H.P. Lovecraft: Difference between revisions

{{creator}}

[[File:HPL-Smiling!.jpg|frame|A rare picture of our author [[The Un-Smile|attempting to smile.]]]]

 

{{quote|''"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."''}}

The best known author of the [[Cosmic Horror Story]] and the origin of [[Lovecraft Country]], '''Howard Phillips Lovecraft''' (1890-1937) is considered perhaps the greatest of all horror fiction writers, rivaled only by his idol [[Edgar Allan Poe]]. An antiquarian eremite, he was more fond of books than of people, very much like most of his protagonists. There is, however, no official record of Lovecraft ever encountering anything corporeally eldritch, as much as some fans wish it were all true. To this day you can find at least a half dozen different [[Defictionalization|fabrications]] of Lovecraft's wholly fictional ''[[Tome of Eldritch Lore|Necronomicon.]]'' He credited his night terrors<ref>while similar to nightmares, they are actually the result of a sleep disorder</ref> with providing most of his inspiration; both night terrors and the filmy, oily membrane between waking and sleep factor heavily in his various works.

 

 

On the other hand, he was a member of the United Amateur Press Association and made many friends by correspondence, and when possible he would travel to meet them, journeying all up and down the east coast and even venturing into Canada. He was an amateur astronomer and antiquarian, a tireless walker and lover of all things ancient and strange. He was a professed atheist, but loved the Gods of the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks, and as a child had prayed to them.

No summary of Lovecraft's life is complete without a mention of his passionate devotion to cats and to his home town of Providence, Rhode Island. He only owned one cat in his lifetime, but fed and named every alley cat he found. His words ''I Am Providence'' are engraved on his tombstone.

 

 

Lovecraft's stories featured not so much fear of people of different (non-White) skin colour, but distaste aimed at "mental, moral and physical degeneration" (a concept prevalent at the time) due to in-breeding, interbreeding with non-human creatures, or even immoral acts such as cannibalism. In his stories such degeneration could afflict the lower classes (''The Horror at Red Hook'') and inbred rural communities (''The Dunwich Horror'', ''The Shadow over Innsmouth'') as well as upper class families (''Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family'', ''The Rats in the Walls'', ''The Lurking Fear'').

It has often been suggested that [[Alternate Character Interpretation|he only incorporated so much racism in his stories because they stemmed from the element that proliferates all of his works: fear of the unknown.]] He almost singlehandedly invented a new cosmology, but instead of being one based on science and progress, it was instead full of otherworldly horror and blind, raving deities. While most people of his time were entranced by the technological innovation produced by the Industrial Revolution, Lovecraft was [[Romanticism Versus Enlightenment|deeply suspicious of modern technology and the poorly-understood powers it vested in mankind]]. All of his work resonates with the terror of the newly-discovered magnitude of the universe, which in the early period of his life was believed to consist entirely of the Milky Way. Einstein's theory of relativity opened a door into teleportation, time travel, [[Alien Geometries|alien geometry]], and radically altered peoples' notion of space-time itself, while the discovery of pre-Cambrian fossils and Wegener's then-new-and-controversial hypothesis of continental drift brought the notion that the Earth was far older than previously believed, and that even the shape of the continents was not [[Incredibly Lame Pun|set in stone]]. All of this was subtly addressed in Lovecraft's stories of alien horror, and of the remains of ancient civilizations lost to the abyss of geological deep time.

 

 

 

*** The film ''Alien V. Predator'' bears a remarkable similarity to ''At The Mountains of Madness''...

* ''[[The Call of Cthulhu]]'' -- [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Cthulhu]] briefly wakes, and fills the dreams of men with madness. The first and best-known Lovecraftian [[Tabletop Games|Tabletop RPG]] is [[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)|named after it]] and reprints the story in full.

** Also used in the Roger Corman film, 'The Haunted Palace'.

** Filmed in 1970 as a not-entirely-faithful [[Cult Classic]] starring Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee. ''Yog-Sothoth!''

*** There was also a 2009 remake by the [[Syfy]] Channel - again starring Dean Stockwell.

** A big part of the inspiration for the "Weeds" segment (starring self-professed Lovecraft fan [[Stephen King]]) in ''[[Creepshow]]''.

** Plot also used in the movie 'The Curse', starring John Schneider, Claude Akins, and Wil Wheaton. Rather faithful to the original, under the circumstances.

