/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11756005]

So we all know Lovecraft was influential, but is there any real literary merit to his work? Are his stories still worth reading today? What's you opinion?

[Anonymous No.11756031]

>>11756005
If you're interested in the horror genre then Lovecraft is essential reading. He's by far the most important horror author of the 20th century. Hell, he's by far the most important post-Poe horror author.

[Anonymous No.11756032]

Fuck no. Shitty ghostwriter who ripped off Poe and Lord Dunsany.

[Anonymous No.11756042]

>>11756032
>ghostwriter
What? Most of his stories aren't about ghosts.

[Anonymous No.11756060]

They're fun.
My favorite is The Color out of Space, but I don't remember which was the first I read.
Maybe try The Shadow Over Innsmouth if you're eager to get into the fish memes.

[Anonymous No.11756061]

>>11756031
His importance in history is established

But would his work still be worth reading without the historical context?

[Anonymous No.11756077]

>>11756061
I would say so. Hell, I think his best stories blow away modern horror. Thomas Ligotti is the only modern horror writer who could be called his equal or superior.

[Anonymous No.11756080]

>>11756042
>not knowing what 'ghostwriter' means

Fucking brainlet

[Anonymous No.11756088]

>>11756077
>Thomas Ligotti
Never heard of him. What should I check out?

[Anonymous No.11756100]

>>11756080
I'm aware what ghostwriter means, you cunt. But dismissing him as a ghostwriter doesn't make much sense. As far as I know, he ghostwrote a story for Harry Houdini and edited/re-wrote some stories for his friends. That's it.

[Anonymous No.11756104]

>>11756088
Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe is a good place to start, I'm reading through that right now

[Anonymous No.11756108]

>>11756088
Start with: Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe: His Lives and Works, and My Work Is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror. There's a Penguin Classics collection that bundles together Songs and Grimscribe.

[Anonymous No.11756114]

>>11756005
All nerds go on about is Lovecraft this, lovecraft that. He's the Shakespeare of horror.

I will not read his works because incel virgins keep talking about them and praising him.
The real reason they like him is because he's sexist and racist and lived like a neet. He reminds them of themselves and his work is exactly what they wish they could write with his undescribable tentacled old gods bullshit.

The moment someone mentions lovecraft, you know they are a pseud.

[Anonymous No.11756117]

>>11756114
>The real reason they like him is because he's sexist and racist and lived like a neet.
t. tumblr

[Anonymous No.11756129]

>>11756114
So Stephen King, Guillermo del Toro, Clive Barker, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, and S. T. Joshi are all racist incels?

[Anonymous No.11756268]

>>11756129
Yes

[Anonymous No.11757074]

>>11756005
Yes, but you have to go into it with his shoes, being a staunch atheist who understood the ramifications of atheism putting humanity at the center of the universe.

[Anonymous No.11757532]

I took leave of my father's decrepit farmhouse in my modest Guatemalan automobile, making reasonable pace across a landscape bereft of anything resembling what I had come to know as modernity. I eventually reached the general store, a flimsy wooden structure that emitted a dark cloud of smoke from a narrow chimney. Two locals sat outside in the midday sun, accomplishing nothing and seemingly content in their doing so. Their bestial stupidity, likely the result of generations of inbreeding and race-mixing, was apparent in both their appearance and vocabulary.

My eyes were immediately drawn towards the words emblazoned above the door. These words perplexed me in such a manner that defy ordinary description. I shall not repeat them here, for I fear that anyone who stumbles upon this tome will meet the same fate as I should they read them.

I have not slept in weeks, as I have tried in increasing desperation to decipher the true meaning of that inscription. I fear that it is pointless. The fate of this city slicker is sealed.

[Anonymous No.11757663]

N E M E S I S

E

M

E

S

I

S

[intern armentho !HEAxmPZq8E No.11757817]

>>11756114

so lovecraft is bad because his fandom is shit?

>guys i found the brainlet

[Anonymous No.11757917]

>>11757532
Formerly Chuck's.

[Anonymous No.11757934]

>>11756114
>The real reason they like him is because he's sexist and racist and lived like a neet
mental midget

[Anonymous No.11757942]

>>11756005
Depends on how strictly you want to adhere to traditional notions of "literary merit". He's a deeply flawed writer, but imo underrated as a stylist.

