City of Amnesia

***SPOILER WARNING***
This thread may contain spoilers about certain H. P. Lovecraft stories.

For those who have not read this man's writings, his (almost) complete body of creative work and other writings can be found here:
(http://www.hplovecraft.com/pics/hplabutn.gif) (http://www.hplovecraft.com/)

I have thus far read Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness and The Colour Out of Space. I am now well on my way through The Dunwich Horror. I have also read all of Lovecraft's biography. Whenever I have a dull moment in my day, I stop by the above site and pick out a new story to read, and I have thus far been highly entertained and-- dare I say it-- enriched by the experience.

I present this thread for those of us who know and love (or at least like) his writing-- and for those of us who, like me, are just learning about him for the first time-- to get together and discuss his life and work. Any thoughts or feelings on this subject will go in this thread.

Don't think I don't feel like an idiot hearing so many references to this man over the years and only just within the last week or so learning jack about who he really was and what kind of stories he wrote. Now's my chance to redeem myself by indulging in his makings with wild abandon!

Commence.

EDIT: Added the button link.

Well hell yes, that does seem to be a pretty substantive compillation of free lovecraft stuff.

Also theres this. It's not by Lovecraft, but it involves stuff from lovecraft. Specifically "What if the soviets weaponized a shoggoth during the Afghan war"

http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm (http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm)

Ridiculous Lovecraftian-ness (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1_8M6oW8l4)

Unfortunately, I couldn't find subs on YouTube, but the girl is Nyarlathotep.

I've read a couple of stories, namely "The Call of Cthulhu". I've meant to read more, but I'm not sure if I should just dive in, or start in some kind of chronological order.

So far, I don't find that any of the stories form any real continuity, so I don't think it makes much of a difference where you start. I just pick whatever sounds cool, or sometimes just at random.

I've now finished reading The Dunwich Horror, The Evil Clergyman, The Book, and The Curse of Yig. The Clergyman was kinda pointless, as was the Book. I can't recommend The Curse of Yig on account of it being quite gross on a number of levels (and not in the sense of classical Lovecraftian horror). The Dunwich Horror, however, was quite good, if a bit unceremonious towards the end.

I'm considering one day soon investing in the Cthulhu Mythos RPG, which, if what I hear is true, may be one of the most awesomeful things EVARZ.

...or not, it may be a waste of money. Opinions?

What is the first book in the cthulhu series? I want to read it.

Umm... Call of Cthulhu?

If you check the site I mentioned in the first post, you have the option of viewing the stories list in chronological order. As far as I know, Call of Cthulhu should be the first story that actually makes a big deal out of that character. The others mostly mention him in passing.

But, like I said, it doesn't make a big difference where you start. They don't seem to go in any particular order.

I... I still don't understand why you don't just Google these things yourself. 


I have tried reading Lovecraft many times over a span of many years.  I started with the Cthulhu stuff, and it went right over my head, so maybe I should start with something shorter?  I don't know.  Every time I try to read him I feel like I get to the end of the story and have no idea what just happened or what I just read.  I dunno, is there a good story you guys would recommend for someone to start with?  I guess his first story?  I dunno.  Oh, but I like the glossary section of the hplovecraft.com site, so I think I'm going to start there and see if maybe knowing some background information ahead of time will help me with reading it.  I feel kinda dumb for saying I don't get Lovecraft, but... I don't get Lovecraft. 

Don't worry, Tifaria; one day, you will.

Granted, you may not care much for it when you do.

Personally, as I've said, the first three stories I read were Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness and The Colour Out of Space. I recommend those three, as well as The Dunwich Horror, as prime examples of the Lovecraftian method. I was recommended these by someone very well-versed in Lovecraft's writing, so between me and them, you can take those suggestions for good.

Also, I'd avoid the stories co-authored will Zealia Bishop. Those can get kinda... gross.

Some people have suggested that Lovecraft's work gets better further down the line (early to mid 1930's to the end of his life). I can't quite prove this, but on my experience thus far, he does seem to get his act together over time.

One word of warning to those unfamiliar with the man: Lovecraft's writing can be... xenophobic at times. Not quite what you'd call racist, but with a very low opinion of people from foreign countries-- and not just any one race, either. This is closer to manifest destiny than straight-up white supremacy. This is the one big shortcoming of his work, but admittedly it was his fear of unknown and foreign things that fueled much of his weird alien mythology. Speaking for myself, I can't really excuse his slights against people from other countries or cultures, however ignorant his words might be, but I do my best not to let it interfere with my enjoyment of his work. I hope it doesn't interfere with any of yours, either.

---

Also, I'll repeat this for emphasis: the site I provided in the first post is a complete collection of all of Lovecraft's work, from fiction to correspondence, for free. They've got a detailed biography, links to Lovecraft-inspired works and all manner of other goodies. I strongly recommend exploring the place thoroughly for a solid education on the man, his life and his work.

