For some reason, I read the email as "t.e.d. lasso, h.p lovecraft, l.p. hartley" and I was like, one of these things seems not like the others.
Also, Pickman's Model stands out for me as not just the scariest HP Lovecraft story, but one of the scariest stories I personally have ever read, and now that you've put your finger on it I guess it is sort a manifesto about what vibe HP Lovecraft is going for.
"You know, it takes profound art and profound insight into Nature to turn out stuff like Pickman’s. Any magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and call it a nightmare or a Witches’ Sabbath or a portrait of the devil, but only a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That’s because only a real artist knows the actual anatomy of the terrible or the physiology of fear—the exact sort of lines and proportions that connect up with latent instincts or hereditary memories of fright, and the proper colour contrasts and lighting effects to stir the dormant sense of strangeness."
"Pickman's Model" was the story where I was like wait… contra his reputation, H.P. Lovecraft is actually a good writer. Like he just conjures up this voice that's completely unlike any of his other narrators, and it is kind of the closest thing to a pure civilian just wandering into a horror situation in this collection (but not quite… because the guy is after all already very interested in this kind of macabre art).
But also, re: the Lovecraft stuff -- this is super helpful for me to think about, as I always get two or three students a year who are writing Lovecraft/Chambers-esque short stories, & I see that it could be much more productive to engage them over what their idols do really well. I imagine a lot of the memes about Lovecraft come down to later writers Doing Lovecraftian Stories (which are undeniably the stuff of memes).
yeah, and I imagine that Lovecraft—much like Tolkien, again!—is irresistible to imitate while also being basically one of a kind. (Judging from the introduction, Lord Dunsany seems to have been Lovecraft's Lovecraft, which interested me because Ursula Le Guin has some comments in her essays about how imitating Dunsany is fatal or something…)
I must recommend Mat Johnson’s Pym, which also posits that Poe’s novel was actually true
I will have to read Poe first but I'm making a note… I'm making a note.
For some reason, I read the email as "t.e.d. lasso, h.p lovecraft, l.p. hartley" and I was like, one of these things seems not like the others.
Also, Pickman's Model stands out for me as not just the scariest HP Lovecraft story, but one of the scariest stories I personally have ever read, and now that you've put your finger on it I guess it is sort a manifesto about what vibe HP Lovecraft is going for.
"You know, it takes profound art and profound insight into Nature to turn out stuff like Pickman’s. Any magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and call it a nightmare or a Witches’ Sabbath or a portrait of the devil, but only a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That’s because only a real artist knows the actual anatomy of the terrible or the physiology of fear—the exact sort of lines and proportions that connect up with latent instincts or hereditary memories of fright, and the proper colour contrasts and lighting effects to stir the dormant sense of strangeness."
"Pickman's Model" was the story where I was like wait… contra his reputation, H.P. Lovecraft is actually a good writer. Like he just conjures up this voice that's completely unlike any of his other narrators, and it is kind of the closest thing to a pure civilian just wandering into a horror situation in this collection (but not quite… because the guy is after all already very interested in this kind of macabre art).
👀👀👀 to all of these.
But also, re: the Lovecraft stuff -- this is super helpful for me to think about, as I always get two or three students a year who are writing Lovecraft/Chambers-esque short stories, & I see that it could be much more productive to engage them over what their idols do really well. I imagine a lot of the memes about Lovecraft come down to later writers Doing Lovecraftian Stories (which are undeniably the stuff of memes).
yeah, and I imagine that Lovecraft—much like Tolkien, again!—is irresistible to imitate while also being basically one of a kind. (Judging from the introduction, Lord Dunsany seems to have been Lovecraft's Lovecraft, which interested me because Ursula Le Guin has some comments in her essays about how imitating Dunsany is fatal or something…)