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That's a bad article. The author seems to think "The monsters aren't scary, the unsettling stuff is really just the hopelessness and universal alienation" is a new and unique perspective. Nor does he bother to do the basic analysis of linking HPL's prose to his terror of modernity or relate the (rightly praised) disturbing architecture to the fundamental architecture of the world: space and the beings which inhabit it are in Lovecraft as misshapen and disturbing as the architecture.quote:After both world wars and the atrocities of recent history, Lovecraft’s horrors seem like quaint, construction-paper toys created by someone who did not get outside much On the other hand: The Call of Cthulhu posted:The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom Seems to be a pretty prescient description for the atomic age and for WWII and it's assorted horrors, especially from the pov of a pseudo-victorian, at least. The author's criticisms seem especially odd and off-key considering he says "Lovecraft does not write about “horrors” at all but about the worst kinds of clinical depression" then spends the rest of the essay saying that Lovecraft's bleak view is essentially immature and sheltered, leaving me to conclude the author thinks depression and anxiety are essentially a failure to grow up. This insulting and (ironically) immature view of depression is expressed in the closing: quote:But he held on tightly to the truths of adolescence: that the universe does not wish us well Apparently Lovecraft's emotional disturbances and his finding them reflected in scientific knowledge (the earth and the universe were not created to nurture us) are apparently an adolescent whine. Are we expected to believe that thinking "the universe wishes us well" is somehow a defining mark of maturity? Here's Joyce Carol Oates' article about Lovecraft, from the same publication (it's nominally about Joshi's biography). Not only is it a better, more insightful article, she actually gives the impression of having read Lovecraft! Sharkie fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Dec 28, 2014 |
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Dec 28, 2014 04:11
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navyjack posted:Germane to the HPL and Racism topic, I'm working out some ideas for a cosmic horror-themed group of fantasy stories, and I've tripped over a few land mines like the Tcho-tcho and the miscegenation issues with the Deep Ones already. Most of the time, you can keep the cool aspects and jettison the problematic baggage (or at least replace it with your OWN problematic baggage), but what else should I look out for? If by "things to look out for" you mean problematic or otherwise distasteful elements, one thing you may want to watch out for is the relationship between different communities and forbidden knowledge. Now obviously most (all?) of HPL's protagonists or "good guys" are white academics and intellectuals, and their academically rigorous and systematized knowledge grants them the ability to understand the Old Ones, their history, and their relationship to our world. Now paradoxically, there are plenty of peoples who start off with a greater knowledge of the Old Ones, but these are people who are uneducated and uncivilized: South Seas islanders, the white rural poor, "mulattoes" in Lousiana, etc. They know about the Old Ones (or whatever) before the academic protagonists, have some sort of relationship with them, etc. But their knowledge 1. isn't academic or systematic - it's passed down orally, they don't have the ability to see the "big picture," and 2. is used to aide the Old Ones for evil or self-centered ends, whereas the white academic protagonists are able to put the pieces together, mash the folktales and superstition together into a big picture, and come to the conclusion that these alien god dudes are harmful and need to be opposed. In several stories, it is this academic research and piecing together of knowledge that enables the protagonists to avert the threat posed by the old ones, triumphing (at least temporarily) over the unlettered "savages": CoC, the Dunwich Horror, Shadow over Innsmouth, and etc. This in spite of the fact that HPL warns us such piecing together knowledge will drive us into a new "dark age." It comes down to the trope that the poor, the non-western, etc., can't know things as well as the educated white guys, and therefore are dangerous. So. What does this mean for you? Be aware of who is able to use knowledge better. Maybe a bunch of professors or scientists aren't able to do some research and discover more about what's going on with the Old Ones (or whatever) than the people that have been aware them for generations. Maybe the poor, the illiterate, or the non-western actually have a greater breadth and depth of knowledge than the guys from Miskatonic U., and the professionals are the ones who react with superstition and worship. Say, for instance, a researcher discovers some Force from Out There, and decides whatever it is, we'd better keep it happy, while the protagonists are "superstitious" people who are the ones that say "oh poo poo" and have to rely on their folklore and superstitions to find a way to stop him. Maybe the piecing together of knowledge is fundamentally impossible, and attempting it does make things worse.
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Sep 7, 2015 02:36
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