H.P. Lovecraft: A Life

H.P. Lovecraft: A Life
Average customer rating:

A great, but biased work on Lovecraft's life

painstakingly informative

Lovecraft Lives Again

Hard to Imagine a Better Biography of HPL

This book is now back in print - yippee!

H.P. Lovecraft: A Life
S. T. Joshi
Manufacturer: Necronomicon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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United States | Horror | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Joshi, S. T. | ( J ) | Authors, A-Z | Horror | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genre Fiction | Writing | Reference | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0940884887

Amazon.com

The basic facts of H.P. Lovecraft's life have long been known, but before this book the only account of his life worth having was L. Sprague de Camp's 1975 biography, which was lively but sketchy, giving a fragmented view of Lovecraft's life and work. S.T. Joshi has delivered the goods. This is not only the finest and most definitive biography of Lovecraft, it is likely to remain so for many decades into the future. While at nearly 700 pages, it's not necessarily a book every Lovecraft fan will sit down and read cover to cover, it's almost as compulsively readable as it is compulsively detailed. Joshi is sympathetic toward his subject but doesn't pull any punches: he includes Lovecraft's less flattering qualities, such as his "contemptible" racism and his "shabby" treatment of his wife. Best of all, perhaps, for fans of Lovecraft's fiction, are the accounts of how the stories came to be written, concise plot summaries, and well-chosen historical-critical remarks.

As Necrofile: The Review of Horror Fiction writes, "H.P. Lovecraft: A Life represents the crowning achievement of Joshi's distinguished career. It offers a concise and eminently readable summary of everything he has learned about Lovecraft, in one fat volume.... Joshi has accomplished no mean feat: writing a biography almost as fascinating as his subject's best fiction." --Fiona Webster

Customer Reviews:

A great, but biased work on Lovecraft's life.......2006-12-09

Wow, this must have been quite a few hours of work for Joshi! The fonts are below even standard book-fonts, AND I hear it's an abridged version but still the book is almost 700 pages. But don't get me wrong, in many ways I wish it was longer. The book is a fine introduction to Lovecraft's life, and to most Lovecraft-readers, probably quite enough in itself. It chronicles on an annual basis, highlighting and describing any interesting incidents or activities revolving around Lovecraft and his circle of friends and family that happened over the years. There's not much to say about this, its very good and solid biographical work by a fine devotee of Lovecraft; S.T Joshi. Its not often reading a biography makes me sad, but reading the final chapter on Lovecraft himself "The end of one's life" made a certain Norwegian man quite sad. Apart from some points I'm about to take up, I have no doubt that this is a biography that Lovecraft himself would have approved of. It could have been more detailed in its description of how the various fiction came to be, and more analysis of this area, but it IS after all a biography, so that was of course Joshi's prerogative.

Now to the bad; as a little background to the author of the book, he is in fact an immigrant; an Indian living with a miscegenating Euro-American female. This explains why he constantly abuses Lovecraft for his conservative and racialist views. He conjures up non-sense frequently when talking about this subject; somehow concluding that theories about race and miscegenation etc were definitively debunked by the "scientific work" of Franz Boas. This is of course complete nonsense, like Kevin MacDonald has shown in his excellent work "The Culture of Critique". Franz Boas had specific racial reasons himself for carrying out his campaign against the use of "race" in academia, and the reasons for this were far from what the Western standard of science represents.

So even though I highly recommend the book, I wish Joshi could have been so intellectually honest that he admitted in the book that his status as a non-European immigrant himself has biased him, and made him write the book with an extreme liberal and secular slant. So if you manage to ignore this part of Joshi's book; you'll have on your hands an excellent and well-written account of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and a good introduction to his writing.

painstakingly informative.......2006-10-07

Clocking in at 654 pages, this sprawling biography will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about the horror scribe -- along with some things you'll wish you hadn't discovered, like how Lovecraft was a more zealous racist than was the norm in his day. Joshi is long-winded, for sure, like the grandfather who, when you ask him how the light switch turns the lamp on, proceeds to tell you the history of electricity, starting with two sticks being rubbed together. You'll be hard-pressed to remember all the details afterward, but the story of Lovecraft's life is smartly woven, divulging the world as viewed through the writer's eyes and those around him. Like a criminologist apt at identifying with a killer, Joshi truly seems to understand his subject down to the crumbs on his coat.