** Faithfully adapted in 2008 as a black-and-white movie called ''[http://www.die-farbe.com/ Die Farbe]'' (''The Colour'') by ''Sphärentor Produktion'', a group of independent German film makers. The only colour in this black-and-white movie is the alien colour. The movie is 85 minutes long, with some cut scenes in the extras, filmed in both German and English language, and has been shown at various film festivals in Europe and USA and at German roleplaying conventions from 2010 to 2012. The setting was moved from New England, USA, to forested southern Germany, with several layers if narration and three time frames of events. The framing story is set in the 1970s, with an American narrator who is looking for his father, a former G.I. who as a young man served in Germany during WWII and now returned there and disappeared. When the son tries to reconstruct what drove the father back to this region of Germany, he stumbles over historical events that the locals wish to keep buried. The father's narrative (as told by a German ex-soldier who met the father) is set in 1945, when the Americans investigated an abandoned farmstead, which itself becomes the framing story for yet another narrative: The German ex-soldier, returned from the front to his home village to find his own family gone, tries to warn the American soldiers not to approach the abandoned farm and its well and the wasteland of its devastated farmlands, because of the "curse". He recalls the events set during the 1920s, of the meteorite from space that brought the colour to Earth. This narrative comprises the main story and is identical with the events in Lovecraft's story.

** This one was the primary inspiration for the video game ''[[Dark Corners of the Earth]]'', which takes place in Innsmouth.

** Also loosely adapted into ''[[Dagon]]'', only set on the coast of modern-day Spain.

** Also part of a long sequel series by various authors, ''Shadows over Innsmouth''.

** Has been adapted a number of times into short movies by various independent film makers from different countries, movies which were collected on DVD as part of ''The H.P. Lovecraft Collection'' (Part 4) by Lurker Films, Inc.

** ''Cool Air'' and ''Pickman's Model'' were made into episodes of ''[[Night Gallery]]''.

*** Unfortunately, ''[[Night Gallery]]'' insisted on adding a female love interest and [[Damsel in Distress]] for Pickman to the episode. Not only that, the story was combined with ''Innsmouth'', only with rats instead of fish.

** Also was adapted as one of the segments in the anthology film ''Necronomicon'', with, of all people, David Warner as the star.

** Another quite faithful indie film maker adaption of ''Cool Air'' can be found in ''The H.P. Lovecraft Collection'' (Part 1) by Lurker Films, Inc.

* His ''Dreamland'' stories, among them "[[The Cats of Ulthar]]", ''The Silver Key'', ''Through the Gates of the Silver Key'' and ''The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath''.

** Kadath, it should be noted, encompassed a number of characters from Lovecraft's other stories, ''Pickman's Model'' in particular.

** Fans often assume he's trying to appease Azathoth, though, since The Demon Sultan is known to enjoy spooky music.

** Well, aren't they? "''You'' threw the stick, you can get it yourself!"

 

 

Subjective Tropes can be found [[H.P. Lovecraft/YMMV|here]].

* [[Author Avatar]]: Abdul Alhazred, Wilbur Whateley, Edward Derby, and Randolph Carter particularly, although most of his protagonists were somewhat autobiographical.

* [[Author Phobia]]: Much of what Lovecraft wrote was motivated by his own nightmares and personal phobias. Among the ones less likely to evoke similar feelings in readers nowadays were his fears of [[Values Dissonance|non-white Anglo-Saxon people and miscegenation.]] [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|And fish.]]

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: The three professors in ''[[The Dunwich Horror]]''.

* [[Badass Normal]]: A strange non-human example. The [[Starfish Aliens|Elder Things]], despite being ordinary carbon-based lifeforms instead of being made of extradimensional exotic matter like most of the gibbering horrors of the Cthulhuverse, actually managed to win a stand up fight against the big green himself.

* [[Brick Joke]]: In ''The Shadow Out Of Time'' the narrator loses conciousness while giving a lecture at the beginning of the first chapter. At the end of the chapter and several years later he wakes up muttering about economics.

* [[Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu]]: Version 1 ''The Call of Cthulhu''.

** In general, you can judge your safety in the Dreamlands by the proximity of cats --

* [[Cats Are Mean]]: Subverted: Cats are helpful and only mean when humans are mean first. Lovecraft was a cat-lover, so anyone who messes with them will get their comeuppance!

* [[Dream Land]]: Lovecraft's Dream Cycle stories, inspired by the works of Lord Dunsany, are set in a world which can be entered through dreams. "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" suggests that each planet has its own dream land, and there are some locations where the dream land and waking world intersect.

* [[Dreaming of Times Gone By]]

* [[Enemy to All Living Things]]: Asenath Waite, Wilbur Whateley, and the de la Poers are human (or human-ish) examples; the Deep Ones and the Elder Things are also despised by mundane animals.

* [[Evil Is Not a Toy]]: "Do not call up that which you cannot put down" is the advice given to the necromancer from "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." He doesn't listen, and it costs him big.

