H.P. Lovecraft: Difference between revisions

Although Lovecraft had a very happy childhood by his own account -- hisaccount—his rich grandfather, mom and aunts gave him just about everything he wanted including free run of the family library -- hislibrary—his early years were marked by loss. His father went insane (from syphilis) and died when Lovecraft was about eight. His grandfather died and his money was mismanaged by relatives, leaving the family penniless. Lovecraft's mother also went insane and died in a mental hospital. In his adult years he drifted in and out of poverty (mostly in), ate cold beans out of cans, lost his wife, and ended his life with cancer of the small intestine.

As the quote at the top shows, Lovecraft might be considered a real life [[Nietzsche Wannabe]]. He also expressed racist and xenophobic views, though he was opposed to the racial violence of [[Nazi Germany]]. Even after he married a Jewish woman, Sonia Greene, he often made anti-semitic remarks -- inremarks—in response to which she gently reminded him with whom he was sleeping. Many of his early stories and poems contained overt racial slurs, mostly aimed at immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. One of the "horrors" he intended to creep out his audience was miscegenation -- racialmiscegenation—racial impurity, which he considered "degenerate" -- again—again, a commonplace societal fear at the time, especially in the New England states where opposition to interracial marriages was higher than in the South. <ref> note that the racial slurs are far less common in his later stories, as Lovecraft moderated his views.</ref>

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'').

On the other hand, Lovecraft's stories, especially the Dreamland stories, featured protagonists with dark skin of which he speaks quite highly, and Lovecraft was a great admirer of the civilizations of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire. He differentiated between people of "noble" appearance and heritage and civilized behaviour contra "degenerate" individuals or tribes, independently of ethnicity or skin-colour. He thought that immigrants to the U.S. should keep their original language, dress and customs, not discard them and try to become "Americanized", because this made them look vulgar.

The dizzying speed of progress of his time was compounded by an expansion of the unknown. Each new development, instead of reducing the number of questions as had been expected by pre-modern philosophers, instead compounded them exponentially. Leibniz had hoped that the entire world could be described by reason, and that this is the best of all possible worlds -- aworlds—a possibility utterly abolished during Lovecraft's writing period. Each new discovery only increased humanity's knowledge of its own ignorance and [[Insignificant Little Blue Planet|insignificance]], encouraging a nihilistic atmosphere, and this is perhaps the central theme of Lovecraft's incisive fiction. For fiction done by others in his literary mythos (and the Lovecraftian setting as a whole) see the [[Cthulhu Mythos]].

Despite [[wikipedia:H. P. Lovecraft#Copyright and other legal issues|some controversy]] over whether most of his works are genuinely public domain, they're all invariably available online [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:H._P._Lovecraft somewhere]. The letters are harder to get ahold of (and expensive as hell, check out Abebooks), but they're well worth the search.

=== The stories for which he is remembered include: ===

* ''[[At the Mountains of Madness]]'' -- Scholarly—Scholarly expedition to [[Mysterious Antarctica|Antarctica]] discovers ruins of a city built by [[Ancient Astronauts]] and has close encounters with [[Blob Monster|formless horrors]] and [[Our Monsters Are Weird|giant hairless penguins]], incidentally proving that "[[It Gets Better]]" ''can'' be used to great effect.

** Guillermo del Toro (the director of ''Hellboy'' and ''[[Pan's Labyrinth]]'') had a screenplay prepared, although it will be quite a while before anything comes of it, what with [[The Hobbit (novel)|one thing]] and [[Frankenstein|another]]. Although it had [[Tom Cruise]] and [[James Cameron]] involved, it was cancelled in light of The Wolfman reboot flopping.

**** John Carpenter's ''[[The Thing (film)|The Thing]]'' is even closer. Indeed, a genealogical connection is plausible: the film is an adaptation of [[John W. Campbell]]'s short story "[[Who Goes There?]]", published in ''[[Astounding Stories]]'' in 1938. Campbell -- whoCampbell—who became editor of ''Astounding'' that year -- wouldyear—would surely have been reading it in 1936, when it published ''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.

** ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20071101063857/http://www.cthulhulives.org/toc.html The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society]'' [[H.P. Lovecraft/Lovecraft on Film|adapted]] this story [https://web.archive.org/web/20131202003627/http://www.cthulhulives.org/cocmovie/ to film] in 2005, faithful to the original, in the style of a classic 1920s black-and-white silent movie. A must-see.

* ''The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'' -- Long—Long dead [[Necromancer]] {{spoiler|steals the identity of his [[Identical Grandson|identical great-great-great-grandson]]. After his descendent brings him back to life, the necromancer kills him}}. The source of perhaps one of the most solid pieces of advice for anyone messing with sorcery: "[[Evil Is Not a Toy|Do not call up that which you cannot put down.]]"

* ''[[The Dunwich Horror]]'' -- Invisible—Invisible abomination terrorises the Massachusetts countryside.

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

* ''[[The Colour Out of Space]]'' -- A—A toxic meteorite that's of a colour [[Not of This Earth]] devastates a small farm in Massachusetts. Lovecraft insists upon using the English spelling, as always.

** 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.

* ''The Shadow out of Time'' -- One—One of his best-regarded stories. Strange creature from the deep past [[Grand Theft Me|swaps bodies]] with a modern-day scholar, followed by the latter's subsequent investigations into the years he can't remember.

* ''[[The Shadow Over Innsmouth]]'' -- Man—Man visits a [[Town with a Dark Secret]] {{spoiler|and finds [[Half-Human Hybrid|something]] [[A Worldwide Punomenon|fishy]] in [[Tomato in the Mirror|his family tree]].}}

* ''Pickman's Model'' -- A—A [[Mad Artist|degenerate artist]] gives one of his former friends a glimpse of the [[Real After All|horrible secret]] behind his disturbing subject matter.

* ''Cool Air'' -- A—A boarding-house resident who likes, for some reason, to have it ''very'' cold in his apartment goes into a panic when his swamp cooler breaks down; his next-door neighbor soon begins to wonder where the smell is coming from...

* ''The Rats in the Walls'' -- The—The narrator, a man from New England, buys an old keep in England that belonged to his ancestors (and which was erected at the site of much older Roman and iron-age temples) and discovers a [[I'm a Humanitarian|horrifying]] [[Madwoman in the Attic|family]] [[People Farms|secret]] that drives him insane.

* ''The Whisperer in Darkness'' -- A—A science fiction First Contact story with strong [[Grand Theft Me|horror elements]]. A scholar and his pen pal friend discover a colony of sinister fungoid space-faring aliens in the mountainous rural backwaters of New England in 1930.

** ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20071101063857/http://www.cthulhulives.org/toc.html The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society]'' [[H.P. Lovecraft/Lovecraft on Film|has]] [[Adaptation Expansion|adapted]] this puppy to [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20130919140610/http://cthulhulives.org/whispererWhisperer/index.html film as well]. The DVD is out and Blu-ray versions are due to be released soon. ''Another'' must-see.

* ''Herbert West -- Reanimator'' -- A—A [[Mad Scientist]] develops a serum that can revive the dead. Probably best known in its gory, darkly comedic [[Re-Animator|film adaptation]].

* ''The Music of Erich Zann'' -- A—A student, seeking cheap accommodation, takes a room underneath a strange, mute cellist who plays unnatural music late into the night. He considered this one of his best stories, as he managed to avoid his usual tactic of explaining everything (read: [[Nothing Is Scarier|the tiniest explanation of anything is not even alluded to]]).

* And most terrifyingly of all, ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130928072106/http://www.psy-q.ch/lovecraft/html/catsdogs.htm Cats and Dogs]'', an essay on [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|why cats are better than dogs.]]

* Apart from these, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society and other fan groups have produced ''[[Shoggoth Onon the Roof|A Shoggoth on the Roof]]'', a musical based on the Cthulhu mythos (the initial score was that of ''Fiddler on the Roof'', but it was modified after lawsuits). Considering Lovecraft's aforementioned anti-Semitic leanings, this is actually rather hilarious.

