/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18582233]

I started reading this guy, why didn't you tell me he's so good?

[Anonymous No.18582237]

He's racist tho

[Anonymous No.18582239]

what was his cat's name again?

[Anonymous No.18582243]

>>18582239
Enword

[Anonymous No.18582249]

>>18582233
He's ok I guess

[Anonymous No.18582261]

>>18582243
It's actually Enwordmann.

[Anonymous No.18582269]

>>18582233
Racism aside what would you all say is his best work? I would say either the temple or the outsider

[Anonymous No.18582275]

>>18582237
He actually recanted his views towards the end of his life

[Anonymous No.18582278]

>>18582269
I liked Shadow over Innsmouth.

[Anonymous No.18582279]

>>18582237
Who cares, you sound like an underage black tranny when you show that you care about racism, it happens, it always will, get used to it

[Anonymous No.18582283]

>>18582233
But he isn't

[Anonymous No.18582310]

>>18582269
Rats in the walls

[Anonymous No.18582327]

>>18582233
I did

[Anonymous No.18582333]

>>18582275
Do you have a link to that letter where he says pretty much "having more life experience and getting to know more people made me less racist"? I can't find it

[Anonymous No.18582351]

>>18582333
I do not regard the rise of woman as a bad sign. Rather do I fancy that her traditional subordination was itself an artificial and undesirable condition based on Oriental influences. Our virile Teutonic ancestors did not think their wives unworthy to follow them into battle, or scorn to dream of winged Valkyries bearing them to Valhalla. The feminine mind does not cover the same territory as the masculine, but is probably little if any inferior in total quality. To expect it to remain perpetually in the background in a realistic state of society is futile—despite the most feverish efforts of Nazis and Fascisti. However—it will be some time before women are sufficiently freed from past influences to form an active factor in national life. By the time they do gain influence, they will have lost many of the emotional characteristics which now impair their powers of judgment. Many qualities commonly regarded as innate—in races, classes, and sexes alike—are in reality results of habitual and imperceptible conditioning.

Letter to Clark Ashton Smith (28 October 1934).

[Anonymous No.18582357]

>>18582333
Yes I do
https://github.com/punchmonster/Lovecraft-Letters/blob/master/19370207-Catherine-L-Moore.md

[Anonymous No.18582416]

>>18582351
Didn't know this one, interesting
>>18582357
Not sure if it was this one, but great link, thanks a lot.

[Anonymous No.18582451]

His prose is incredible. Even in some of his seemingly throwaway minor stories.

>Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness, and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous.
>Most horrible of all sights are the little unpainted wooden houses remote from travelled ways, usually squatted upon some damp, grassy slope or leaning against some gigantic outcropping of rock. Two hundred years and more they have leaned or squatted there, while the vines have crawled and the trees have swelled and spread. They are almost hidden now in lawless luxuriances of green and guardian shrouds of shadow; but the small-paned windows still stare shockingly, as if blinking through a lethal stupor which wards off madness by dulling the memory of unutterable things.
>In such houses have dwelt generations of strange people, whose like the world has never seen. Seized with a gloomy and fanatical belief which exiled them from their kind, their ancestors sought the wilderness for freedom. There the scions of a conquering race indeed flourished free from the restrictions of their fellows, but cowered in an appalling slavery to the dismal phantasms of their own minds. Divorced from the enlightenment of civilisation, the strength of these Puritans turned into singular channels; and in their isolation, morbid self-repression, and struggle for life with relentless Nature, there came to them dark furtive traits from the prehistoric depths of their cold Northern heritage. By necessity practical and by philosophy stern, these folk were not beautiful in their sins. Erring as all mortals must, they were forced by their rigid code to seek concealment above all else; so that they came to use less and less taste in what they concealed. Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses in the backwoods can tell all that has lain hidden since the early days; and they are not communicative, being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps them forget. Sometimes one feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream.

[Anonymous No.18582538]

>>18582351
Can anybody confirm this quote? I've been trying to find the source for it, but websites that have archived these correspondences don't seem to have it, and whenever I look up the date, it only back-references to 4chan and reddit.
Unless somebody can prove to me that this quote is legit, I'm going to keep on assuming Lovecraft was /ourguy/ after all.

[Anonymous No.18582630]

>>18582538
I mean, the letter is referenced in "Popular culture and the civic imagination : case studies of creative social change" - a book. You could always e-mail the author, and ask for the original letters source.