Lovecraft Lives Again.......2006-03-21

I agree with all the other reviews here... if you have realy gotten into HPL, then you will enjoy reading this--it's hard to imagine that anyone else will produce anything more comprehensive. Buy it now before it goes out of print again and used copies cost several hundred dollars. If your interest in HPL is a bit less obsessive but you'd still like to read his bio, there is a shorter version of this book called "A Dreamer and Visionary."

One of the few things that bothered me in the book was when Joshi gets hung up with certain adjectives--for example, in earlier sections of the book he uses the word "delightful" several times a page when describing examples of Lovecraft's writing, which began to get on my nerves.

I was disappointed there was no section of photographs--Lovecraft's inscrutable lantern-jawed visage is an integral part of his mystique.

I re-read "Lovecraft Remembered" after reading this, and found it much more enjoyable the second time around--"A Life" gives you all the context you need to understand how the various people who wrote commentaries used in "Remembered" fit into Lovecraft's life. In fact, for the real obsessives out there, get a copy of "Lovecraft Remembered", the various volumes of his collected letters, and you have the raw materials to make up your own bio!

Hard to Imagine a Better Biography of HPL.......2004-12-17

Joshi's work is not only thorough and scholarly, creating a well-rounded and moving impression of Lovecraft and his own interests (as opposed to the interests of his biographers), it is also thoroughly entertaining and compulsively readable. More importantly, it is now back in print for the price of $30. Buy it, read it, and join me in hoping that one day S.T. Joshi will find a publisher for the complete and unabridged version. Yes, even this massive volume is abridged.

This book is now back in print - yippee!.......2004-10-16

Despite it's "out of print" listing above, this book is again available in a new paperback edition from us, the original publisher, Necronomicon Press ... please urge Amazon.com to begin offering it again ...

H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life

Average customer rating:

this is one to buy
Lovecraft: 20th Century Poe
Flawed, but exhilarating
Houellebecq's Lovecraft: The Unbeliever in Pursuit of the Unspeakable.
A Must Read for Serious H.P.L. Admirers

H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
Michel Houellebecq
Manufacturer: McSweeney's, Believer Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

History & Criticism | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
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The Elementary Particles

ASIN: 1932416188

Book Description

In this prescient work, Michel Houellebecq focuses his considerable analytical skills on H. P. Lovecraft, the seminal, enigmatic horror writer of the early 20th century. Houellebecq’s insights into the craft of writing illuminate both Lovecraft and Houellebecq’s own work. The two are kindred spirits, sharing a uniquely dark worldview. But even as he outlines Lovecraft’s rejection of this loathsome world, it is Houellebecq’s adulation for the author that drives this work and makes it a love song, infusing the writing with an energy and passion not seen in Houellebecq’s novels to date. This book is indispensable reading for anyone interested in Lovecraft, Houellebecq, or the past and future of horror.

Customer Reviews:

this is one to buy.......2007-08-01

I could have done without the comments of Stephen King who wouldn't recognize a tight story line if one fell on his head...and I would have chosen The Terrible Old Man and The Color Out of Space even though they are not "great texts"...but this is by far the best mini-biography on Lovecraft yet. It reminds me of Lovecraft Remembered, a series of vignettes by the people who knew him, and it avoids the Derleth whitewash that followed his death in 1937. Lovecraft is proto-horror, and my main regret with him has always been that he spent so much time writing letters to the detriment of his story output. If he hadn't, though, we might never have gotten Conan the Barbarian or Psycho, who knows?

