HP Lovecraft - Classic Or Dud?

I don't always have the patience for Le Fanu, but he's got some great stuff. I really love the one about the guy who gets to close to the spirit world on account of drinking too much green tea. And "Carmilla", of course.

Will check out Oliver Onions.

*too close, gah

which ligotti (non lol comics) do u guys rec?

If you can find the Robinson "Nightmare Factory" story anthology, that's the best starter. I don't have "Shadow at the Bottom of the World", but it looks pretty good.

If you like Lovecraft, and want more, try Clark Ashton Smith (The fantasy masterworks collection is great) and William Hope Hodgson ('The House on the Borderland' and 'Carnacki', though approach everything else with caution.)

Another good collection of Lovecraftian stories is Ramsey Campbell's Cold Print.

I'm just reading what Ligotti I can find at the mo, which is only the most recent stuff: Teatro Grotesco & My Work is Not Yet Done (the corporate horror one). Finding it terrific, sort of awkward - the nihilism is ok with me, like he's plugging into 20th century Euro misery, but then that pushes towards a bit of lecturing or social comment or moments of style where he's doing say Thomas Bernhard, which breaks any uncanny or immersive thing going on. But so far TG is successful enough to be unsettling & impressive; and MWINYD guns along a little more, seems less hung up on its literariness. I'd like to read more, the earlier stuff especially.

I figure he'll be hailed with 'omg it's horror but proper literature' by establishment types over the next while. Is this happening already? (not really in England, where I don't think he's been published much till recently).

Anyone have that collection of letters by/to Lovecraft?
Does it include his crazy jew-paranoia screeds from when he was in New York City?

Ditto on the Nightmare Factory recommendation for Ligotti, or if not that, Grimscribe.

Vicerory-- Arkham house published five (i think?) volumes of his selected leters. I have one of them. While I can't think of any particular notes about New York & race mixing, there is iirc an expression of appreciation of eugenics and his belief that white europeens are superior to people with other skin colors and/or skull shapes.

the guy was obsessed with skull shape.

There's a good Joshi essay on Lovecraft here: http://www.themodernword.com/SCRIPTorium/lovecraft.html

all those posts upthread about ally's ex are so damned classic

xpost: Pugmire's recent collection "Sesqua Valley and Other Haunts" is probably the place to start. In the cold light of day, "greatest writer currently active in the genre" is perhaps putting it a bit strong, unless you're talking pure Cthulhu mythos writing; but he's certainly a unique voice, and I'm grabbing anything he puts out.

Algernon Blackwood is superbly atmospheric writer at his best, but was very prolific, and a lot of his output is just fair-to-middling weird horror of it's time. Check out the 'John Silence' stories though, or the 'Ancient Sorceries' collection.

Agree that it's only a matter of time before Ligotti shows up on literary mainstream radar. (Probably as and when he's picked up by Houllebeque!) He has been published in England though: Almost all his work has had UK editions as it has come out, initially from Robinson, latterly from Virgin. There are also a series of really lavish limited editions from David Tibet's Durtro press.

Anyway, in the spirit of the season:

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/4591/cthulhupumpkinia8.jpg

yes!

the boundless daemon sultan azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes

Pfft. Typical stoner.

puffing greedily at chambers lit beyond time and space. . . .

so ive been reading ligotti's teatro grottesco "purity" is p amazing i think and there a couple of the others - "town manager" and the title story - with some narrative drive are really good but the ones that just kind of drift esp "red tower" i dont really like or "enjoy" and they v much blend into one other. thats my biggest complaint i really wish he could manage a different voice or conceit since the horror of meaninglessness wears on u after awhile

xpost - Oliver Onions, yes.

And as mentioned way up thread -- Robert W Chambers "The King in Yellow" is really great, and was a huge inspiration to Lovecraft.

Ligotti - I have "Shadow at the Bottom of the World". Titular story is great. But then I never read any others afterward.

Pugmire is news to me. Sounds interesting. I haven't picked it up yet, but supposedly Gene Wolfe's latest "An Evil Guest" has some very strong Lovecraft/noire elements.

'The Great God Pan' is seriously mental good stuff, and another vote here for that Charles Stross story (rather more successful than his sex-robots/PG Wodehouse mash-up).

there are so many lovecraft collections out there...which are the essential ones to start with?

The ones that Joshi edited for Arkham were the gold standard for a while, but they're now out of print/hard to find. But there's a handy backup online:

http://hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/

Joshi is one of the three folks behind the site, so pretty much you're looking at something definitive there. That said I do recommend the two annotated editions he did for DTP a few years back -- covers a lot of the key stories and some curios with all kinds of additional background info etc.