There's a level of visionary detail in Lovecraft's work that I personally find overwhelming. I find it difficult to imagine much of what he describes in "At the Mountains of Madness" for example because it has too much clarity. But I don't think that's a flaw, rather it's a compliment. Few writers can match Lovecraft's sheer visual imagination, and I'm counting all the writers of the canon when I say that.

But obviously much of his storytelling is predictable, his characters mostly uninteresting. So whether Lovecraft has merit will depend more on your personal criteria than any objective literary standard.

[Anonymous No.11758562]

>>11757934
compared to me

[Anonymous No.11758573]

My main gripe with him is that nearly all of his protagonists are interchangeable. Some socially awkward dork with pretensions of nobility, who jerks off to gambrel roofs, has no interest in women, and has a tendency toward fainting like a woman in a corset. And these are the adventurers.

[Anonymous No.11758724]

>>11757942
This. The Colour our of Space, Beyond the Wall of Sleep, From Beyond etc etc etc... Incredibly imaginative individual that broke with gothic horror and formalised an aesthetic out of fragmented bits of Hodgson, Chambers, Machen etc that was leagues ahead of its time.

[Anonymous No.11758738]

>>11758573
I mean at least it's relatable.

[Anonymous No.11758790]

>>11758573
desu his characters were just cyphers to help explore the ideas he really wanted to get at. the gist of his work is that mankind is ultimately meaningless so there's little point in delving into the emotions, finances, or sexual lives of his characters.

[Anonymous No.11758832]

>>11758790
In some cases I get that. But, for instance, the Shadow Over Innsmouth narrator. He really doesn't make sense as some sexless, dorky incel, when he's literally genetically predetermined to be an insanely horny retarded gillman. Or Randolph Carter. He goes from being the kind of pussy who faints over a phone call, to being a guy who basically looks at Nyarlathotep and thinks "what a faggot."

[Anonymous No.11758946]

>>11756114
Lovecraft's fandom goes way beyond incel virgins and/or racists/sexists.

[Anonymous No.11759034]

Have you all taken leave of your senses?! Why is this thread left to die?!

[Anonymous No.11759048]

>>11758832
Only some of Lovecraft's protagonists are feverish, feeble students who live in windy loft apartments. Aren't quite a few of them journalists and academics? The protagonist of At the Mountains of Madness certainly isn't a pussy; he's a daring professor.

[Anonymous No.11759190]

>>11759048
He and Armitage are the only examples I can think of.

[Anonymous No.11759220]

>>11759190
Guess there isn't too much room for characters like them in stories that predominantly deal with cosmic horror and insanity.

[Anonymous No.11759275]

>>11756114
All the major horror writers and filmmakers mention Lovercraft...

[Anonymous No.11759370]

>>11756114

[Anonymous No.11759378]

>>11757532
based and redpilled

[Anonymous No.11759399]

>>11759275
Not that anon, but they say that to appeal to those people.

[Anonymous No.11759405]

>>11756114

[Anonymous No.11759420]

>>11756114
I sens autism.

[Anonymous No.11759465]

Nah, not really. Some of his stories are still good and worth but mostly he's always talking about some uncanny and unexplainable horror that ends up never being that uncanny or unexplainable. He might have been the shit in his days, but a lot of times he's terrible at creating mood, and relies too much on the fact that he don't need to explain himself. Blackwood was way better than him. Actually, literally any of his influences were better than him. Even Howard made better use of his own cosmic horror.

[Anonymous No.11759480]

>>11759465
"it was indescribable" is a terrible meme. I never had trouble picturing the creatures he's very much keen to describe, anon.

[Anonymous No.11759502]

>>11759480

That's exactly what I said, though?

His monsters or mysteries were never as uncanny or horrifying as his own stories claimed them to be.

Heck, the first time I read The Call of Cthulhu I imagined this bigass bat-winged octopus doing a butterfly stroke after a lil' boat and couldn't stop laughing.

[Anonymous No.11759523]

>>11759502
Yeah. Some of them really only make sense if the whole world is as fragile minded as HPL writes Anglos to be (also, he repeatedly treats Anglos as being the master race, though in story they are the most susceptible to going insane from reading a book, fainting, and general weakness.)