From what little Lovecraft I've read myself, I think that might actually be what he was going for. There doesn't seem to be a single, cohesive story in the scattered mythos, so if you're looking for an overall plot, you might want to try something else.

Despite saying that, I have enjoyed the few stories I've read for what they are. I just read "The Alchemist" last night, and that mystery had a very strange conclusion.

Thanks, Randolf.  I did try reading the Cthulhu stories-- I particularly remember struggling through At the Mountains of Madness-- and giving up.  I started going through the background info last night, but tiredness got the better of me before I got very far.  I've heard a little about his xenophobia, so hopefully it won't catch me too off guard. 


That actually makes me feel a lot better.  I'll try reading him again without trying to connect the stories, and see if that helps. 

I think his low point comes in The Rats in the Walls, where he actually uses the "N" word (it's part of the name of the main character's cat, and may be partly where the name Shub-Niggurath is derived from). Just a heads up.

For another example, The Horror at Red Hook basically depicted various Asiatic peoples as squint-eyed, night-lurking creeps with bizarre and sinister religious practices, and even white-skinned races such as Germans as blond-haired, blue-eyed viking raiders (so he's not just looking down on skin color; he's looking down on pretty much everyone not a New Englander, including other white Americans and even other New Englanders who were poor or uneducated).

I try to chalk these things up to simple ignorance. He lived in the 1920s and 30s, and this kind of xenophobia and racial and social stereotyping was rather more common then than now; although one must admit his degradations of foreigners can sometimes be a bit shocking even by 20's standards.

If you can forgive him his sins, you'll like the stories better. Just try not to worry about it.

As for good reading, I can vouch for some of the longer stories (Dunwich Horror, Red Hook, Mountains of Madness, etc.) as these tend to have better-developed plots and occasionally even something like a greater meaning. To reiterate for everyone, there's no real order or continuity between them, so don't be afraid to just pick one off the list and start reading.

I think outside of certain locations popping up in other stories, and offhand references to characters, theres no real chronology. The only real "narrative" is "The universe doesn't recognize anybody for anything, and theres stuff out there that can destroy you completely if you even know it exists."

Also I've only read some of his stuff, but I heard somewhere that once other horror writers/pulp authors/whatever started utilizing his concepts, he pulled a 180 and tried to correlate everything to being actual aliens that were just so advanced that they seemed all arcane and godlike (Lovecraft was a staunch athiest. Also his cat was named after a racial slur, I'll give you a hint somebody just lost their radio career over saying it a bunch).

So the "mythos" stuff thats permeated so many other authors to one degree or another, he actually seemingly regretted.


Except wasn't he married to a Jewish woman? And..I think they got divorced but if I remember right, it was some deal about finances being the cause, and not the reason of him despising her ancestry.

From my understanding the dude just had a lot of baggage in general, even putting aside the societal mores of the 1920s

Just to sensationalize things further, if you look here (http://www.hplovecraft.com/life/myths.asp), you'll find a list of myths about Lovecraft, including whether or not he was gay.

A note about At the Mountains of Madness: it is long. Furthermore, nothing supernatural or even that scary happens until well into chapter 10. The biggest horror events happen almost at the very end.

I never read any Lovecraft, but I know that Eternal Darkness was inspired by him.

ED was awesome, therefore, he was awesome.

As the starter of the thread, I guess I should know this, but I'm going to ask anyway.

Are Lovecraft's works considered public domain? If not, who holds the copyrights at present? I see so much stuff based on his work, I'm guessing its up for grabs. If it is, I might be just tempted into doing something with the Mythos myself.

Mike: Quake is also based on Lovecraftian lore, and also awesome, making him doubly awesome by extension.

Depends on when they were written.  If it's before 1978 (I think), then they would have to be renewed under that law, so if they weren't, they're up for grabs.  Or something.  I could have explained it better a semester ago, but I promptly emptied my brain of everything when summer started. 

Ah, okay.  The second reply here (http://askville.amazon.com/Lovecraft-stories-public-domain-United-States/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=1776484) is a better explanation of how copyright works, and the wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Copyright) is actually pretty informative:

"All works published before 1923 are public domain in the U.S.  However, there is some disagreement over who exactly owns or owned the copyrights and whether the copyrights for the majority of Lovecraft's works published post-1923."  Uh, that sentence is worded weirdly, but you get the idea. 

Hmm. If it's still undecided, then I guess it's not legal for me to make any copies of the text just to keep on my computer for later reading, then. Or can I? I'm not exactly sure how the law would apply in this case, but I won't hit Ctrl+C until I know one way or the other.

