H.P. Lovecraft

[Erichermit]

Hello there. I'm a bit of a HP Lovecraft obsessor (I want to get a good Cthulhu or other famous HP Lovecraft related shirt. Any suggestions?!) and I was wondering if there are HP Lovecraft buffs around here to talk to about him.

Personally, my favorite story is "Shadow Over Innsmouth", but I have yet to read the other stories.

I actually didn't like Call of Cthulhu as much as his other stories. Not that I didn't enjoy it, of course!, but simply not as much as his other stories.

"Ia Ia Cthlhu Fhtagn!"

 

[e]

It's Iä, Iä Shub-Niggurath, you blasphemous maggot!

But aside from that, I really like Lovecraft's stuff. I don't agree with all of his opinions behind his story-telling (i.e. : Mountains of Madness could've been shortened a lot by removing all those unnecessary technical geological details, but Lovecraft just LOVED his vocabulary...who the hell says "shewing" instead of "showing"...), I'm in awe by the sheer amount of theory he poured into the weird supernatural genre. Once you've read his thoughts, it makes so much sense, and you wonder how you ever managed to read other simple, simpering hackneyed opus without throwing up (aside from the strictly emotional comfort these provide, as compared to Lovecraft's).

My personal favorites would have to be, when it comes to horror, "The Rats in the Wall", "Pickman's Model", "The Picture in the House" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". I must that, however, I really, really loved the intro to "The Call of Cthulhu".

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents. They have hinted at strange survival in terms which would freeze the blood if not masked by a bland optimism.

Says it all.

 

[Erichermit]

Nice signature by the way

Glad to see there's at least one other Lovecraft aficionado in this forum! Just yesterday I finished "Herbert West: Reanimator." The ending confused me but I rather enjoyed it.

I also read "The Colour out of Space" earlier and found that to be very good. I like how you never figure out just what happened, and how the things build up from a mere curiosity, to an annoyance, to being a bit dangerous, to horrifying. Well, it tends to grow like that in all his stories =P

Ah yes, That intro pretty much Sums up the entire Mythos I think, or at least, the Philosophy behinds it.

I still have yet to read all his stories but I am slowly whittling down the remainders.

Have you perhaps heard of any of the songs from "Shoggoth on the Roof"? I've listened to a few on youtube, and I find them hilarious. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2csnVNai-o , the rest can be found by checking the other videos uploaded by that person. It's not all of them, but it's still a good amount.)

I've also been interested in seeing some of the Lovecraft movies. "Dagon" seemed to receive some awful reviews, but I found it to be a good representation of Lovecraft's universe. Granted, it's impossible to fully transmit the book on to the screen, and the storyline was changed, but I still found it very enjoyable. I want to get a Miskatonic University sweater! I haven't watched "Re-Animator", but I hear it's pretty good, and seeing as how I enjoyed the story, I'll probably enjoy the movie too.

Oh! Did you know that the guy who made "Pan's Labyrinth" is going to be making one of the Mountains of Madness? Apparently Cthulhu will be in it though, so I'm not entirely sure how true it will stay to the plot, but I'm still looking forward to it. Especially since, based on what I saw in Pan's Labyrinth, He should be able to represent the Lovecraftian monsters well.

 

[e]

Re-Animator is actually a comedy which parodies some of the most common Lovecraftian elements; it's actually pretty funny.

And I'm not too sure about Mountains of Madness. I didn't like the story much; the idea was great, but the prose was so heavy, dry and leaden with "scientifical" gibberish that, honestly, I felt like he was trying too hard to be like Poe (see Arthur Gordon Pym).

If I Were a Deep One is much better XD

 

[Skyla Doragono]

Sell your Soul for a Cookie? and Buddy Cthulhu shirts.

 

[Erichermit]

Thanks for the shirt recommendation. I'm considering purchasing the one with the Cthulhu pointing his finger at the viewer. What I really want is one of those Jesus "Jesus is my homeboy" shirts, with Cthulhu in it instead. That or something not humor oriented, but rather with some small representation of Cthulhu with some kind of lovecraftian reference on it. Be it Cthulhu, Ia Ia!, or whatever.

I also like the "It's beginning to look a lot like Fish-Men" song.

I kind of agree with you concerning Mountains of Madness. Surprisingly, it's one of my favorites and one that one of the only ones that found way to bore me. It was a little weak on "Action", and the Elder Beings didn't seem too menacing to be honest. Though Shoggoths... What I loved was the part in which the Elder Beings were first discovered and when you heard about their history. I didn't like the description of the mountains being made too much though. They never did really reveal what was the deal with Leng, right?

There's something I don't understand about Cthulhu. Everyone says he plans on eating people's souls. In fact, even the small pocket of freaks who actually worship him (isn't that weird?) seem to believe so. However, I didn't find anything in "The Call of Cthulhu" that mentioned such a thing. It seems that all Cthulhu plans on doing is driving humanity insane and making them kill each other in an orgy of murder. Nothing about eating souls. Why do people say that, and is it actually true to Lovecraftian Canon?

 

[e]

I think eating souls is just a metaphor. Most likely, it's used as an euphemism (if you can call it that) for the crushing despair and poignant madness (oh yes, I went there; I mixed those two!) that will follow his reign. Shortly thereafter, we shall all become nameless, formless entities, spawns of a mad man's nightmares, the tortured visions of the mad author of the Necronomicon.

But, more seriously, I still think it's only a metaphor. I doubt Lovecraft truly believed in the human soul, and his characters who do so are more often than not sots.