Titan of terror: the dark imagination of H.P. Lovecraft

submitted by Mnemonic from youtube.com

all 2 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]sawbossNyarlathotep 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's actually a pretty good overview, but there is so much more to know about Lovecraft.

He suffered night terrors in early childhood, fearing that winged creatures would carry him away during his sleep.

Both his parents went mad and died in the same asylum.

He taught himself chemistry and astronomy, though he never developed adequate math skills to pursue careers in those areas.

He worked as an independent journalist of sorts in his early days.

It's true that he was a racist, but there was a great deal of nuance in his views. He was an anglophile and his prejudice basically encompassed everyone who wasn't English or descended from.

He eventually married a Jewish businesswoman and moved to New York where he struggled to find work. The marriage eventually ended in divorce, with Lovecraft returning to live with his aunts.

He traveled a great deal and made many acquaintances.

He may have been the 20th century's most prolific letter writer, and efforts are continually ongoing to catalog all his correspondence. Many of his letters were to fellow authors who were inspired by his work.

He didn't just die in poverty, he died from intestinal cancer which went untreated for too long. When it was clear he would die soon, he kept a death diary where he recorded the effects and sensation of his pain. It's gruesome reading.

[–]Mnemonic[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

It's true that he was a racist, but there was a great deal of nuance in his views. He was an anglophile and his prejudice basically encompassed everyone who wasn't English or descended from.

I've began reading him when I was 17 and the cat's name in Rats in the walls seemed like a normal name for a cat in those days, also because (one g) niger means black in Latin.

What I recall most from his

his prejudice basically encompassed everyone who wasn't English or descended from

is his description of a dutch sailor in the horror at red hook. The descriptions of (in hind-sight black people) I took more as not-quite human creatures like the (semi)fish people in Innsmouth.

I only found out when I was I guess 23 orso, long after reading all his works, from a documentary about him that it was racist. When I was a bit older I visited scotland one time, and witnessed a military tattoo in Edinburgh and then I saw where he got his bulging fish-eyed people from, elderly Scottish people have those eyes and they are smaller (certainly also for HP himself) and chubby. They only need a fishy skin and BOOM you're in Innsmouth.

What I really liked about his writing was his usage of words I didn't know and had to look up, but that was a hassle so after looking up a few I tried to guess the meaning and mostly they were close-enough (when I looked them up after finishing a story) because the context of the words and the sounding would fit perfectly.

Eldritch is such a word and my favorite, when Lovecraft uses it it's something epic that 'weird' nor 'eerie' can conjure up.