Lovecraft: 20th Century Poe.......2005-07-21

Michel Houellebecq is the ultra-hip author of fashionably deconstructive modern French novels, so what interest would he have in a dead American writer consigned by many to the despised catgory of "pulp"? It turns out that Houellebecq is a big fan of American horror; among the writers he cites in this excellent short book are Richard Matheson and Robert Bloch, two disciples of Lovecraft. "H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life" is a very satisfying read. Houellebecq escapes the jargon and theory of most modern literary criticism and simply delivers the goods: a passionate explication of Lovecraft's life and work which makes sense and gives you a new appreciation for the Bard of Unnamable Terror. It's fitting that Stephen King provides the introduction, because this book is very much in the spirit of his own landmark book "Dance Macabre."

Houellebecq asserts that Lovecraft's kindly, reclusive, poverty-stricken life was "exemplary" because it was integral to the vision of his work. That is, he wrote as a protest against life as we live it, the old "human condition". Someone once said "the negative, by contrast, suggests the other" and Lovecraft's dark mythology is a satire of, and pessimistic comment on the mythologies we live by. Included in this volume are two of Lovecraft's more mind-blowing stories; "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Whisperer In Darkness." If the "cult of Cthulhu" was a twisted opposite of, and challenge to Christianity, then reading these stories makes you rethink exactly what it is you believe in and why. Lovecraft shouted "No!" to the seeming cruelty of the cosmos, and as King argues, gave space for attentive young readers to lick their wounds before engaging once again in the next battle of life. Houellebecq deals with Lovecraft's racism and anti-Semitism, revealed in his letters published after his early death, by comparing him to Louis-Ferdinand Celine, the great French black comedy novelist who was also guilty of bigotry. Houellebecq demonstrates that fear was at the heart of their similar worldviews, not merely fascism, and that fear sharpened their work. "Those who love life don't read books or see movies" is a questionable statement by Houellebecq, but it contains a grain of truth. We read in part to take us out of this world and into alternative ones. Lovecraft is tremendously influential; the movie "Alien" is mostly an elaboration on his themes and method of attack. Houellebecq's little, readable book is a welcome addition to the small list of really enjoyable contemporary literary criticism.

Flawed, but exhilarating.......2005-07-13

Very rarely do we see the likes of a Michel Houllebecq--darling of the 21st century's aggressive postmodern nihlism, controversial writer both in the United States and France, champion of the "new" hedonistic revolt (is there really such a thing?)--join hands with the decomposed but very much alive likes of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the legendary misfit of Providence.

"Life is useless and disappointing", writes Houellebecq, and beginning from this premise attempts to tie such morbidly sacred short stories as "The Call of Cthulu" and "The Whisperer in the Darkness" in with what he envisions as the call of the true poet, "the creation of an entirely alternative world to this one". Championing Lovecraft's life (more than his work) as an example of unparalleled existential defiance, he sees similarities between himself and the pulp writer who told us quite directly that we are nothing but floating electrons, gaseous entities destined to perish in a meaningless universe. It goes without saying that Lovecraft himself was never as outspoken as Houllebecq, and that his quiet skepticism regarding all human hope is at almost complete odds with the French icon's exhibitionism.

Still, there is something to be found here that is not to be found at all in the miles of scholarly toilet paper and mediocre biography heaped up HP since his death. This is an impassioned attempt to understand the man who, like Kant, was suspected of not being fully human. Lovecraft's tragic and reclusive plight in life, composed mostly of literature and his own doomy imaginings is in Houllebecq's eyes worthy of the most profound veneration. Rather than saying the great Nietzschean "Yes" To Life", Lovecraft uttered a "No" without weakness or complaint. His racism is recognized by Houellebecq for what it really was: a reviling of ALL things human, particularly that which sticks out from the standard heaps of flesh with any marked characteristic. How everything went wrong almost consistently for Lovecraft in every aspect of his external life is given excruciating exposure. I'd call this less of a "study" and more of a manifesto for hardline misanthropes. (The introduction by Stephen King seems out of place at first glance, but strangely enough fits right in as one gets into the meat and potatoes of Houllebecq's rant.) Included are what Houllebecq considers Lovecraft's most telltale work: "The Call of Cthulu" and "The Whisperer in the Darkness".

