I recently bought a small book of HP Lovecraft's short stories; it includes Call of Cthulu, Nyolartep, The Hound, Herbert West-Reanimator and a bunch of others.
This is the first time I had read any Lovecraft and after hearing Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Guilermo Del Torro and countless others rave about him, I thought I'd check him out.
The Pros:
He has a great way of cramming a lot of character development and scenery in a very short space. We know who Herbert West is pretty much after a few pages. A slight, blond haired, blue eyed, bespecled genius with a morbid streak. And it goes deeper as we learn Herbert is falling deeper into madness. But the story is told effortlessly and very quickly with great detail.
Lovecraft also has a great way of building tension; and even though the climaxes may not be as visceral or frightening as say Stephen King or Bret Easton Ellis's gore he allows the reader to imagine the horrors that await.
The Cons:
He is a racist.
Every description of members of the black race is abhorrent. "Negros" are ape like creatures from the unknown depths of the Congo; they are savages with arms so long that they almost appear to walk on all fours. And they are also mostly always engaged in some nefarious deed or crime.
His lack of variation of his descriptions of races other that of Anglo Saxons is a massive weakness, and is also unforgiveable. I don't buy the whole "it's ok, he was a product of his time" argument. So was Hitler, and so are the Neo-Nazis of today.
His hatred for blacks is distracting, but it also tells of something deeper: his own fear.
A common theme of Lovecraft's stories is that of immense and maddening fear, or to be more precise, terror; especially of things that cannot truly be described or perceived by the human mind. I believe Lovecraft was afraid, afraid of the African continent and all of its inhabitants. He feared black people, especially the men, and this runs parallel with the fear his own characters feel when seeing the redolent, hideous things from beyond this world.
This is the first time I had read any Lovecraft and after hearing Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Guilermo Del Torro and countless others rave about him, I thought I'd check him out.
The Pros:
He has a great way of cramming a lot of character development and scenery in a very short space. We know who Herbert West is pretty much after a few pages. A slight, blond haired, blue eyed, bespecled genius with a morbid streak. And it goes deeper as we learn Herbert is falling deeper into madness. But the story is told effortlessly and very quickly with great detail.
Lovecraft also has a great way of building tension; and even though the climaxes may not be as visceral or frightening as say Stephen King or Bret Easton Ellis's gore he allows the reader to imagine the horrors that await.
The Cons:
He is a racist.
Every description of members of the black race is abhorrent. "Negros" are ape like creatures from the unknown depths of the Congo; they are savages with arms so long that they almost appear to walk on all fours. And they are also mostly always engaged in some nefarious deed or crime.
His lack of variation of his descriptions of races other that of Anglo Saxons is a massive weakness, and is also unforgiveable. I don't buy the whole "it's ok, he was a product of his time" argument. So was Hitler, and so are the Neo-Nazis of today.
His hatred for blacks is distracting, but it also tells of something deeper: his own fear.
A common theme of Lovecraft's stories is that of immense and maddening fear, or to be more precise, terror; especially of things that cannot truly be described or perceived by the human mind. I believe Lovecraft was afraid, afraid of the African continent and all of its inhabitants. He feared black people, especially the men, and this runs parallel with the fear his own characters feel when seeing the redolent, hideous things from beyond this world.
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