Lovecraft is a pretty big name in internet culture, and "Lovecraftian" is a popular descriptor to throw around. Cosmic horror! But while I have read some Lovecraft—most notably the fantastic "At the Mountains of Madness"—most of his work has remained a mystery to me. But this year I finally broke out the massive Lovecraft book I've had for a while and am slowly working my way through it. 110 pages and 19 stories so far. Since it lists the stories chronologically, I'm still in his earlier works. He obviously improves as he goes because if what I have read so far was the totality of his output, Lovecraft would merely be an interesting footnote in horror history. There have been some good stories, specifically those that deal with deteriorating sanity of the narrator—I especially liked "Polaris" where a man stares up at the North Star both awake and in his dream and anguishes over which life is the real one—but mostly the stories have been overly vague in their supernatural elements and predictable in their endings. Sometimes an unexplained mystery can be compelling, as in "The Temple" or the fantastic final line of "The Statement of Randolph Carter," but stories like "The Terrible Old Man" I finished and was like...so? Too many of these early stories are like that, containing the germ of something interesting but failing to flesh it. But on the whole I have enjoyed my time with Lovecraft and, looking to the stories ahead, I'm excited to finally get to the famous stories I have yet to read.
I love when he talks about the ancient "reptile men" or "lizard men." Give me the heebie-jeebies. I've read a bunch of his stuff too. What i liked about him is - even though he's writing this creepy shit, you can tell through his voice that he is having the time of his life doing it. Love that.
If you really invest yourself in "At the Mountains of Madness," the pay off is so good! I'm looking forward to reading that again when I get to it.
That's an interesting way to read an author's work; in an anthology in chronological order; so you can see the improvements.
I finished Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut on my last work trip and am just past the first chapter of Sinclair Lewis's (whom I keep wanting to call Lewis Sinclair) It Can't Happen Here. Half-Price Books has all these new, re-covered editions of old dystopian classics on sale, because ... Well, honestly, take a wild guess why the books I'm reading and George Orwell's classics are popping up so prominently gain. Lol
Somehow I've never picked up a copy of 1984, but there should be plenty floating around after the, uh, events we're currently living through. I really don't have many of those dystopian classics at all. Hmm...
I've never read it or Animal Farm. I only read Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World out of HS and college obligation, respectively.
I read Hunger Games because the movie came out on my birthday or close to it that year (2012, think?).
And tbh Slaughterhouse Five isn't a dystopian novel so much as ... Weird. And anti-war and revolving around Dresden by way of aliens and time travel. So ... Weird.
I tried to find his stuff in the libraries a while back but couldn't. I guess he's not popular with librarians. I do want to read it all someday though. He's been very influential on a lot of pop culture stuff, especially in video games.
I'd say just pop in Barnes & Nobles and buy their big anthology. It's worth owning.
I will when I can spend again.
I have The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft in digital form from Kobo. I think it cost me about $2.50. It's $3.98 CAD on Kobo right now.https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-complete-works-of-h-p-lovecraft-1?utm_campaign=shopping_feed_ca_en&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CjwKCAjw47bLBRBkEiwABh-PkcunkqCYl5VyDZ3gbnx_ZoST0_JMQaLyhrWF7ySvhDTTynvewfnHbBoCQvEQAvD_BwE
I also have The Necronomicon, which isn't really the book of the dead, it's just a collection of his stuff.
I've discovered—the hard way, of course—that I don't read digital versions of stuff. It's so convenient and cheap and stuff but...I don't know. Must just prefer physical books deep down in my psyche.
That Necronomicon cover is sweet.
The copy I have has a fake leather cover. I would have posted a pic of that but photobucket now wants money to share my stuff. My old posts here have no pictures in them anymore.
That sucks. I use Flickr and haven't had any issues with the free version of that.