Houellebecq's Lovecraft: The Unbeliever in Pursuit of the Unspeakable........2005-06-28

I discovered this book while rummaging around on the net, trying to find an in-print edition of Marcel Schwob's translation of `Hamlet'. It was a happy accident, because I've wanted to read some Houellebecq for a while, and a serious literary analysis of Lovecraft is long overdue. H. P. Lovecraft (HPL) may well be the most easily and unjustly ignored major American literary figure. Lovecraft is the grandfather of modern horror and a major influence on all genres of speculative fiction. He not only showed the way through his writings, but also shared his skills with a large circle of correspondents, which included many authors. In addition, his creations were so rich and compelling that authors have continued to work within and add to his `Cthulu Mythos'. However, although Lovecraft gets kudos for dismissing the supernatural from horror and for rejecting the idea of the human-centered universe, he is also crowned with titles like "The Best Bad Writer Ever" (and this is from an admirer of sorts). At the other end of the spectrum are cultish fans who mindlessly worship him. Very few authors have been so unfortunate in their friends and defenders. Houellebecq is the first worthy champion I've seen ride into the lists to challenge us to consider Lovecraft as a real writer.

Houellebecq focuses on the sources of inspiration for Lovecraft and their impact on his creations and his narrative style. He seeks to show that Lovecraft's distinct voice derives from his psychology and biography. Dreams, racism, a minimalist personality and a crippling bonanza of paranoias, delusions, and depression are the raw material for the analysis (Lovecraft is our answer to Artaud and Jarry). This is the first time I've seen someone really emphasize the importance of dreams as a source for Lovecraft's stories. Even so, I don't think Houellebecq goes far enough-Lovecraft is often mocked for piling up and overusing such meaningless adjectives as `unspeakable', a practice he discouraged when advising other writers. This contradictory practice (noted by Houellebecq and many others) is probably the result of trying to convey the actual experience of the dream without distorting it or adding to it. Houellebecq makes the point pretty thoroughly that images of racial pollution and degeneration power a lot of HPL's stories, but it's worth noting that while the horror writer talked a good racial game, he didn't really walk the walk. He married a Jewish Ukrainian and worked briefly on a propaganda book for the Italian government. These represent three races he claimed to despise. Lovecraft insisted on living as if he were a member of the landed aristocracy, in spite of his dire poverty. Thus, Houellebecq points out that Lovecraft insisted on writing almost entirely for his own pleasure, which may also explain why he didn't always adhere to generally accepted rules of good rhetoric in fiction. He knew what his audience wanted. This attitude also seems to have offended some of the professional writers who have studied Lovecraft and deride his amateur pretentions (maybe they're jealous of a true maverick who stuck to his ideals).

Houellebecq makes two interesting observations about HPL's characters. The first is that they tend to be precise observers, scientists and artists, whose personalities are so diminished that they serve largely as a means for conducting their high voltage sensory experiences directly to the reader without any insulation or interpretation. The other is that a viewpoint character's presence is sometimes so diminished that the reader loses the identification or feeling of presence necessary for maintaining a sense of fear, ironic in a purported horror story. Besides showing the effectiveness of juxtaposing trained observers and insane events, Houellebecq claims that this aspect of his subject's style is a consequence of the author making his viewpoint characters alter egos. Although that is certainly possible, I think it's likelier an adaptation from Poe, who used the same technique. Poe is most effective when his characters are clinically describing their own madness, but Lovecraft's characters must stay sane when the world goes mad. Even the apparent alter egos may have literary antecedents, Lovecraft may have borrowed the character type from de Maupassant, whose story `The Horla' has many ideas that Lovecraft assimilated into his own oeuvres. It's even possible that he modeled his own personality from literary figures. My last couple comments about Poe and de Maupassant highlight the only major weakness that I found in Houellebecq's work, a failure to explore the effect that Lovecraft's sources had on his stories. Lovecraft was a diligent scholar of fantasic literature and was heavily influenced by several writers, notably those I've already mentioned, and Lord Dunsany.

