Lovecraft: First impressions

[Mossberg Shotty]

Ok, so to get the ball rolling, H.P. Lovecraft was an author of several famed horror stories that lived in the early 20th century.His work was apparently beloved by many, and it still holds great influence in today's culture. For those who don't know, he's probably most famous for creating the Cthulhu mythos.

But first, a bit of backstory: I'm a highschool student, and a fan of literature. A few of my favorite movies/books/games have been refered to by friends as "Lovecraftian", such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent. That sounded like a recommendation to me, so I went to my local bookstore and picked up a compilation of his stories, of which there were dozens. I should probably point ou that I don't fancy myself reviewer, but I still wanted to share my thoughts with the cultured denizens of the escapist!

The reason this is a first impressions, rather than a full review is because I couldn't will myself to finish the entire book. It's just not very good. The three (arguably most famous Lovecraft stories) that I read are:

1. The Rats in The Walls.

2. The Call of Cthulhu.

3. The Dunwich Horror.

It's unlikely that alot of people share my opinion, but his writing just isn't good. His manner of story-telling is fatally flawed and I'm surprised it has reached the stature it has. He never offers a shred of characterization to the narrator, or main character. It impossible to emapthize with someone who's in a frightening situation when you know absolutely nothing about them, and they only serve the purpose of furthering the flimsy plot.The accounts are always (at least in the three examples listed above) retrospectively, so you're already aware that no harm befalls the "main character".

And the the accounts are presented so matter-of-factly with no emotion to fuel it at all. Not only that, but the writing is all over the place, making it difficult to keep up with whats going on, and what characters are doing what. They take place on a sort of arbitrary timeline to make reading it even less enjoyable than it already was. All the "frightening landscapes come across as something he the author conjured up during a fever-dream, and is only there for the purpose of "20th century shock value."

And finally, and worst of all, its not scary. Thats a pretty big flaw when it comes to a horror novel. It's a bit disturbing at best.

TLDR: It's not very good.

So, what do you think, fellow Escapists? Do you agree, disagree, or something inbetween?

Sorry about the wall of text, and feel free to share your opinions.

 

[twistedmic]

I couldn't get into any of Lovecraft's work either. His writing was, I feel, far too complicated and needlessly grandiose to flow smoothly.

 

[Quaxar]

You read three rather bad stories, what did you expect?

The real genius is Shadow Over Innsmouth which gave me night-paranoia for two weeks, the astonishingly pleasant mystery piece The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and some of his short stories, like Pickman's Model or The Music of Erich Zann.

And Lovecraft is never about characters, it's about encountering the dangers of the Unknown. You don't need to know if the guy walking through the ruins of the ancient city in the Mountains of Madness has kids at home because he's just the vessel to convey the tale of the rise of the Elder Things, their turn to decadence and their ultimate destruction through their own creation, the serving Shoggoths. It doesn't matter if the character dies or goes insane, it's about the picture, about fantastic worlds never dreamt of in your philosophy and experiences exeeding the capabilities of human imagination.
And totally not all of the retrospective writings have the main character survive, some could be texts that suddenly end in a cryptic last message or second-hand accounts by a relative or have a change of narrator perspective.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

I found a lot of those qualities added to his style.

 

[Albino Boo]

I think Lovecraft is case of great concept shame about the execution. His prose, even by the standard of the day was overly flowery and his characterizations are practically non existent. The thing that makes Lovecraft stand out is the concept that the universe just fundamentally dose not give a dam about the human race, there are no benevolent deities looking out for us and there are no devils trying to tempt us. He was one of the first horror writers to move away from the good/bad setup to a universe in which humanity is an unimportant pawn in the hands of powers that just don't care. These days, that is common place but then it was revolutionary. Its worth trying to divorce the awful alliteration(see what I did there) and the duff characterization from the concept behind it.

 

[Darks63]

I like his work but his style of writing never gelled with me (its kinda like reading someones journal) and it always made reading his works more difficult that other stories.

But if you wanna give it another go try reading at the mountains of madness.

 

[ChristopherT]

I've read twenty-four stories by Lovecraft, Ten of which I've really enjoyed, that's good enough for me. I like the style, it's different from what I'm used to, in a good way. I really enjoy some of the way certain things are phrased. Something from another planet may not sound odd, or scary these days, but I don't look at the idea, I look at the words used, and how's things are described they have an affect with me, it works.

 

[octafish]

I don't know, maybe you just don't dig on psychedelic music...I've been wrong before though.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Taking three out of many stories by an author, and judging them solely by that isn't a great idea.

