Current Events > I will never get people that consider Lovecraft as a good writer.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Not even because of racism, but his writing itself is bad. He builds atmosphere like a master with prose, but his dialogue is awful, his characters have no personality, he repeatedly has issues with pacing, and he regularly fails to write effective action.

He's a very one note writer, and that note is extremely good, but outside that he's heavily flawed and better writers have shown the potential of his ideas.

Most people are just used to stories having a specific structure with a beginning middle and end. Lovecraft never really stuck to that and some of his stories shit just kinda happens and then it ends and nothing was accomplished.

If you grew up reading modern prose exclusively and then went on to read Shakespeare you'd probably also come to the conclusion that it was barely intelligible garbage unless you took the time to understand the poetic restrictions Shakespeare had to work with.

Lovecraft wrote well for what he did, and racist as he was, he was a stickler for having a large and elegant vocabulary.

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I enjoy his writing. I mostly dislike well defined characters and the use of dialogue in fiction so that stuff being insubstantial is fine, I'm only reading for atmosphere anyway. There is no objectively good writing.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

Most people are just used to stories having a specific structure with a beginning middle and end. Lovecraft never really stuck to that and some of his stories shit just kinda happens and then it ends and nothing was accomplished.

If you grew up reading modern prose exclusively and then went on to read Shakespeare you'd probably also come to the conclusion that it was barely intelligible garbage unless you took the time to understand the poetic restrictions Shakespeare had to work with.

Lovecraft wrote well for what he did, and racist as he was, he was a stickler for having a large and elegant vocabulary.

Ehhh, the characters still suck. I can't think of a single memorable character because they're so lifeless and matter of fact. There are tons of classic authors with great characters.

p-m posted...

I enjoy his writing. I mostly dislike well defined characters and the use of dialogue in fiction so that stuff being insubstantial is fine, I'm only reading for atmosphere anyway. There is no objectively good writing.

Hey if it works for you more power to you. FWIW, there are quite a few Lovecraft stories I love and I could never be a better writer. But he does have serious flaws.

Lovecraft wrote pulp and overtime it's gotten mystified by people into being elevated beyond that categorization. Like, he wrote to a crowd who wanted to see him do a specific thing and he made money by appealing to that crowd. I like him for what he is, but I don't disagree with pretty much anything you're saying. He was very good at building an almost analytical tone of dread that's very unique to him, but almost all of his narrators are the exact same person: a neurotic scientist/artist/nonspecific gentlemen that lives like an intellectual bohemian and inevitably runs into something or another that ruins his life by being spooky. It can be fun now and then, but most of his writing is very disposable and the loftiness of his prose is kind of a disguise born of how much he adored Poe and wanted to write like him almost a hundred years after his death

There's a few stories I'll always champion despite his shortcomings, particularly From Beyond and Nyarlathotep, but other pulp writers from the time are so much more fun. People should broaden their horizons to Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E Howard

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I like Kafka more tbh.

ultimate reaver posted...

People should broaden their horizons to Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E Howard

I've been reading Clark Ashton Smith and I do prefer him, he seems to get weirder. Really looking forward to getting to his poetry in the book I'm reading

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That guy had a whole host of issues beyond racism and writing skills lol. Seems emotionally arrested around the ages of 12/13/14.

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I really need to step my game up on classic horror. I've read a small scattering but only finished a few, and most of those not even that old, being Shirley Jackson stories. What I read of Dracula before I got distracted from it was incredibly well aged.

Turn of the Screw, The White People, Algernorn Blackwood, and Robert e Howard ate on my list

He gets credit for refining what became known as cosmic horror, he was a big idea guy.

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p-m posted...

I've been reading Clark Ashton Smith and I do prefer him, he seems to get weirder. Really looking forward to getting to his poetry in the book I'm reading

CAS' poetry is so good and I wrote so much absolute garbage in college trying to ape his style lol

RadiantAdolin posted...

Turn of the Screw, The White People, Algernorn Blackwood, and Robert e Howard ate on my list

Turn of the Screw is really great. If you were into Dracula and haven't read it already give Carmilla a shot. The King in Yellow also has some fantastic stuff in it if you like Lovecraft but want a more skilled writer with a much better hold of characters. He takes weird fiction and makes it more grounded and reality-focused while keeping the alien terror very vague and off to the side and the result are a bunch of really scary short stories about mental illness and paranoia

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I wouldn't say he's a great writer, but his stories are entertaining. And that's obviously what's most important. Like you said, there are plenty of flaws in his writing that are pretty easy to spot. But I don't think it matters all that much.

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Lovecraft is the Juji Ito of his time.
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Beveren_Rabbit posted...

Lovecraft is the Juji Ito of his time.

Is junji ito racist?

RadiantAdolin posted...

Is junji ito racist?

Tbf Lovecraft made the effort to reform his views.

I loved Lovecraft as a teenager. Read all of his stuff many many times. Now its just tedious and slightly crap.

His world building was excellent, but he was a repugnant racist, even for his time and from all accounts was one weird bastard.