[Anonymous No.11759635]

>>11758724
This. He has aesthetic worth if you can enjoy dark visions of mystery and dread and murky vistas of imagination and so forth for their own sake. He was a dreamer and you have to be a dreamer yourself to appreciate him

[Anonymous No.11759944]

>>11756032
>not knowing what "ghostwriter" means
>can't distinguish the difference between imitation, homage, and influence
>regurgitating anonymous canards rather than presenting any substantial argument.

3/10 I replied.

[Anonymous No.11759961]

>>11759190
Randolph Carter

[Anonymous No.11759985]

Can I please get some recs for horror books that have excellent prose and literary merit? Never read Ligotti or Bram Stoker's Dracula, but I love Poe and Lovecraft. Any and all recs welcome and appreciated.

[Anonymous No.11760022]

>>11756114
>I won't read him because he was racist and sexist in the 1920's
Big brain. Btw HPL chilled out a little in his later years, had a Jewish wife, and one of his best friends was gay.

But assuming his horror writing is influenced by racism and sexism (and to be sure, you do see it in there sometimes) okay. Maybe we could read HPL to understand how racial fears influenced the horror genre, i.e. in a story like The Shadow Over Innsmouth? We could see if there's anything still worth taking a second look at in Lovecraft despite these elements? Nah let's just not read it because he was a bigot and his fanbase are le nerd incel meme.

[Anonymous No.11760069]

What Lovecraft tropes bother you guys the most or are overdone in his work?

>"It was unspeakable."
>Non-euclidean, cyclopean, eldritch, unfathomable architecture that makes you go insane
>*describes New England architecture at autistic length*
>antiquated language that even someone from the 20's wouldn't use
>horror protagonist curiosity that no normal person would have that just serves to move the protagonist closer to the ancient horror
>telegraphed ending that he didn't even try to hide
>the tough guy loses his shit so you know it must be scary

[Anonymous No.11760091]

>>11760069
>>Non-euclidean, cyclopean, eldritch, unfathomable architecture that makes you go insane
i love this because when I was a kid I had dreams about exactly that and nobody ever understood what i was trying to say, when i read At the mountains i had a little aha moment about that.

[Anonymous No.11760325]

>>11759399
Except those major horror writers and filmmakers have taken a lot from Lovecraft. For instance, many of Stephen King's stories have cosmic monstrosities. Also, you're forgetting that Stephen King and most other major horror writers and filmmakers are well over 50. They predate the internet so they aren't gonna give a shit about appealing to internet memers who love Lovecraft.

[Anonymous No.11760339]

>>11760069
Half of these aren't even tropes he's guilty of creating, just memes people force onto his work.

[Anonymous No.11760349]

>>11756005
The only people who like Lovecraft are either people who haven't read him, or have read only him.

[Anonymous No.11760368]

>>11759985
Frankenstein is an absolute must read.

I also see very few people mention RL Stevenson, despite him being top notch in the gothic department.

[Anonymous No.11760369]

>>11760349
So Stephen King, Guillermo del Toro, Clive Barker, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Ligotti, and S. T. Joshi have only read Lovecraft?

[Anonymous No.11760370]

>>11760069
Where'd the creepy home motif come from?

[Anonymous No.11760380]

So many of his stories are a slog to get through. I'm sure they were great at the time, but not today.
>ch1 there are rumors of a scary house
>ch2 i will investigate the scary house
>ch3 today i looked at the scary house
>ch4 today i touched the scary house
>ch5 today i talked with someone about the scary house
>ch6 today i opened the door to the scary house
>ch7 tomorrow i will go into the scary house
>ch8 OH MY GOSH THIS IS A SCARY HOUSE
>the end

[Anonymous No.11760382]

>>11759985
Ligotti and Dracula are both essential, anon. Anyway, here's a full list of recommendations:

The House on the Borderland - William Hope Hodgson (it's a very important precursor to Lovecraft's cosmic horror. Lovecraft was a big fan of it)
Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories - M. R. James (It includes both Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories)
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe - Thomas Ligotti
Dracula - Bram Stoker

[Anonymous No.11760416]

>>11760380
>I'm sure they were great at the time, but not today.
The problem with this statement is it implies modern horror is superior and that isn't the case at all. You take a look at today's biggest horror writers (Stephen King, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz) and they don't hold a candle to Lovecraft. And the New Weird writers (Laird Barron, Jeff VanderMeer, China Miéville) just copy Lovecraft and his contemporaries. Lovecraft was a flawed writer but he had a visionary imagination and that's something modern horror critically lacks.