Personally, my own complaints with Lovecraft are more to do with his worldview, he seems to think that the mere existence of something is enough to be scary. In the beginning of "The Whisperer in the Dark" (I'd recommend that story), he goes to great lengths to make the monsters scary, but at the same time stressing the fact that they mind their own business and avoid any contact with humans, which would tend to make them irrelevant.

It's particularly bad when he starts talking about humans in this way, that the existence of "degenerate" human beings is scary in of itself, regardless of whether or not they actually do anything.

 

[Ferisar]

I have actually undergone a similar "sabbatical" in search of interesting literature, as I have recently found that my tastes often lead to Lovecraftian concepts. Naturally, I felt the infinite shame of having to love an idea without knowing who the man behind it was, so I've gotten an extensive collection of his novellas and short stories, and dug in.

And I can't disagree with you more.

I love his prose, and his flow. Words move themselves without any need for awkward redundancies or paragraphs breaking to explain to me why the protagonist "cares" because he has a love triangle between seven men and two elderly. What has put me off from reading any modern literature (as of recent, I'm not a complete hater, haters), is the emphasis of character above everything else. I don't -care- about characters sometimes. Sometimes I want to read about weird dreamscapes and inconceivable vistas that are locked away in your mind. Is it grandiose? Sure. But damn it all if it isn't well-written.

It's also worth noting that his presentation varies quite a good amount between his pieces; many of the stories which are hazy and don't seem to have a plot of their own are often written in such a way as to tie knots around you with words, leaving you to wonder what you just read (My best example of this is Azazoth, [IT'S SO PRETTY]). On the other hand, his "dry" delivery of any of the explorer pieces makes the whole story feel exactly as others have stated here: the universe -doesn't care-. It's dry because there's not much to say.

Also, pretty much every story with a "main character" tend to have the main character fail, die, or go insane, or all three at once. And almost every time they are driven by an odd wonder and dread, or a drive which just isn't entirely natural. They always go too far in uncovering something horrible, and then proceed to run from something you can never run from.

Anyway, rambling on here. What I believe you're experiencing is a separation of tastes and quality. Lovecraft can (actually, can quite often) have stories that are just... MEH. The Alchemist is a great example of an extremely dated horror story. It's just so... obvious. And boring. And the twist at the end. However, when he goes all-out, it's just... not what you describe.

OH! And, Amnesia does this well. You may argue "BUT IT HAS CHARACTERS!" Well, yeah. If you haven't noticed, we don't have any information on who Daniel is, why he cares, and we never really do find anything outside of his extended stay at castle "bumfuck" other than that he's had a good run with sharp objects. That, and when the third act hits the game just gets silly.

/TOO MUCH TEXT

 

[AgentNein]

And Lovecraft is never about characters,

I don't think characterization is really important in Lovecraft's books.

I like the way you guys say these things as though they aren't damning indictments of his writing style.

I'm not even much of a Lovecraft fan (love his influence on ideas in the genre, hate his style) but both a lot of great sci-fi and horror don't carry characterization as their strong suit.

 

[Mossberg Shotty]

Taking three out of many stories by an author, and judging them solely by that isn't a great idea.

Personally, my own complaints with Lovecraft are more to do with his worldview, he seems to think that the mere existence of something is enough to be scary. In the beginning of "The Whisperer in the Dark" (I'd recommend that story), he goes to great lengths to make the monsters scary, but at the same time stressing the fact that they mind their own business and avoid any contact with humans, which would tend to make them irrelevant.

It's particularly bad when he starts talking about humans in this way, that the existence of "degenerate" human beings is scary in of itself, regardless of whether or not they actually do anything.

Well, that is kinda keeping with the theme of a "first impression". Notice how I didn't call it an all-encompassing condemnation of all his works.
Also, I specifically targetted those three stories because they are probably the most easily recognized Lovecraft works. I didn't feel like subjecting myself to the rest of his stories, but I wanted to share my opinion. Hows that a bad idea?

And as far as the world-building, I agree. It seems that Lovecraft held the notion that certain things incite fear in people regardless of context. And that just rubs me the wrong way.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Well, that is kinda keeping with the theme of a "first impression". Notice how I didn't call it an all-encompassing condemnation of all his works.
Also, I specifically targetted those three stories because they are probably the most easily recognized Lovecraft works. I didn't feel like subjecting myself to the rest of his stories, but I wanted to share my opinion. Hows that a bad idea?

Fair enough, perhaps I should have said those 3 weren't that reflective of all his stuff.

And as far as the world-building, I agree. It seems that Lovecraft held the notion that certain things incite fear in people regardless of context. And that just rubs me the wrong way.

Yeah...well, some things he argued are always going to be frightening, he makes a fuss about the unknown, which is fair enough, that's generally going to be frightening. People who just aren't the same as you shouldn't be.

