H.P Lovecraft stories

[Sage Ninja]

Does any one here read H.P. LoveCraft stories? Or even know who I'm talking about? For those who don't know he was a horror writer during the 1920's and wrote such gems as "the Terriable Old Man," "The Rats in the Walls," (very creepy story) "The Picture in the House" and his most famous writing "The Call of Cthulhu" which I'm sure every one has seen parodied or mimiced in all sorts of media. He also created a whole mythos on Cthulhu. An episode of the Real Ghostbusters did an episode on this which was pretty much a love letter to H.P LoveCraft.

I've recently been getting into reading his short stories and enjoying them. He was one strange fella and had the most twisted stories in the fashion of Edgar Allen Poe (who was inspiration for Mr. LoveCraft). Has any one e4lse read any of H.P Lovecrafts stories before?

[PAAATE]

I've tried many times, but for some reason I can't get into them... It's the way he writes, with these long ****ing sentences... I read them in English, and every third sentence I have to stop and think about what I just read to even understand the context of the stories

Weirdly enough, when I read Shakespeare in English I fully understood it

[Voltron]

He's not bad. I have a binder full of his stuff right behind me. I haven't read his stuff in a while, though.

[DrSpengler]

I'm a huge H. P. Lovecraft enthusiast. I have all the Del Rey collections of his work, as well as the ones collecting the work of his contemporaries like Robert Bloch and August Derelith who wrote within the Cthulhu Mythos.

His stories can tend to be a tad repetetive when read one after another, working best when read a few at a time.

Hard to decide which is my favorite. "The Colour Out of Space" is one of his most surreal, conjuring up images that the human brain is physically incapable of visualizing.

"Whisperer in the Darkness" is another of my favorites, but that's primarily because I like the Mi-Go.

Speaking of which, the only major Lovecraft story Del Rey has yet to collect is "The Fungi from Yuggoth", which I'd really like to read one of these days...

[PAAATE]

Originally Posted by DrSpengler

Speaking of which, the only major Lovecraft story Del Rey has yet to collect is "The Fungi from Yuggoth", which I'd really like to read one of these days...

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fungi_from_Yuggoth

[DrSpengler]

Originally Posted by PAAATE

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fungi_from_Yuggoth

That's cheating!

Thanks for that. I hate reading literature (and comics) on my moniter if I can help it. Del Rey's collections have been really thorough (though I've already worn the books out and they're looking really bad). I hope they get around to it one of these days since its the only missing piece in my collection.

[jalexbrown]

I'm rather surprised to find this many people who have heard of H.P. Lovecraft. I actually discovered him before I discovered Edgar Allen Poe. I think I discovered him through some praise by Stephen King, and I borrowed my first collection from my uncle. The stuff can be pretty hard to grasp in the fullest, but if you can make your way through it with some comprehension, it's stuff that's well worth the effort.

[Voltron]

Yeah, he has a very grim outlook on life. Everything is doom and gloom, we humans are insignificant and constantly getting ass reamed by the elder gods. His story "Jerusalem's Lot" was the inspiration for Salem's Lot by King.

[NameGoesHere1066]

I had to read H.P Lovecraft when I was senior in school along with Edgar Allen Poe. He's a werido that Lovecraft but you have to respect his imagination. It's really rich. It's shame though, I know he was a just reflection of the bigotry of the time period, but he was bonified racist.

[discordiatookie]

Originally Posted by Voltron

Yeah, he has a very grim outlook on life. Everything is doom and gloom, we humans are insignificant and constantly getting ass reamed by the elder gods. His story "Jerusalem's Lot" was the inspiration for Salem's Lot by King.

Jerusalem's Lot is actually a Stephen King short story, from his collection Night Shift. Its pretty much a prequel to Salem's Lot though, and draws very heavily on Lovecraft.

Just read Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House. Fantastic. What a great ending.

[WinterMorning]

I have borrowed my brother's H.P. Lovecraft book with the most honest intentions of reading it, but I have yet to open it up. It's just....sitting there. It's good to see such interesting opinions about his works though. I'll definitely start reading it soon!

[Sage Ninja]

Originally Posted by NameGoesHere1066

I had to read H.P Lovecraft when I was senior in school along with Edgar Allen Poe. He's a werido that Lovecraft but you have to respect his imagination. It's really rich. It's shame though, I know he was a just reflection of the bigotry of the time period, but he was bonified racist.

yeah, Lovecraft is definately a victim of the time period he lived in, in terms of his views of indivuduals of different ethnic backgrounds. But what really sort of smooths out his bigoted views in his stories is oddly his view that all humanity is crap and inferior to the "elder gods", no matter how evoltionarily advanced humanity is. It's kind of funny...he pretty much depicts humanity as a speck on the ass of the universe that can easily be flicked off by one of the elders if they should choose to do so.

Yeah, he has a very grim outlook on life. Everything is doom and gloom, we humans are insignificant and constantly getting ass reamed by the elder gods.

he also had a pretty f*cked up childhood if I remember his biography correctly, that was probably a contributing factor to his grim outlook on life.

Does any one here remember off hand who where the other authurs that contributed to his Cthulhu mythos?