/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23498788]

I just want to spend a whole day talking about him.

[Anonymous No.23498838]

Tried to read him. Repetitive stories. No soul in his writing. Feels mass-produced. No quality whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.23498848]

>>23498838
Pulp is about the soul in the mass-produced.

[Anonymous No.23498850]

>>23498788
His life invites pleasant contemplation for neets.

[Anonymous No.23498862]

>>23498850
I don't understand how he could be so blase about being unemployed. He found a job as an envelope closer and left it after about a week, found a job as a salesman and left after a day, was offered the job as editor of a weird fiction magazine and refused to relocate to where the office was based because he didn't like the city's architecture. Spent literally all day every day wasting his tiny inheritance money sending dozens of 20+ page letters to people who had sent him a question about one of his stories. What the fuck was his problem?

[Anonymous No.23498871]

>>23498862
He just had different priorities (like writing letters to people)

[Anonymous No.23498908]

>>23498862
Interesting, didn't know that. I had only read that at some point he sent out many job applications without success. But declining offers also fits his character. Saying "no" to things or to the world can be an aristocratic gesture in some cases.

[Anonymous No.23498921]

>>23498862
I once heard a lecture on Lovecraft, where I started to consider whether he was on the autism spectrum. I think what you’re describing could also be explained by this.

[Anonymous No.23498929]

>>23498921
Maybe, but everyone somewhat eccentric would be on the autistic spectrum today. What amazes me about Lovecraft is that despite ~20 years of unemployment he only produced about 30-40 short stories and a couple of novellas.

[Anonymous No.23498936]

>>23498862
>What the fuck was his problem?
He LARPed as an aristocrat and had the means to do it because rent was nothing in those days and food took up most of your income and he ate very little and was thrifty when it came to buying food

[Anonymous No.23498946]

>>23498936
It's not as if rent was nothing. He even moved into a tiny apartment in Brooklyn because his wife couldn't afford to pay for him to live in their old apartment, and I think they even pawned a bunch of furniture.

[Anonymous No.23498948]

>>23498946
tiny apartments in brooklyn were practically nothing compared to what they are now
food was the main taker of income in those days

[Anonymous No.23498965]

His letters make for fascinating reading -- his correspondence with RE Howard in particular. One is scribbling with a pen, and the other is pounding a typewriter because his penmanship is unrecognizably bad, and they are as well-written as their stories on. Hell some of those letters qualify as novellas unto themselves.

[Anonymous No.23499607]

>>23498788
damn this nigga ugly

[Anonymous No.23499819]

What do I read next? Reading The Whisperer in Darkness atm btw

[Anonymous No.23499849]

>>23498788
Definitely autistic yet somehow iconic. Normies just pick a weird person every once in a while and idolize them for an entire century.

[Anonymous No.23499913]

>>23498936
I thought he caught cancer supposedly fro doughnuts?

[Anonymous No.23499928]

>>23499913
Where did you hear that from? I've never heard that before. Were they asbestos doughnuts by any chance?

[Anonymous No.23499939]

>>23498838
A lot of his stories are pretty bad. But his good ones are very good.

>The Call of Cthulhu
>The Shadow Over Innsmouth
>The Whisper in Darkness
>At the Mountains of Madness (at least the first half)

Is really the best of his work imo and is what most people should read if curious. Everything else you can get into if you really want more and there are some fun deep cuts, but nothing really great, just fun vibes or neat ideas.

>>23499849
I think personally his work got better as the mystique of the 1920's developed. Which lent a bunch of atmosphere that would have been lacking if you lived closer to that time period and were able to view it less romantically.

[Anonymous No.23499941]

>>23498838
>The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy.

[Anonymous No.23499955]

>>23499819
The Whisper in Darkness is one of my personal favorites and is for me a rare "daylight" horror story. I can imagine it taking place on warm summer days and it loses nothing.

The Lurking fear is okay and The Music of Erich Zann was an early favorite of mine that has a really cool atmosphere. You've already kind of cover the great stuff desu. The rest is mid to bad. I personally found the Dream-Quest stuff to be painfully boring, but to me it's clearly the stuff he enjoyed writing the most.

[Anonymous No.23500017]

>>23499928
I heard that him consuming doughnats was the likeliest way he got cancer, assumedly from his doctor saying so, by some videos and writings of Lovecraft. Though of course there is no way of actual knowing what gave him cancer.

[Anonymous No.23500028]

>>23500017
I did a bit of Googling and found this.
>https://theobelisk.substack.com/p/the-lovecraft-diet-challenge
So, okay. He ate nothing but junk food. If you eat copious amounts of anything that's really meant to be consumed in small amounts, like sugar, simple carbs, or red meat, yeah it will possibly give you cancer.

[Anonymous No.23500093]

>>23499819
You need to fucking reading celephais and the silver key and then dreamquest. They are his best stuff.

Also the very old folk. How the heck did you miss all the good ones so far?

[Anonymous No.23500151]

>>23500093
Okay nigga, duly noted.

[Anonymous No.23500215]

>>23498788
He was not so much an autist as a great example of Freudian castration by a domineering mother. He was a shut-in neet until she died, then very suddenly became socially active in amateur journalism and began to publish stories.