[Anonymous No.18582657]

>>18582269
The Thing on the Doorstep. I don't know why plebs shit on it so much, it's pacing is absolutely perfect.
The Colour (with a 'u' faggots) Out of Space is also very good. Movie was really a big fucking letdown.

[Anonymous No.18582821]

>>18582630
By the book title I'm going to assume the quote is made up.

[Anonymous No.18582880]

>>18582233
Most people here are plebs who complain about le purple prose and le racism.

[Anonymous No.18582931]

>>18582538
>>18582630
>>18582821
Literal googling gave me this

[Anonymous No.18582936]

>>18582657
>The Colour (with a 'u' faggots) Out of Space is also very good
Based HPL using patrician British spelling.

[Anonymous No.18583423]

I liked the Dunwitch Horror, but do not care for the rest.

[Anonymous No.18583537]

>>18582269
shadow out of time and whisperer in the darkness

[Anonymous No.18583861]

>>18582269
Racism

[Anonymous No.18583975]

Some of his work, like "The music of Eric Zahn" shows it's age. What would be a commonplace idea that doesn't scare now, would be existential creepyness back then. Read with mercy.

[Anonymous No.18584017]

>>18582451
I loved this, thanks for sharing

[Anonymous No.18584472]

>>18583861
did you know MLK made fun of fags? guess the black movement (BLM) is homophobic and should be canceled.

[Anonymous No.18584499]

LOL DUDE, IT WAS SOOOO SPOOKY, IT WAS TOO HORRIBLE TO DESCRIBE!!! AHHHHHHHH, I'M LOSING MY MMMMIIIIIIIND BY HOW SPOOOOKED I AM!!

Fuck off.

[Anonymous No.18584504]

>>18582243
NiggerMAN

[Anonymous No.18584518]

4chan pseud contrarianism dictates that we must hate him

[Anonymous No.18584535]

>>18582239
Joggerman

[Anonymous No.18584576]

>>18582233
Why did he name his cat that?

[Anonymous No.18584613]

>>18582237
Don't worry bro, I don't care

[Anonymous No.18584625]

>>18582269
The White Ship or the Music of Erich Zahn. But I honestly think all of his dreamcycle stuff is his best. I'm towards the end of his library now(on shadow over innsmouth) and thought he was pretty consistently good thoughoit, but definitely got better with his later works. The whole Im GoInG InSaNE HeLp Me NiGgErmAn meme is true to some extent, but he does pull off the trick pretty well most of the time imo. Idk what I should pick up after I finish his library though. Any recommendations? I've heard the king in yellow is good

[Anonymous No.18584652]

>>18582233
He's cool , the problem is pop culture.
>Cthulufunkopop.jpg

[Anonymous No.18584891]

>>18584625
>he does pull off the trick pretty well most of the tim
True, although by the time I was getting to end of his works the whole it's indescribable bit was getting repetitive (esp when he went on to describe it without giving specifics). The King in Yellow is a good read overall but only the first half of the book is somewhat horror esque and the rest are just short stories.

[Anonymous No.18584931]

>>18584625
>I've heard the king in yellow is good
The stories that relate to the KiY are great. His others are of various quality. His cheap romance adventures stories are unironically great tho
> That moment when Chad Thundercock and his expedition crew comes across a buxom giantess and its described as when the crew in the Call of Cthulu actually sees Cthulu in R'lyeh, except this time they go mad with lewdness.

[Anonymous No.18585048]

>I do not regard the rise of woman as a bad sign. Rather do I fancy that her traditional subordination was itself an artificial and undesirable condition based on Oriental influences. Our virile Teutonic ancestors did not think their wives unworthy to follow them into battle, or scorn to dream of winged Valkyries bearing them to Valhalla. The feminine mind does not cover the same territory as the masculine, but is probably little if any inferior in total quality. To expect it to remain perpetually in the background in a realistic state of society is futile—despite the most feverish efforts of Nazis and Fascisti. However—it will be some time before women are sufficiently freed from past influences to form an active factor in national life. By the time they do gain influence, they will have lost many of the emotional characteristics which now impair their powers of judgment. Many qualities commonly regarded as innate—in races, classes, and sexes alike—are in reality results of habitual and imperceptible conditioning.

>Letter to Clark Ashton Smith (28 October 1934).

[Anonymous No.18585789]

>>18584499
Le Reddit army is here!

[Anonymous No.18585810]

>>18585048
mmm front butt

[Anonymous No.18585832]

>>18585048
You have to realise that the effects of subordination were so invisible to him that he couldn't really have been aware of the fact that the gentle and moral lady of the past was such exactly because of her subordination. What he envisioned was THAT kind of lady being given freedom, not realising that women lose themselves once given that responsibility.

