- Joined
- Jan 22, 2008
- Messages
- 8,000
Jess Nevins is a very well-read writer, who wrote an excellent book called An Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana. Here he presents some thoughts about Lovecraft and his effect on literature.
That's an interesting discussion of his influence on contemporaries, as well as those who followed. It's interesting to see how the biggest interest in HPL appears to be relatively recent.
Though a footnote, this is a nice summation: "Moral people abhor Lovecraft’s bigotry, but there’s an increasing effort among writers to try to separate cosmic horror from Lovecraft’s version of it and create a bigotry-free cosmic horror. I applaud the attempt, but in a very real respect all cosmic horror, not just Lovecraft’s, is the fruit of the poisoned tree of racial bigotry and bias. This doesn’t mean that cosmic horror can’t be cleansed and redeemed, of course—it just means that those who would create works of cosmic horror must be careful about what they say and write."
I don't think Lovecraft's influence will go away soon, but it will attenuate as Lovecraft's direct influence becomes more indirect through the work of current writers who themselves are writing out the biases and prejudices of Lovecraft (and/or replacing them with other biases and prejudices? seems unlikely we get entirely past some form of distorted cultural/social/racial assumptions anytime soon) and may become influential themselves. Note the power of works by writers like Ramsey Campbell, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Laird Barron and John Langan, among others, and what effect they may exert on currently up and coming writers.
Randy M.
In my case , I still like to read Lovecraft and I can separate the man from his work.
Thread starter | Similar threads | Forum | Replies | Date |
---|---|---|---|---|
2.11: Fear The Walking Dead - Pablo & Jessica | Fear The Walking Dead | 9 | ||
Marvel's Jessica Jones | General TV Discussion | 60 | ||
Jesse Bullington | Book Discussion | 0 | ||
P | Jessica's Travels | Critiques | 19 | |
Short excerpt chapter 1 - Jessica | Critiques | 7 |