(no subject)

[adiva_calandia]

So I've been reading and rereading Lovecraft lately, just 'cause I felt like it.

"The Color Out of Space" is consistently one of the scariest things I have ever read. I was reading in Skibo Cafe a few minutes ago, and just getting up to the point where Ammi and the scholars are all in Nahum's house watching the trees claw at the sky -- when someone announced an order up over the PA obscenely loudly and I jumped an embarrassing amount.

And the thing is, most of Lovecraft's other stuff doesn't scare me like that. Some of it's unsettling, but . . . like, "Call of Cthulhu" and "Dunwich Horror"? Awesome and full of world-building and mythos and stuff. "Rats in the Walls"? More "Oh my God, that's disgusting" than anything. "Pickman's Model"? Fantastic punchline. "Whisperer in Darkness"? HILARIOUS. ("Huh, he even typed his signature. And his spelling all changed. That's weird. Oh well! I guess I'll go stay with him for a couple nights! NOTHING SUSPICIOUS HERE.")

But "Color" leaves me shaking. I think part of it is the way all the members of the Gardner family go mad -- and the fact that two of them are fairly young, and watch their mother go crazy -- and the way the color infests everything. Everything. And, of course, the manner of death . . .

There's also the sickening implication at the end that the city of Arkham may very well be destined to the same fate, as it drinks the tainted water -- and that the blight is spreading. I first read this story in Alaska, which is almost as far away from New England as one can get, outside on a sunny day, and I was chilled by the idea that by the time the blight reached Alaska, how much of the US would be gray and lifeless . . .

Makes me want to reread that Lovecraft/SPN/SG:A fic tropes linked to a while back.

Anyway. Other observations about Lovecraft:

-He's got a thing about artistic types, doesn't he? The sculptor and the other artists in "Call of Cthulhu," Pickman, Erich Zann . . . That, of course, is why I've always been amused by keeping a plushie Cthulhu on my bed -- I'm just the sort of person whose dreams he might choose to haunt.

-Punchlines. Oh my god, the punchlines, especially in "Pickman" and "Whisperer" and "Dunwich." SO AWESOME. Even if you see them coming, they really do punch. Man.

Maybe one of these days I'll give At the Mountains of Madness another shot. I put it aside when the narration used "Cyclopean" twice on a single page with a "YES. WE GET IT, HOWARD. THE BUILDINGS ARE REALLY REALLY BIG. Screw this, I'm going to go read Terry Pratchett." Which means I never got to the giant penguins, which I figure are the real reason to read that novella.

Comments

[kornopolous.livejournal.com]

Back when Mr Lovecraft wrote that story, not everyone had been to any cities in their lives - plus, they are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BIG :P

[adiva_calandia]

This is insufficient reason for using the word "Cyclopean" THAT MANY TIMES. :P

[kornopolous.livejournal.com]

Maybe he just liked using the word: "Cyclopean"

[ceph.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think there's any doubt of that. Rare is the HPL story where it doesn't sneak in at least once. Also good, if less overused: "squamous" and "rugose."

[batyatoon]

You know who else uses those a lot? Barbara Hambly.

(Also "aphotic," which I like.)

[ceph.livejournal.com]

Oooh, Lovecraft. Next time you're in the parental house, go in my room and find my "Takeoff" short story collections by Randall Garrett--one of them contains a pitch-perfect Lovecraft pastiche.

Have you read "The Thing on the Doorstep"? That has a few chilling moments. On the other tentacle, you have "The Shunned House", which has the best punchline evar. I told you about the Werewolf character I modeled after a Lovecraftian protagonist, right?

Oh man. I want to get into a long geeky conversation about Lovecraft's oeuvre now.

[adiva_calandia]

*salutes* Will do!

Not yet, but I'll get there. And yeah, I remember your werewolf, I think!

Oh, man, have you read Neil Gaiman's Lovecraft stories? He's got "A Study In Emerald" and "I Cthulhu" up online.

[cupenny.livejournal.com]

*pgdn's past spoilers* I just picked up a Lovecraft collection at the bookstore today. So- will come back here to discuss those stories after I've read them!