tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post6369402934495767249..comments2024-03-28T14:05:25.134-07:00Comments on Sacnoth's Scriptorium: Lovecraft was easily scaredJohn D. Rateliffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12324926298336489295noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-42538729347367879512014-06-06T14:04:29.007-07:002014-06-06T14:04:29.007-07:00I think what Lovecraft was going for here was a se...I think what Lovecraft was going for here was a sense of the modern term, "uncanny valley", applied to the landscape, where things which should be fine are close but not quite right, making them more disturbing than if they were really strange.Marc Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10595934909921503455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-5254917579046482172014-03-10T01:20:27.642-07:002014-03-10T01:20:27.642-07:00Lovecraft loved the countryside; it was not scary ...Lovecraft loved the countryside; it was not scary to him.Magisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07903799437411528229noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-46910642160596663252014-03-07T21:16:19.006-08:002014-03-07T21:16:19.006-08:00Dear JL:
Yes, of course it's unfair to mock a...Dear JL:<br /><br />Yes, of course it's unfair to mock a writer's work like that. But behind the mocking was a serious point:<br /><br />I can see clearly enough what Lovecraft is trying to do; I just think he fails to do it. And I'm suggesting a good part of the reason why is that Lovecraft relies upon a shared visceral response which, for many of his readers, simply isn't there. Any of the things he includes in those opening paragraphs can be made sinister, but they're not sinister in and of themselves.<br /><br />Adjectives I think get a bad rap. We all have our favorite words and phrases; HPL just uses his favorites a little too often. In the hands of a real master, like John Bellairs or Clark Ashton Smith, they can make a scene truly unsettling. It's been a long time since I posted on either; think I'll need to remedy that.<br /><br />--JDR, who now has the Dreamlands audiobook and is looking forward to hearing it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />John D. Rateliffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12324926298336489295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2239062544101975016.post-84763998008882814732014-03-07T09:42:07.648-08:002014-03-07T09:42:07.648-08:00I also read Lovecraft mainly as a fantasist, and I...I also read Lovecraft mainly as a fantasist, and I also think his dreamland stories are far more than Dunsanian imitations, but indeed amongst his best work.<br /><br />However, as enjoyable as this catalog was to read, I think you're being a little bit unjust here -- it's not that Lovecraft was afraid of trees or mountains, small villages or the countryside (however, most biographers seem to agree he was indeed a bit afraid of the sea and all things sea-related, like fish). <br /><br />The triggers he's trying to put into these paragraphs are e.g. a sense of confinement ("stone walls press closer and closer", "no road by which to escape them"), a sense that something is "wrong" about nature (trees "too large", plants "not often found" or "singularly" in some way or the other), a sense of the secret and the forbidden (villagers "so silent and furtive"), of old age (the stone circles), of impending danger (bridges "of dubious safety"), of degeneration and decay ("the massed mould and decay of centuries").<br /><br />Most of these are just traditional Gothic standard motives. And it's a matter of his (debatable) style: Relying heavily on descriptions (telling, not showing) and his beloved adjectives and adverbs, in many cases it's not so much the thing itself which HPL presents that's frightening (or at least, should be); but the quality he ascribes to it, or even just the fact that it possesses this quality in an "unusual", "extraordinary" way. <br /><br />Thinking of that other post, I think HPL's prose didn't age very well, especially in comparison with today's taste. Which probably is the reason his horror stories are popular with a vast youth culture nowadays, if for all the wrong reasons. JLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16835548793750851307noreply@blogger.com