For a mostly-complete list of film adaptations, see [[H.P. Lovecraft/Lovecraft on Film|Lovecraft on Film]]. For the comic book about Lovecraft, see ''[[Lovecraft (comics)|Lovecraft]]''.

=== {{tropelist|Tropes used throughout Lovecraft stories include: ===}}

* [[Arc Words]]:

{{quote| ''That is not dead which can eternal lie,''<br />

* [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]]

* [[Black and Grey Morality]]: There are three races Lovecraft describes who don't want to outright consume or obliterate humanity (by desire or nature): the Mi-Go, the Elder Things, and the Yithians. However:

** The Mi-Go think nothing of [[Brain In a Jar|extracting the brains of people and putting them in containers]] to take them travelling around the universe to enlighten them, whether they like it or not.

* [[Cats Are Magic]]: In Lovecraft canon, specifically ''The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath'', the cats of the Dreamlands can travel to the Moon on their own power and have a secret language. They worship Bast and aid the hero in his quest. The only thing the Earth-cats fear are the cats from Saturn, who are even more powerful than they, but are in league with the [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]]s.

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

** In fact, he occasionally gets into a downright [[Cute Kitten]] mode.

** If you know anything about Lovecraft or his views on racial purity and the inferiority of the African, you'd quickly reason he could not possibly have intentionally wanted to suggest that Caucasians are descended out of/from African tribals.

*** That alone may indicate that he did just that. He was writing ''horror'', and the idea would have certainly been horrifying in his mind. Also, there were many scientific discoveries he found distasteful, yet didn't reject out of emotional reasons. He might well have written the story to deal with his own issues in learning about the genetic connection between the Africans and the Caucasians. Not to mention that he had no trouble in writing about degenerate, barbaric white people, and did it with far greater frequency than lauding against the blacks.

* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: Lovecraft's gods and cosmic horrors are unfathomable by human minds--heminds—he pretty much invented the trope as we know it.

* [[For the Evulz]]: Nyarlathotep, one of the few [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]]s who seems to take active interest in humanity, seems to love messing with people just because he can. Although in some stories he is simply the guardian of hidden lore, in ''The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath,'' he's intentionally cruel. In the prose poem "Nyarlathotep," he tours the country driving people insane with scientific exhibitions. His purpose is never clear. In general, he's so powerful that his cruel actions are analogous to a child burning ants with a magnifying glass.

* [[Go Mad Fromfrom the Revelation]]: [[Trope Namer]].

* [[Mad Scientist]]: Herbert West is the most notable, but there are others--usuallyothers—usually in the guise of Mad ''Magicians'', or Mad Scholars, though.

* [[Mysterious Antarctica]] -- Visited—Visited in ''[[At the Mountains of Madness]]''.

* [[Mind Rape]]

* [[Our Monsters Are Weird]]: Most of his aliens who aren't just plain [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]]s fall under this trope.

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

* [[Ragnarok Proofing]]: ruins of both [[Ancient Astronauts|the unbelievably old]] Elder Thing and Yithian civilizations -- evencivilizations—even books for the latter! -- have been found remarkably intact .

** Well, they only had early 20th century science at their disposal, and the [[Phlebotinum]] they took for studying evaporated in a matter of days.

* [[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.

** Robert Blake in ''The Haunter of the Dark'' {{spoiler|doesn't end up well}} -- a—a playful [[Take That]] from Lovecraft to his young admirer Bloch.

*** 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).

{{quote| Then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.}}

** {{spoiler|Joseph Curwen}} was killed {{spoiler|[[Back Fromfrom the Dead|for the first time, at least,]]}} when he lost control of his "guardians".

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

** Moreover, narrators who ''are'' still sane (i.e. in denial) tend to describe the creepiness that surrounds them, then blithely -- andblithely—and wrongly, and often fatally -- attributefatally—attribute it to some mundane cause.

* [[We Are as Mayflies]]: The [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]]s are apparently ageless and outside of time.)

** ''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.

* [[Weirdness Censor]]: [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]]s and other space aliens can usually appear to anyone they choose, but this trope is the basis for "[[From Beyond]]."

[[Category:World War OneI]]

[[Category:LovecraftianCosmic Horror Tropes]]