Probably a lot of people who read Houellebecq's essay won't have read any Lovecraft. He's certainly not everyone's cup of tea. However, if you want to see what Houellebecq is talking about there are three essential stories: (1) `The Mountains of Madness', and (2) `Shadow Over Innsmouth', and (3) `The Color Out of Space'. I would suggest that people who want to see his greatest fantasy work (this aspect of his work falls outside of the scope of Houellebecq's study) should also read `The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath". I read Houellebecq's study in a French edition, his language is so transparent and his argument so clear, that I'm sure the English translation is quite servicable.

A Must Read for Serious H.P.L. Admirers.......2005-06-05

Michel Houellebecq's book-length essay was published over a decade ago in his native French...when I found this recent English translation I leapt on it, and read it in one sitting. I and was pleased to be able to digest it without the use of a French-English dictionary (that would have drained some of the fun from the experience, right?).

Houellebecq's admiration of Lovecraft is evident from the first page: he discusses the man's life, his works, and their themes with a fervor usually reserved for a Proust or a Faulkner. I've always dug Lovecraft's stories and felt that there was a lot of substance lurking beneath all the adjectives, dense prose and descriptions of "unnameable" and "indescribable" creatures. It's gratifying to see his work put under a critical microscope and studied so closely. Hoellebecq clearly places the guy several rungs higher than Edgar Allan Poe, and has a good understanding of where he fits into the scheme of 20th century genre fiction (pulp and otherwise).

I would add that Houellebecq doesn't flinch from delving into some of Lovecraft's less-appealing personality traits: I've read about the man's racial biases (particularly toward immigrants that he felt were ruining his native New England), but didn't know the details or finer points of them. Well, Houellebecq devotes a chapter to the subject, and includes several excerpts from Lovecraft's letters that display a depressing, vicious streak of racism. He doesn't condone Lovecraft's attitudes, but tries to bundle them with the author's arch conservatism and distrust of all he viewed as "alien." Some of Lovecraft's comments left a really bad taste in my mouth: if you want to keep a pristine mental image of H.P.L. as a person, you may want to steer clear of this chapter (or this book). To his credit, Houellebecq doesn't candy-coat the subject of his essay, but gives equal time to his flaws and failings.

Finally, the book includes two of Lovecraft's best stories: "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Whisperer in Darkness." They're a great starting point for anyone who hasn't read the author's cosmos-spanning horror stories.

The Cult of Alien Gods: H.P. Lovecraft And Extraterrestial Pop Culture

Average customer rating:

Interesting but uneven
Large sections, but not all, are very enlightening
Lovecraft's influence on 50 years of pop culture
That is not dead which can eternal lie . . .

The Cult of Alien Gods: H.P. Lovecraft And Extraterrestial Pop Culture
Jason Colavito
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Fantasy | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books

History & Criticism | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1591023521

Book Description

Nearly half of all Americans believe in the existence of extraterrestrials, and many are also convinced that aliens have visited earth at some point in history. Included among such popular beliefs is the notion that so-called ancient astronauts (visitors from outer space) were responsible for historical wonders like the pyramids. Shocking new evidence proves that the entire genre of ancient astronaut books is based upon fictional horror stories, whose author once wrote that he never wished to mislead anyone.

In this entertaining and informative book, Jason Colavito traces the origins of the belief in ancient extraterrestrial visitors to the work of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). This amazing tale takes the reader through fifty years of pop culture and pseudoscience highlighting such influential figures and developments as Erich von Däniken (Chariots of the Gods), Graham Hancock (Fingerprints of the Gods), Zecharia Sitchin (Twelfth Planet), and the Raelian Revolution. The astounding and improbable connections among these various characters are revealed, along with the disturbing consequences of Lovecraft's "little joke" for modern science and public knowledge.

Beyond documenting Lovecraft's influence on ancient astronaut theories and Raelian cloning efforts, Colavito also argues that the appeal of such modern myths is a troubling sign in an age when science is having its greatest success. He suggests that at the dawn of the 21st century Western society is witnessing a deep-seated erosion of Enlightenment values that are the basis of the modern world.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting but uneven.......2006-06-11

I have mixed feelings about this book. It is well written and thoughtful, but sometimes the reasoning is a bit strained. Like many of the "ancient astronaut" folks that he is debunking, Colavito seems to think that showing a possible connection (i.e., between Lovecraft and ancient astronaut theory) is proof of a connection.
As the previous reviewer said, this book is almost like two books, one about Lovecraft and one about the "ancient astronaut" theorists. The author has an obvious passion for Lovecraft, and he does a good job showing how Lovecraft drew on the pseudo-scientific pop culture of his day (Blavatsky, Charles Fort, etc.) as a source for his fiction. In other respects, what he has to say about Lovecraft is not new or original.