* [[Evil Is Visceral]]: Many things are "squamous," which means scaly or looking like a close-up of a layer of skin cells.

* [[Fish People]]: The Deep Ones.

* [[Half-Human Hybrid]]: ''[[The Shadow Over Innsmouth]]'', and others.

* [[He Also Did]]: Most of his fans would be surprised to learn Lovecraft tossed off a few light comedic pieces, including parodies of [[Horatio Alger, Jr.|Horatio Alger-type stories]] and heavy-handed anti-drinking screeds.

* [[Long Title]]: ''Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family''. To Lovecraft's distaste, it was retitled ''The White Ape'' when it was first published.

* [[Mad God]]

* [[Scenery Porn]]: One of his longer works, ''The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'' revels in [[Scenery Porn]] of Providence, Lovecraft's hometown (his love of which was previously mentioned).

* [[Mars Needs Women]]: And usually men, too.

* [[Mind Rape]]

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]

* [[Not of This Earth]]

* [[Not So Different]]: one of the [[Starfish Aliens|non-humanoid]] alien species, in a strange way.

* [[Organic Technology]]: Used by the Old Ones to generate energy and {{spoiler|breed shoggoths for construction purposes}}. They even use [[No Kill Like Overkill|nuclear weapons]] in an attempt to destroy Cthulhu. [[Made of Iron|It doesn't]] [[Mighty Glacier|work]].

* [[Our Ghouls Are Different]]: Lovecraft popularized his own version of ghouls as a secretive living species, rather than undead or demons.

* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]: The {{spoiler|''enormous''}} vampire from ''The Shunned House'' manifests itself as a cloud of yellowish, man-eating fog.

** The necromancers from ''The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'' also have to practice vampirism for some months after they've been reanimated in order to become fully alive again. [[Shout-Out|One of them lives in an old castle in Transylvania]].

* [[Puppeteer Parasite]]: Yithians.

* [[Purple Prose]]: In this case it's purple in the sense that an oozing infected bruise is purple. Fans enjoy it as part of the appeal.

** Of course, consider the Elder Things were immortal and the Yithians traveled through time, if anyone could build things to last it would be them.

* [[Reality Subtext]]: Many of the stories have hidden dimensions if you know something about the author's life, but most disturbingly in ''[[The Dunwich Horror]]''.

* [[Sensitive Guy and Manly Man]]: Lovecraft himself was the Sensitive Guy (for a given measure of "sensitive") to Robert E. Howard's Manly Man. They never met in person, but became friends via correspondence.

* [[Shout-Out]]: Clark Ashton Smith, [[Robert Bloch]], [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/imprisonedwithpharaos.htm Harry Houdini] and some of Lovecraft's other friends became characters in his stories.

*** To be fair, a character named Howard who is a recluse in Providence ends up dying in one of Bloch's stories. "The Haunter of the Dark" even references that story. Both stories also begin with dedications to the other author.

** A few of Lovecraft's stories refer to the works of [[Arthur Machen]], both directly (the librarian in ''[[The Dunwich Horror]]'' mentions ''[[The Great God Pan]]'' by name) and indirectly (look for "Voorish signs," among other incongruous phrases).

* [[Troll]]: When he found a student mistaking the abbreviation "ibid." for the name of some famous ancient Roman Lovecraft found this so funny that he went and wrote a whole story about Ibid just to mock the student.

* [[Turned Against Their Masters]]: {{spoiler|The shoggoths in "At the Mountains of Madness", and the reanimated corpses (if the men that created them could be called "masters") in "Herbert West - Reanimator"}}.

* [[Tropes Are Not Bad]]: Lovecraft turns [[Purple Prose]] into an art form.

* [[Uncanny Valley]]: Used extensively [[In-Universe]]. If the antagonists are human, expect the protagonist to described them as "strange".

** Which is probably just as well for reality as we'd like to go on knowing it.

* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: a lot of the first-person narration in his stories either become more maddened as it progresses, or has the narrator repeatedly questioning [[Always Male|his]] own sanity and memories.

** ''The Dreams in the Witch-House'' even featured a human who had learned how to travel to spaces beyond time, and remained unageing, save for the brief visits she made back to Earth once a year.

* [[Was Once a Man]]: The title monster from "The Beast of the Cave."

* [[Wretched Hive]]: New York City is presented like this in ''The Horror of Red Hook'' and ''He'', mainly because of all the [[Unfortunate Implications|immigration]].

* [[Zombie Apocalypse]]: In ''Reanimator'', they're close to Romero zombies, right down to the spine being the weak point, akin to regular zombies having the head as the weak point. Notable because it was published decades before Romero became famous, as a ''Frankenstein'' parody.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Creator Index]]

[[Category:Authors]]

[[Category:Trope Makers]]