Mind you, I did quite like some of his cosmology. His depictions of various alien things could be interesting, even if they failed to be scary. IIRC, there was one alien species that came to Earth to quarry stone that was different to what was on their own worlds. IMHO, this is a fairly believable reason for aliens to come to Earth, not because there's anything inherently valuable that can't be found anywhere else, but because things here are exotic.

 

[TheDoctor455]

I disagree.

A lot, if not all, things you describe are stylistic. They fit in a certain age and genre of literature.
I don't think that makes an author bad. It depends on what you like.

I don't think characterization is really important in Lovecraft's books.
His stories are never about the person, but about the things that person uncovers.
The harm that the main characters in his book befalls is often mental, not physical. I like that, personally.

"Scary" is ofcourse a very subjective term.
Personally, I don't find Lovecraft's books scary. They don't scare me like a horror movie will, but I don't read his books to be scared. I don't read books in general to be scared.
But what they will do, like you said, is disturb me.
I've never read a book that I really found scary, but what Lovecraft does very well for me is paint scenes that are very... How could you call it? Surrealistic, yet realistic. Things that are hard to form a clear image of. Things that "we cannot comprehend", which is one of the things Lovecraft had a thing for.

The kind of stuff that leaves you thinking after you are finished with the book or story.

I guess you need to have a thing for it. I know I do. Perhaps you don't.
It looks to me like you don't like his style of writing, but I think it's just pretentious to say that his writing isn't good.

Either way, I'd recommend "Dagon".

Yes, and actually... there are plenty of passages where the purple prose (overly long, verbose, and... 'elevated' vocabulary) really does serve to enhance the creepiness. The thing is, Lovecraft was a bit more subtle than most other authors writing at his time.

As for the 'telling' as opposed to 'showing'... umm...

where are some people here getting that from? Maybe his earlier work?

I dunno.

The main problem I had with him was his blatant racism. Normal for his time, but he took it to wacky extremes.

But, considering that this is an author that did go insane after a while and, I believe, eventually killed himself...

I don't think its too surprising when you go through a complete chronologically organized volume of his work... you find that most of his early work barely had a hint of racism, while his later works were full of it. Seems like it was tied to whatever psychological problems he was developing.

Lovecraft isn't for everyone, but his brand of horror wasn't simply 'ooh, look at the gross monster over there', it was...

'There are powers on the level of a god... and they're all either unaware of us or want to eat us... well fuck...'

or else... the narrator being insane or going insane at some point.... and that painting otherwise fairly mundane events with a horrifying tone.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Couldn't disagree more if you were a Nazi SS Officer at the end of your training and I was your puppy.

The characters are exactly the way they're supposed to be. The stories aren't about the characters, they're about what the characters see. In almost every instance, the story tellers in Lovecraft's books are the everyman, thrust into situations of insanity. Furthermore, many of the characters are presented in the form of a sort of blank person that serves to put [i/]you[/i] (or me, since you didn't like it) in the story.

As for the tone, it's what makes his work beautiful to me. The cold and emotionless descriptions of cosmic horrors just adds to the central theme of the utter insignificance of humanity. The cold, dark universe doesn't care what emotion you feel. It's going to shred your mind and then your body regardless.

Finally, I agree that his stories are more disturbing than anything, but as far as I'm concerned, that's what scary really means. Scary isn't things jumping out. Scary isn't worrying about a serial killer being behind you. Scary is the feeling of discomfort that persists after you finish the story. Lovecraft conveys this the utter unknown. The sense that it doesn't even matter if something wants to hurt you or not, it's so purely alien you can do nothing but flee.

It's important to note that all of this, especially the last point, is VERY subjective. Being a combination of fiction AND horror, the personal effect it has is just as important as grammar.

Side note: I recommend you avoid using emoticons. They tend to damage credibility around here.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

You're actually not the first person to point out that Lovecraft was a terrible writer. In Stephen King's autobiography/advice for aspiring writers book, On Writing he uses Lovecraft as an example of a bad writer. Lovecraft had some truly original ideas, and a solid enough understanding of the appeal of a mystery to give his stories a really memorable element. Even today, when there is a burgeoning sub-genre literally called Lovecraftian, no one has really managed to replicate precisely what it's like to read a Lovecraft. There's something special there. But getting through one his stories in order to know that feeling is like pulling teeth. His style is slow, clunky, and awkward, and all of his stories are told from the point of view of the exact same ridiculously characterless character. They all feel like the abandoned journal of an over zealously objective researcher discovered at the beginning of a cheesy adventure movie. And in many cases, that is exactly what they are.

I think with Lovecraft you have to love it for what it is, and forgive it for what it is as well. It's not perfect, but it's entirely unlike anything else.