His debunking of "extraterrestrial pop culture" is convincing and well researched, but the connections he draws with Lovecraft are a bit strained.

The strength of this book is its description of the broader cultural milieau from which both Lovecraft and the "ancient astronaut" theorists drew - a blend of pseudo-science, science fiction, alternative religion and popular culture which has influenced everything from the X Files to UFO cults to supermarket tabloids to movies such as "Stargate." The book's weakness is that its central thesis, that Lovecraft is the main source of all this, is way oversimplified. But in spite of its flaws, Colavito's book is worth reading.

Large sections, but not all, are very enlightening.......2006-06-04

The Cult of Alien Gods is really two books in one. First of all it's an introduction to master writer H.P. Lovecraft and especially the mythos about the sinister extraterrestrial known as Cthulhu, but it's also a study of the rise of the ancient astronaut movement along with the ideas about lost civilizations, where authors such as Erich von Däniken, Graham Hancock, and Zecharia Sitchin became the most famous representatives.

According to Colavito, it's Lovecraft - the somewhat still mysterious gentleman from Providence - and his stories about extraterrestrials visiting Earth aeons ago that the entire genre later known as ancient astronauts is based upon. Proponents of this genre claimed that sometime way back in ancient history, Earth was visited by extraterrestrials who were mistaken for gods and among other things helped build the amazing Egyptian pyramids. For people who don't know anything about Lovecraft Colavito - himself a fan of Lovecraft - offers a nice introduction to the mysterious man and his ground-breaking penmanship, details where he picked up his influences, how his literary masterpieces were received by his peers, and much, much more.

Now this introduction is perfectly fine, and Colavito definitely deserves some praise for his tribute to Lovecraft. But, the main thesis behind the book is not quite as convincing. Colavito insists that Lovecraft and his fiction is indeed what von Däniken and the rest based their respective works upon, and even though he on several occasions shows how something that Lovecraft had written decades earlier were later taken as genuine facts, he still never manages to actually prove that without Lovecraft there would have been no ancient astronauts.

But that doesn't really matter, since large sections of the book aren't about Lovecraft anyway. Instead Colavito focuses on debunking what he himself once upon a time believed wholeheartedly in. However, over the years he became more and more skeptical to the amazing claims that von Däniken and his allies put forth, and thus the book contains numerous exposures of how the "evidence" that millions of people all over the world chose to believe in, and still believe in, is by and large erroneous. Sometimes they are even straight out lies and hoaxes. This exposure is, though, to be completely honest, not that great of an accomplishment, since the proponents of the ancient astronauts have been debunked time and again by a multitude of professional scholars. Still, Colavito is apparently on a vendetta against the ones who mislead him, and the passion behind his words makes the well worth reading..

The criticism never really digs deep and only chosen parts of the authors' books are criticised, but the purpose of this exposé is to show how the theories behind the ancient astronauts collapse as soon as they are thoroughly investigated, and this Colavito does with a vengeance. At the end of the book Raël - or His Holiness as he prefers to be addressed as these days - and his Raëlian Revolution makes an appearance, and again Colavito is highly successful in his debunking.

The Cult of Alien Gods failed to convince me that Lovecraft is the founding father of the ancient astronaut theory. Fortunately, however, the book contained a whole lot more than that, and when it was all over I had truly enjoyed reading the book.

I therefore have no other choice but to congratulate Colavito for a debunking-job well done.