[Anonymous No.11760616]

>>11760416
Agreed, don't go into it looking for a scare. These stories are about encounters with impossible things, and that feeling is still alive and well within them. His prose is long and purple, but the fact that we still debate the nature of his monsters today proves they stand the test of time.

[Anonymous No.11760947]

[Anonymous No.11761042]

>>11756088
>Theres literal retards like this roaming my /lit/ who have the sack to question lovecraft's literary 'merit' but haven't even heard of major lovecraftian exponents like Thomas ligotti.

Stop posting, start reading

[Anonymous No.11761063]

Honestly his stories are kind of boring, I'm not scared and instilled with horror nor fear.

Then again, I've watched a video of a man being tortured to death with a hammer and a guy get his face skinned alive. So after all that, how the fuck can a few tentacles and an ocean of tarry mud give me horror feels?

[Anonymous No.11761078]

>>11759399
horribly wrong, not only is his influence proven--non-white folk unabashedly mention influence by him, in video games, in movies, and even non-white authors who contribute to the cthulu mythos.

some people have an understanding of cultural norms and "racist" eras. throwing baby out with bathwater is the sign of a narrow-minded fool

[Anonymous No.11761087]

>>11761063
honestly this. his works aren't great for the internet-age brains, just because they are slow-paced and wandering. his overall philosophy and mythology is proven to be successful

a lot of /lit/ guys like >>11756114
>>11756268
>>11759399
don't realize that what proves to transcend transitory eras PROVES to be valuable mythology. if the overall themes weren't prescient and "important" than we wouldn't still be discussing them.

buncha hipster fucks who think unknown entities are better---even though darwinian meme theory proves otherwise.

[Anonymous No.11761090]

>>11756114
>Guaranteed replies

[Anonymous No.11761101]

>>11759985
Dracula sucks because he lost in the end

[Anonymous No.11761118]

>>11756005
I think so, definitely. He can be read as writing in a religious mode, exploring and describing a quasi-Gnostic cosmology wherein the divine is unquestionably real, but its ultimate nature is either indifferent, or else hostile to human existence.

[Anonymous No.11761150]

>>11761118
nice concise post, anon. he certainly captured a cogent sense of spirit and mythology for the post-enlightenment, post-industrial age--where most people thought they'd done away with demons and the divine.

[Anonymous No.11761348]

>>11761087
Yeah, I'm sure if I was born some time after Lovecraft I would get the chills from his books due to lack of spooky exposure like aliens and whatnot and a lack of fear of God

Makes you think what other things you would experience differently if it wasn't for time.. that's kind of sad

[Anonymous No.11762171]

>>11759961
Carter fainted because a guy on a phone said "you fool, your friend is dead!"

[Anonymous No.11762175]

>there is nothing quite so horrifying as an unpainted house
HPL was a nutcase.

[Anonymous No.11763671]

>>11759048
The protags of Shadow over Innsmouth are pretty cool.

[Anonymous No.11763891]

>>11761101
If he won then England would be populated by vampire sluts.

[Anonymous No.11763900]

>>11763671
No he wasn't. He was a secret Fishman

[Anonymous No.11763904]

>>11756114

[Anonymous No.11763914]

>>11763900
I actually wanted to mention Dunwich Horror, I dunno why I even messed up.

[Anonymous No.11763957]

>>11759985
frankenstein really is the best
its almost a psychological work and way ahead of its time

[Anonymous No.11763980]

>>11756005
>Are his stories still worth reading today?
yes but they aren't scary, more fascinating

[Anonymous No.11764222]

>>11762171
Yeah but he didn't say that way.

[Anonymous No.11764248]

>>11763891
Like it's not already?

[Anonymous No.11765225]

>>11756005
>describe architecture and pottery for 10k words
>and then I saw the horror and it was so awful I couldnt describe it, and its name was pksdfkskdf