[Anonymous No.18585857]

>>18582233
His prose would be florid if it were actually beautiful, but it isn't. It has this crooning, antiquarian cast to it that in service to his particular milieu has become idiosyncratic, but which would be totally intolerable anywhere else.

As such many people are actually rather unkind to him in terms of his actual writing, whereas his grasp of theme and mood are almost uniformly hailed as iconic. There's a portion where he writes for like three paragraphs about the alarming appearance of a fucking penguin, and when reading it for the first time I actually burst out aloud laughing, which I am positive was not the intended effect.

[Anonymous No.18587192]

>>18584891
Yeah I agree about it being tiresome towards the end. I've only got about 8 works to read left and I'm excited to start something new. But I am glad that I went though it all, again I think all of the dream cycle stuff is better than the other/old gods stuff. When I read "the silver key" and then it flowed perfectly into "dream quest" as if it were a prologue I was awestruck

>>18584931
Lmao now I'll definitely have to read it

[Anonymous No.18587346]

>>18587192
>Lmao now I'll definitely have to read it
Imagine the adventures of a young Miskatonic university archeologist across the world, but he's only interested in sleeping with his hot students or the slutty underdressed Natives, not the Elder Gods he might come across.
Horrors stories didn't sell that much back then, so Chambers had to write the equivalent of cheap erotica to feed himself.

[Anonymous No.18587355]

>>18585810
top kek

[Anonymous No.18587374]

>>18584625
>Any recommendations?
I have a volume in which there are 10 or so short stories from other authors that influenced him, paired with short essays for each story

https://www.fantascienza.com/catalogo/volumi/NILF107359/lovecraft-i-miei-orrori-preferiti/

[Anonymous No.18587506]

>>18582269
RATS IN THE WALLS
One of the few that has a very satisfying climax, and the horror not being otherworldly works very well. I really like Polaris because of it's simplicity as well.

[Anonymous No.18588031]

>>18582233
>someone talks about him on his BLoodborne podcast
>YO DUDE HIS STORIES ARE SO COOL TOO BAD HE AN ASSHOLE THO
Just fuck off, already. What ever happened to critical thinking?

[Anonymous No.18588535]

>>18582233
>It's that an i-italian?
>AAAAARRRGGGG I'M GOING INSANEEE

[Anonymous No.18588799]

>>18587374
Thanks fren, saved

[Anonymous No.18588927]

>>18582630
>>18582821
>>18582931
Brought to you by the authors of this book. Kinda speaks for itself.

About one of the authors. From her website:
>Sangita Shresthova is an expert in online learning, media literacies, popular culture, performance, new media, politics, and globalization.
>expert in new media, politics, and globalization

Most of their work has to do with political/social activism and "critical theory" in relation with new media. Basically experts in globohomo propaganda. Last source I would trust.

[Anonymous No.18588946]

>>18582233
>canonized author
>"why didn't anyone tell me he was good lol!!"
Tired of these threads desu

[Anonymous No.18589009]

>>18588927
???

The pic I posted have nothing to do with what you're saying
Why are you even quoting me?

[Anonymous No.18589222]

>>18582451
>Lovecraft
>Incredible prose

Only on lit, folks

[Anonymous No.18589260]

>>18582233
He's strictly decent. A cut above other pulp writers but never managed to make a true classic.

[Anonymous No.18589294]

>>18589260
He defined the whole century of horror that came after him, influenced art, movies, books, music, comics, videogames, boardgames... If he's not a classic, what is?

[Anonymous No.18589369]

>>18582931
That's not the entire quote. That part of the quote isn't hard to believe at all. The rest of it is what I suspect is made up.

[Anonymous No.18589415]

I like his works but they are very methodical.

[Anonymous No.18589459]

>>18589369
>That's not the entire quote
That's your argument?
>The rest of it is what I suspect is made up.
Instead of suspecting, why don't you check?

[Anonymous No.18589503]

>>18582237
Polaris

[Anonymous No.18590006]

>>18583975
>"The music of Eric Zahn" shows it's age
Literally how? What a retarded take.

[Anonymous No.18590020]

>>18584576
He didn't, his family had Nigger-Man when he was a kid.

[Anonymous No.18590040]

>>18588927
>Basically experts in globohomo propaganda.
Yeah, a retard like you only like propaganda that you get from shitposters from /pol/ and the Daily Stormer.

[Anonymous No.18590345]

>>18589222
He's better than whatever shit postmodern trash you like, I promise.