Having read it recently, I recommend the paper "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction" in the site's Literary Criticism section. It's a great insight on Lovecraft's thoughts and principles on atmospheric horror writing; and he certainly practiced what he preached.

EDIT: Corrected some information.

If Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Copyright) is to be believed, all of his pre-1923 writings are undoubtedly public domain, and no copyright extensions were properly filed for his post-1923 work.

Either way, I don't think he'd mind terribly as long as people enjoy his fiction, as most of the supposed inheritors sound downright greedy.

He's dead. But of course... you knew that.

Finished reading The Thing on the Doorstep. I think this is one of my favorites thus far.

Well, if he was still alive, or some sort of zombie. But I guess your point would remain valid.

Finished up "The Dunwich Horror" earlier this evening myself. Pretty sure that's been the longest story of his I've read so far.

His stories have inspired some truly grandiose illustrations. I'm sorry I haven't read any yet.

As is well evident by now, I linked to the H. P. Lovecraft Archive in the first post. Seriously, man, you've not many valid excuses at this point. Get in on this, it's good stuff.

Indeed, the art produced based on the fruits of his imagination can be be most excellent. In particular, the art produced for Lovecraft-based card and board games is of great interest to me. It still retains the spirit of his work, but... "prunes" it on a surface level, just enough to make it emotionally accessible.

Admittedly, he can get unnecessarily verbose at times (in Call of Cthulhu, he takes several lengthy paragraphs to say "I saw a piece of paper on a shelf at my friend's house, and it gave me a vital clue on the mysterious cult, which I now regret having ever seen or heard of".)

Just like apparently EVERY historic figure/author/anyone of note who is now dead.

It's as if theres a cottage industry of people who figure "I want my name out there. If I claim (person) was actually gay it might ruffle some feathers enough to get me a piece of that limelight"

I'm casting kind of a broad net here, but it seems that a good 80 to 90% of the time, when somebody just goes "HEY GUESS WHAT, THIS DUDE/CHICK LIKED OTHER DUDES/CHICKS" and you start even mildly questioning their argument, they just go "NOPE, THEY WERE TOTALLY GAY, YOU'RE JUST BEING CLOSE-MINDED, FIE ON YOUR REASONABLE QUESTIONING OF MY ASSERTION"

..Alright so that was a derail. Anywho


Well..I've read the original design documents, and they don't really mention Lovecraft if I remember right. In the final version the last boss is named shub-niggurath so clearly the designers were aware and referencing lovecraft. I dunno if it goes any further than that though

I only mentioned the gay article because I figured people were interested in stuff like that-- which, as you said, they are to a fault. It might be a desperate attitude, by I've got no qualms against sensationalizing things a bit to generate some interest. Although, perhaps I should seriously rethink that.

I'm pretty sure Quake made only or two direct references to Lovecraft concepts, but (in my opinion) some of the game's other ideas seemed to tap into a similar methodology as Lovecraft (making it more Lovecraft-derivative in a broad sense than actually Lovecraft-based). But I know what you mean, shub-niggurath is literally the only thing overtly Lovecraftian in the whole game (unless you want to say all the pentacles are Elder Signs, which is frankly a crock).

Also, Quake's shub-niggurath in no way resembles Lovecraft's description of that Elder God. It didn't look even remotely goatlike, it was a squatting wad of flesh with a few slits in it and some tentacles.

Also, the method by which you defeat it falls so flat on its face it made me laugh.

Wikipedia mentioned something interesting on Chiaki Konaka, Big O's main writer. Apparently he likes Lovecraft. I wonder if any of that showed up in Big O?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaki_Konaka

I forgot he also did hellsing and lain

I can...kind of sort of see a strained correlation in hellsing (the notion of all this vast, ominous stuff going on that most people are fully unaware of)...I guess possibly you could interpret lain like that too. Probably moreso since theres that episode where it pretty much just ties in every conspiracy theory from stuff about the knights templar up through roswell with the plot.

Either way it's kind of a huge stretch. But yeah you could probably lump in the "Schwarzwald goes five sorts of insane from figuring out whats actually going on" into there, since a common thing with those stories is even getting an inkling of the entities like cthulu is enough to drive people totally out of their gourd.

Wait, wait. I forgot one. That episode with the hydroelectric dam always sort of reminded me of Lovecraft. It's an isolated seaside town, the locals all act like they're hostile to outsiders and are aware of some big secret, and even the thing he ends up fighting sort of resembles depictions of cthulu if I remember right. So basically the shadow over innsmouth but with a huge robot.

^ I thought that the chtulla had tentacles on it's face. And from what I understand the chtulla had a more human shape.
Need to go get the full lovecraft collection. You can get them in omnibus editions. And I prefer to read real books.

I forget if cthulu's ever actually directly described.

Also what the thing in that episode really looked like, it's been a while since I saw it.