Lovecraft's influence on 50 years of pop culture.......2006-04-13

Fans of fantasy/horror writer H.P. Lovecraft must add THE CULT OF ALIEN GODS: H.P. LOVECRAFT AND EXTRATERRESTRIAL POP CULTURE to their reading lists: it traces the origins of the belief to Lovecraft's writings in the late 1800s, surveying fifty years of pop culture and including the works of Von Daniken and other alien speculators as it documents Lovecraft's influence on these theories. Jason Colavito is a freelance writer who has written for Skeptic Magazine and others: his study reveals some important connections.

That is not dead which can eternal lie . . ........2005-12-03

. . . And with strange aeons even death may die.

In this interesting book Jason Colavito answers a question I've wondered about ever since I first read H.P. Lovecraft. (Question: What's the golden age of science fiction? Answer: Thirteen. But that's not the question I'm talking about.)

What I wondered was, why did I like Lovecraft's own stories but rarely enjoy any of the fiction of "the Lovecraft circle" - - people who corresponded with Lovecraft and wrote stories in his Cthulhu mythos. (The only collection of "Lovecraftian" stories I've ever really liked is the anthology Cthulhu 2000.) Why are storytellers and literary scholars like Joyce Carol Oates (she edited an anthology of Lovecraft recently) still moved by Lovecraft's stories? Why did the Library of America (who've published Mark Twain and Philip Roth) just publish a volume of Lovecraft?

Colavito describes Lovecraft's loose conception of "the Old Ones" or "the Elder Gods" (alien creatures of immense power, not as strictly defined or set in a hierarchy as they later became), as opposed to the alien creatures in the stories of Frank Belknap Long, August Derleth, and others. (These later stories always struck me as mostly comic-book horror.)

Unfortunately now Lovecraft's work is now mostly a source of humorous or insider references like "Arkham Asylum" in Batman comics and movies. (I have to admit I'm juvenile enough to have laughed the first time I saw a Campus Crusade for Cthulhu ad.)

Colavito brings out a connection to Lovecraft that never occurred to me. Normally Lovecraft is categorized with Edgar Allan Poe and other nineteenth-century horror writers. But he may also have influenced high-tech Cold War science fiction, like John W. Campbell's story "Who Goes There?" and the movie Howard Hawks made from it, The Thing from Another World.

Campbell published Lovecraft in the magazine he edited, Astounding Stories, and "Who Goes There?" is similar to one of Lovecraft's best stories, "At the Mountains of Madness." Both are set in the Antarctic. In "At the Mountains of Madness" a man finds remnants of an alien civilization, and in "Who Goes There?" scientists and military types uncover a flying saucer and the thing from another world that it brought to Earth tens of thousands of years before.

You can make another interesting connection - - from Lovecraft to Campbell to Howard Hawks to John Carpenter. Carpenter has always been fascinated by The Thing from Another World (it's the movie Laurie Strode and the children she's baby-sitting watch on TV in Carpenter's slasher classic, Halloween). And Carpenter himself remade the Howard Hawks film as The Thing, one of Carpenter's best films. But Carpenter's The Thing had the bad luck to be released at the same time as Steven Spielberg's E.T. And in the early eighties Americans wanted cuddly salvation-bringing aliens that could be cross-merchandised with fast-food chains and candy companies, not shape-changing flesh-eaters whose message was that our technology might not save us.

The British director Nigel Kneale (Quatermass and the Pit) and Howard Hawks are two of Carpenter's biggest influences. (Carpenter has remade Hawks's Rio Bravo every possible way EXCEPT as a western - - see Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York, Escape from L.A., and Ghosts of Mars).

But Lovecraft is another of Carpenter's influences: Carpenter's film Prince of Darkness shows a realm of evil that intrudes on our universe, and In the Mouth of Madness nearly steals Lovecraft's title and definitely appropriates his mood (with a touch of Stephen King).

The Cult of Ancient Gods is even more interesting as social history than as literary history. Colavito shows how he thinks Lovecraft's ideas influenced people like Erich von Daniken (Chariots of the Gods) and Graham Hancock (Fingerprints of the Gods), who saw evidence of "ancient astronauts" all over the world. Colavito sees a connection between Lovecraft and the Heaven's Gate cultists who committed suicide in 1998 when the Hale-Bopp comet appeared, and another connection to the Raelians (another UFO religion) that claimed to have cloned a human baby a few years ago.