The Penguin Classics 'Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories', edited by Joshi, is a good first step, though it doesn't contain 'At the Mountains of Madness', which is pretty essential. (That's in 'The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories', also edited by Joshi, which would actually be another equally good starting point.)

Hey thanks James, had missed Joshi had done two Penguin collections -- that being the case, look for those! And yeah, "At the Mountains of Madness" is pretty crucial, I've actually just been rereading it lately.

do those two penguin collections contain any overlap? i imagine not?

Oh weird, the Arkham editions are back -- the company had collapsed a while ago and I'd thought they were gone, but behold:

http://www.arkhamhouse.com/

Handy. As for the Penguins, no overlap -- here are the three Joshi's done for them, with content listing:

http://hplovecraft.com/writings/sources/ccweird.asp

http://hplovecraft.com/writings/sources/dwhows.asp

http://hplovecraft.com/writings/sources/tdows.asp

thanking u -_-

Then there's this, for which you won't be thanking me. (It riffs on "The Shadow Over Innsmouth.")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tTHn2tHhcI

No overlap in the Penguins--there's also a third volume, 'Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories', if you want to be a completist, but all the very best stuff's in the first 2.

At least that video told me how to pronounce N'Harlothep (didn't check the spelling)

which are the essential ones to start with?
go with this one first
http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Innsmouth-Other-Stories-Horror/dp/0590045431
you get houdini in pyramidal dungeons (a la re howard0, the first real extraterrestrial science fiction story ("in the walls of eryx"), and the title story, some seriously bloodchilling post-poe/hawthorne shit

There's a fairly cool Charles Stross story called "A Colder War" that's actually meant to be his version of a direct sequel to "At the Mountains of Madness" It updates the Lovecraftian madness within the context of the different madness of the Cold War. Here it is: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm

Stross also has a couple of novels set in a similar setting: "The Atrocity Archives"; which explicitly goes into the Nazi occultist/Cthulhu which is obvious a connection to make as anyone has ever thought of. And "The Jennifer Morgue" which deals with the fallout from the Cold War

There a Bruce Sterling story in his "Globalhead" collection called "The Unthinkable" which goes over the same ground as "A Colder War", admittedly with not as apocalyptic a conclusion...

― Stone Monkey, Friday, October 23, 2009 9:17 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Stross knows his HPL and is a thoroughly righteous dude. Buy his books.

― Soukesian, Friday, October 23, 2009 9:19 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

^^"A Colder War" is really really good! If you have a chance to read it, do so!

It's got a scene with a fictionalized Stephen Jay Gould elaborating on the biology of the Old Ones..it's so cool (in a geeky way)

barnes & noble sells a complete and unabridged lovecraft book for $12.95

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/HP-Lovecraft/H-P-Lovecraft/e/9781435107939

though it's out of stock online you may be able to pick it up in-store?

a 1098 page hardcover is a bit much to take on the train imo.

ok that's true

Thread should be called: Classic or Jervas Dudley?

If only.

Random thought today -- Monty Python's "Galaxy Song" (ie Eric Idle's breezy song from The Meaning of Life about earth, the Milky Way, etc.) is near perfectly parallel to Lovecraft's world (well, universal) view. There's all the same sense of huge cosmic perspective and our infinitely small place in the scheme of it all but where Lovecraft put it all in stark mind-altering terms Idle goes for a hint of warm empathy plus outright snark with the final line. (See also Douglas Adams' Total Perspective Vortex for something that falls squarely between both extremes, actually.)

http://images.slashdot.org/articles/08/08/22/0242231-2.png

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/55/156586685_2815921b43.jpg

sorry, i know they are old but they still crack me up.

^always loved that first one.

"there are so many lovecraft collections out there...which are the essential ones to start with?"

Arkham editions are the best, but for a starter set, I always recommend Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre trade paperback with the complete Michael Whelan wraparound cover.

http://ebooks-imgs.connect.com/product/400/000/000/000/000/031/787/400000000000000031787_s4.jpg

(It's quite funny. I'm totally riffing on The Shadow Over Innsmouth" for my NaNoWriMo project, but HP Lovecraft is something totally new and unknown to the chick lit crowd, so I think I'm getting away with it.)

Maybe after the success of Pride And Prejudice And Zombies you could do things the other way round, and present us with The Dirty Drone Rock Boy Over Innsmouth.

...if I could get the chicklit world to accept Richard D. James as a romantic hero, I'd be all over this.

I think this should be possible - write about his lovely long hair being tussled by the wind, or something.

Surely you mean - "his lovely long tentacles, being tussled by the wind..."

"I stared into his watery and unblinking eyes".

"The vapid horrors that I glimpsed within I will have to leave for others to describe."