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I've never read Lovecraft. I was reading CS Lewis as a kid and others.

Lovecraft had great ideas.

He just wasn't great at expressing those ideas. And was racist even for the time period.
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RadiantAdolin posted...

Ehhh, the characters still suck. I can't think of a single memorable character because they're so lifeless and matter of fact. There are tons of classic authors with great characters.

Isn't it a trend in Lovecraft's writing how entirely insignificant humanity is? Largely beneath the notice of grander beings? Just saying, if that is a recurring theme, wouldn't you expect the human characters to be as unmemorable as the species?

Tyranthraxus posted...

Most people are just used to stories having a specific structure with a beginning middle and end. Lovecraft never really stuck to that and some of his stories shit just kinda happens and then it ends and nothing was accomplished.

If you grew up reading modern prose exclusively and then went on to read Shakespeare you'd probably also come to the conclusion that it was barely intelligible garbage unless you took the time to understand the poetic restrictions Shakespeare had to work with.

Lovecraft wrote well for what he did, and racist as he was, he was a stickler for having a large and elegant vocabulary.

none of that matters. he named his cat something bad. everything else is invalid.

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Esrac posted...

Isn't it a trend in Lovecraft's writing how entirely insignificant humanity is? Largely beneath the notice of grander beings? Just saying, if that is a recurring theme, wouldn't you expect the human characters to be as unmemorable as the species?

But we're not those grander beings. Stories have more weight if your characters have weight themselves.

RadiantAdolin posted...

But we're not those grander beings. Stories have more weight if your characters have weight themselves.

I don't know about that. Pretty sure if a theme of a story is to express how small and insignificant humans are in the universe, then it helps to have the characters be insignificant. Like, it could be any random person who learns about the Old Ones. It would make no difference, because the human characters aren't the important part of the story. Having weighty characters would distract from the cosmic horror.

But, to be fair, I'm talking as someone who hasn't read Lovecraft in, like, 15 years.

Esrac posted...

I don't know about that. Pretty sure if a theme of a story is to express how small and insignificant humans are in the universe, then it helps to have the characters be insignificant. Like, it could be any random person who learns about the Old Ones. It would make no difference, because the human characters aren't the important part of the story. Having weighty characters would distract from the cosmic horror.

But, to be fair, I'm talking as someone who hasn't read Lovecraft in, like, 15 years.

The point is they're insignificant to the elder beings, not insignificant to everything. If the story treats them as insignificant in general, there's no impact to the relationship between them and those above.

RadiantAdolin posted...

But we're not those grander beings. Stories have more weight if your characters have weight themselves.

His stories aren't about the "grander beings"

They're about ordinary people who stumbled across a horrifying existential crisis that all of their species is ultimately doomed to suffering and death. In most cases they only get a glimpse of what awaits them. It's Salem witch stories but instead of witches, the demons themselves are there.

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RadiantAdolin posted...

Not even because of racism, but his writing itself is bad. He builds atmosphere like a master with prose, but his dialogue is awful, his characters have no personality, he repeatedly has issues with pacing, and he regularly fails to write effective action.

He's a very one note writer, and that note is extremely good, but outside that he's heavily flawed and better writers have shown the potential of his ideas.

I more or less agree with everything you say TC and that's why I consider him a GOOD writer (though not great).

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Intriguing universe, boring stories.

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I love the "universe" but the man was a turbo racist. Nowadays people write cosmic horror without all the racism and its better for it.

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The actual stories he wrote were nothing special, but the ideas and the mythos he created were interesting enough to deserve to be expanded on

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Lovecrafts characters being the bland due to the theme of humanity being insignificant kind of falls apart because there are plenty of stories that have nothing to do with old ones or cosmic horror like The Picture in the House and The Thing on the Doorstep in which his protagonists are just as bland

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I see Lovecrafts protagonists as more mute characters. It's not really about them.

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I guess that's why his writings usually take the point of view of an observer and not a main character. By doing that, he doesn't need to worry about dialogue. As for writing well-paced action, I've found some chapters of some of his works to be quite exciting, namely the island escape in "The Call of Cthulhu", the chase in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", and the final confrontation in "The Dunwich Horror".

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Lovecraft is one of my favorite authors. He's not for everyone, though. I always recommend people who read his works avoid the big pulp favorites and read some of the lesser known stuff. The Festival, Haunter in the Dark, Shadow Out of Time, Color Out of Space and Charles Dexter Ward are scarier/eerier than any Call of Cthulhu or Innsmouth.

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I will say Lovecrafts rare action scene is good, yes. I really like the escape at the end of Shadow out of Time

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CommunismFTW posted...

Lovecraft is one of my favorite authors. He's not for everyone, though. I always recommend people who read his works avoid the big pulp favorites and read some of the lesser known stuff. The Festival, Haunter in the Dark, Shadow Out of Time, Color Out of Space and Charles Dexter Ward are scarier/eerier than any Call of Cthulhu or Innsmouth.

Rats in the Walls was the first one I truly loved. I also think his big pulp stories are worth reading, they just aren't the best.