[Anonymous No.18590372]

>>18582233
He looks Welsh.

[Anonymous No.18590468]

>>18582310
One of my personal favourites, too. He created such a rich tapestry of weirdness. I read his Innsmouth and Dunwich stories today and the fact they are so typically "Lovecraftian" was a real pleasure - I've enjoyed lots of entertainment inspired by Lovecraft over the years, including the CoC RPGs, but I have only started reading his work this past fortnight. His style is a bit clunky and academic, but that's part of the charm. His stories are just as much about mood and atmosphere as they are about plot development and world building.
His racism, xenophobia and borderline agoraphobia are what make him so likeable, even if you don't agree with his views. He was so withdrawn from humanity, so reclusive and detached it's like he was almost one of his own creations - a man fleeing from those he lives amongst, almost like the protagonist in Innsmouth.

[Anonymous No.18590753]

>>18582269
Dreams in the Witch House is my favorite

[Anonymous No.18591090]

>>18582233
Clark Ashton Smith is better

[Anonymous No.18591118]

>>18582237
Nigger!

[Anonymous No.18591183]

>>18590468
>he was almost one of his own creations
He was basically the protagonist in each of his stories

[Anonymous No.18591240]

>>18584625
King in Yellow is great. Clark Ashton Smith is also great.

[Anonymous No.18591575]

>>18582269
The Dream quest of Unknown Kadath and the Shadow out of time.

[Anonymous No.18591892]

>>18582351
His politics really took a left turn toward the end of his life and he adopted a socialist liberal optimist outlook from what I can tell. It really is remarkable how he came to believe in such a naive form of egalitarianism which exceeded even the average opinion of his time. If anyone has letters indicating he still believed in human biology from the years '34-'37 that would be interesting.

[Anonymous No.18591913]

>>18582269
Rats in the walls.

[Anonymous No.18592209]

>>18590006
"There's a window on one side of the wall, but not the other." Oooh, as if that's spooky now. It's a good twist for back when it was written, but now every sci-fi series has that sort of screwing with dimensions as a starter kit. And the "I tried to go back, but the building was gone"? That's so passe that writers avoid it now.
But I still think it's a good story. HPL was still a talented enough writer to overcome reader's view problems that hadn't occurred yet.

[Anonymous No.18592357]

>>18588927
Right one has innsmouth look

[Anonymous No.18593746]

>>18582237
Have you ever turned down good pussy just because the girl was a racist? Same thing with literature

[Anonymous No.18593864]

N

[Anonymous No.18593865]

>>18582237
nice

[Anonymous No.18593946]

>>18582269
I like Polaris.

[Anonymous No.18593972]

>>18591090
Enlighten me on him. Why's he so lauded?

[Anonymous No.18594151]

>>18592209
>Oooh, as if that's spooky now
Why does it have to be spooky? Do you read Lovecraft for the spooky factor? Or do you really think he intended his work to be regarded as simple horror fiction? You really sound like a low IQ retard.

[Anonymous No.18594165]

>>18582239
>>18582243
>>18582261
>>18584504
>>18584535
>>18584576
>>18591118
12-year-old tier humor

[Anonymous No.18594177]

>>18587506
>>18589503
>>18593946
Slumber, watcher, till the spheres
Six and twenty thousand years
Have revolv'd, and I return
To the spot where now I burn.
Other stars anon shall rise
To the axis of the skies;
Stars that soothe and stars that bless
With a sweet forgetfulness:
Only when my round is o'er
Shall the past disturb thy door.

[Anonymous No.18594225]

>>18582269
Objectively The Colour out of Space, The Rats in the Walls or The Whisperer in Darkness. Subjectively, I like most of his work, but I love The White Ship. It's just so good.

https://youtu.be/mLMlo_0oIs0

[Anonymous No.18594924]

>>18582269
For me, its the Dream Quest of Unknown Kadsth and In The Mountains of Madness

[Anonymous No.18594972]

>>18585857
>There's a portion where he writes for like three paragraphs about the alarming appearance of a fucking penguin

[Anonymous No.18595081]

Has anyone seen "The color out of space" starring Nicolas Cage?

[Anonymous No.18595083]

>>18585857
>if it were actually beautiful, but it isn't
Retard.
>There's a portion where he writes for like three paragraphs about the alarming appearance of a fucking penguin
Yeah, a gigantic, blind, albino penguin, retard.

[Anonymous No.18595094]

>>18595081
It's shit.
Die Farbe is only the good adaptation of The Colour out Space, in spite of being an extremely low budget movie.