Personally, I think Lovecraft influenced fiction more than he did "alternative scientists" like Graham Hancock, but ideas in (often bad) science fiction were there to be appropriated by fantasy writers and conmen both. The Heaven's Gate cult died in uniforms meant to look a little like Star Trek costumes. The original Battlestar Galactica TV show in the late seventies took images and ideas from Erich von Daniken.

There was one thing about Colavito's perspective I disagreed with - - a criticism of what he calls "the Age of Relativity," where "[e]verything was open to interpretation" and "[e]very group was now entitled to its own history: black history, women's history, and gay history. There was no longer human history." It's sounds as though Harold Bloom had been reading Weird Tales instead of the Western Canon.

Again quoting Colavito: ". . . Indeed as the education system gradually broke down in the twentieth century, ever-larger numbers of people were leaving school ignorant of methodology and indoctrinated only in diversity and political correctness. They lacked the tools to understand or to think, and they resented the educated elite who told them what was right or true. . . ."

I think the current fad for criticizing "political correctness" is often an excuse to return to old kinds of racist or sexist discrimination. (Colavito is not a racist or sexist. He makes that clear in his book.)

But two points on the above. (1) This is the end of a paragraph where Colavito describes how "ancient-astronaut" theory popularizers like Graham Hancock can bamboozle people without any scientific education. And when you see how many people believe in so-called "intelligent design" - - to the point where school boards are willing to sabotage the education of their own children - - you can't argue.

But (2) being "indoctrinated . . . in diversity" means that we teach our children that other cultures ARE just as valuable as the Europeans who founded the United States on the genocide of the indigenous people and slavery of black Africans. And "political correctness" means IT IS NOT acceptable to demean women, minorities, gays, or anyone else who's different from you because you're in the majority. Blacks, women, and gays do have histories of their own. The Trent Lotts of the world really do think things would have been better if the Voting Rights Act hadn't been passed and if blacks had been kept out of colleges and if women were kept in their place.

I almost put the book down after reading Colavito's first, biographical, chapter, describing how Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence influenced him, and showed him how the "rot had set in shortly after" the revolutions of the eighteenth century. But I'm glad I kept reading. The history is fascinating and the writing style is very entertaining.

Just as the rationalist H.P. Lovecraft didn't mean for people to take his "Yog-Sothothery" seriously, maybe Colavito is throwing out ideas for us to chew on. (Remember: "Cthulhu saves - - in case he gets hungry later.")

THE ELDRITCH INFLUENCE: THE LIFE, VISION AND PHENOMENON OF H.P. LOVECRAFT

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THE ELDRITCH INFLUENCE: THE LIFE, VISION AND PHENOMENON OF H.P. LOVECRAFT
H.P.; S.T. Joshi, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Stuart Gordon Lovecraft
Manufacturer: Hermetic Productions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: DVD
ASIN: B000LKQNJG

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The Eldritch Influence: The Life, Vision and Phenomenon of H.P. Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu Mythos)
Manufacturer: Hermetic Productions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: DVD
ASIN: 0966790065

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H.P. Lovecraft, his life, his work
Kenneth W Faig
Manufacturer: Necronomicon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006X9LBU

H.P. Lovecraft: Contra el mundo, contra la vida/ Against the World, Against Life (Libros Del Tiempo / Book of the Times)

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H.P. Lovecraft: Contra el mundo, contra la vida/ Against the World, Against Life (Libros Del Tiempo / Book of the Times)
Michel Houellebecq
Manufacturer: Siruela
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Reference | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Night Giants: An Entertainment Based On the Life and Work of H.P. Lovecraft

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Night Giants: An Entertainment Based On the Life and Work of H.P. Lovecraft
Brett Rutherford
Manufacturer: Grim Reaper
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JMAKYK

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On Lovecraft and life
R. H. (Robert Hayward) Barlow
Manufacturer: Necronomicon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 0940884496

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The Private Life of H P Lovecraft.

Manufacturer: Necronomicon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000EEDTK

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