/lit/ - Literature

>>10850510
he had very cool ideas is why

>>10850510
His prose is not average, it might be called blunt at times but its incredibly preculiar and idiosyncratic

>Somewhere I heard a clock ticking, and was vaguely grateful for the normality of the sound. It reminded me, though, of another thing about the region which disturbed me—the total absence of animal life. There were certainly no farm beasts about, and now I realised that even the accustomed night-noises of wild living things were absent. Except for the sinister trickle of distant unseen waters, that stillness was anomalous—interplanetary—and I wondered what star-spawned, intangible blight could be hanging over the region. I recalled from old legends that dogs and other beasts had always hated the Outer Ones, and thought of what those tracks in the road might mean.

He's the closest writer to Poe after Poe.

>>10850525
it strikes me as being just very Victorian

>>10850510
Dude horror lmao
>Dude it was indescribable lmao
Dude it me go crazy lmao
>The horror! The horror!

>>10850537
>he reads Lovecraft for the horror and not the philosophy of cosmic pessimism.

Worse than average, I'd say.

But >>10850521 is right. There wasn't much out there like the stuff he wrote. So he stands out.

I'd argue stuff like Blindsight captures the feel of living in a mechanistic, uncaring universe beyonf our comprehension than anything Lovecraft did. And Kafka, though he didn't go for straight-up horror or sci-fi, also does a better job capturing the dread and unease of the senselessness of it all. I feel there is a lop of overlap of the hidden themes of cosmic horror stories and kafkaesque pieces.

But I gotta give credit to Lovecraft for being a pioneer.

>>10850556
Sorry for my dyslexia, I drank a whole Monster.

>>10850510
Who's prose you think it's beyond good?

>>10850566
whose

>>10850556
If you can't hear the music in sentences like these, there's no saving you:

>West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs.

>>10850510
Because nerds love continuity which his books have, as well as references in other books/comics/games with continuity.

>>10850529
It is but thats part of his charm. Its his unapologetic commitment to Victorian haughtiness and etiquette combined with his causticly alienated and angsty relationship to modern life that make his writting so distinct

>>10850526
>He's the closest writer to Poe after Poe.
This is why European posters make fun of Americans.

>>10850583
Even Jorge Luis "Library of Babel" Borges created his own homage to Lovecraft's work and drew comparisons.

>>10850510
He named a cat Niggerman. That's why.

>>10850583
the Frogs were obsessed with Poe

>>10850521
>>10850510
Right place, right time. Leading trends is pretty much guaranteed fame, or infamy, depending. That combined with even a respectable degree of skill and you've got a winner.

There's just something very Lovecraftian about him.

>>10850510
Two reasons: his prose was unique (it wasn't excellent but it was better than average) and he had tons of fascinating ideas.

>>10850529
what's victorian?

>Is there a reason he's so popular?

Hipsters ironically liking Edwardian racism

>>10850510
Pessimism, interesting cosmic powers and nice gothic imagery. Also the stuff he inspired is pretty good, del toro in particular

>>10850545

Lovecraft has a good body of work and a distinct style. None of the stuff I've read from him falls flat on its face and I've read a lot of it. Some of his prose is pretty audacious in a way that you get the feeling he had a healthy sense of humor to contrast the dark themes of all of his stories

>>10850510
He was one of the very first genre fiction writers who embraced Nietzschean philosophy. You take a look at pre-Lovecraft horror, like Bram Stoker's work, and there was a religion-based morality to it, whereas in Lovecraft's work the universe is nightmarish and there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

>>10850537
>>10851103
>dude Lovecraft never described anything lmao
>have I ever read him? lmao of course not. I just like memes.

>>10851136
good insight tbqh

>>10850573
It really isn't that great. It has a decent flow, but he does very little describing.

>>10850566
>who's

>>10850510
He is one of the first writers to acknowledge the American JQ. I nean just look at rats in the walls. A comfy white man is chillin in his new house (America) while a bunch of RATS in the woodworks (Jews) keep doing shit to make the white man's pet (niggers) go crazy so he can never get any R&R. As if it wasn't already obvious enough he even went to the length of naming the cat "NIGGER-man". How much more lucid can you get? Lovecraft was a race realist he knew blacks could live subservient to whites but get Jews involved and suddenly it becomes it devolves into tumultuous disharmony

>>10850510
His stuff is fun to read. The ideas are interesting. The mix of 18th/19th century-style English with punchy 1920s dialect is cool. You learn all sorts of stuff about architecture and New England history while reading. The sense of half-hidden connections between the various stories is tantalizing. The mix of philosophical mysticism and hardcore materialism is worthwhile, since it lets what is worthy about mysticism stand forth without any admixture of religious bullshit. The cosmicism and ideas of human smallness are a rare and compelling perspective. And his better stuff is very well written - see the nested narratives of 'The Call of Cthulhu' or the excellent pacing of 'The Shadow over Innsmouth'.

>>10851724
i laughed

>>10851724
>and suddenly it becomes it devolves into tumultuous disharmony
decent approximation for a history of reality

>>10850529
I read a lot of victorian anglo literature, and if you compare him to like Hardy or Scott you would know how retarded that sounds. He was straight up autistic.

>>10850510
I'd rather read his prose than the anemic writing style of today.

>>10853202
>He was straight up autistic.
Have you read Carlyle

>>10850526
>>10850526
God damn were his ideas cool man

>>10851136

>>10850566
>Who is prose you think it's beyond good?

>>10850510
Just bought the Necronomicon and it's great fun. Have fun, oblee.