as an homage
Yeah, this. Interesting how so many good authors have Lovecraft homages, even though Lovecraft is objectively a shit craftsman at writing.

Mountains of Madness probably would have been completely incomprehensible had I not already had a background in geology/paleontology.

>>6193015

Lovecraft's a minor author. He has clear flaws, but he also has clear virtues, is enduringly interesting, and historically influential, at least for his niche. People who think he's shit just have a very narrow understanding of goodness in literature - they're probably still reading just classics.

I never read anything by someone with that big an underbite.

http://www.brunoschulz.org/august.htm

op what do u think about this? atrocious prose?

>>6193100
haha ok this translation, forget it

>>6187278
The one with inbred mutants living in the basement of the old mansion

Also that one with tringle thingy in the old church

Anyone remember titles?

>>6193147
>The one with inbred mutants living in the basement of the old mansion

That's The Lurking Fear

>>6193032
I don't know shit about either of those things and I understood it fine.

>>6187278
The Colour Out Of Space

>>6187573
Yeah, this anon has it right.

>>6189588

I actually really like Polaris. I think it's a bit too stupid in the OMG Eskimeaux hordes! way, but the writing of it and the idea is really pretty nice.

>>6193487

This one is amazing.

I also like the one with the reversed tower and the ghoul.