About 30 films have been based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Fans, from casual readers to wannabe Cthulhu Cultists, look for books by and about Lovecraft, but it's hard to find decent scholarship about the Master of Weird Fiction. One of the few books that looks at the works of Lovecraft in an intelligent way is called H.P. Lovecraft and the Modernist Grotesque. This book puts the works of Lovecraft into a literary context that makes sense. Unlike most things about Lovecraft, written by Cthulhu - obsessed fans who believe the Necronomicon is really the wisdom of the Old Ones, H.P. Lovecraft and the Modernist Grotesque is the Ph.D. Dissertation of an English Professor. He is a literary scholar first and a Lovecraft fan second, which means that he is less liable to fall into the same old patterns of sensationalism, delusions, and biography that overshadows actual literary analysis.
This dissertation could use a little bit of polishing up - a few typos and a misspelled name (Ph.D. students are under a whole let of pressure), but the important thing is that it does things that no other book about Lovecraft does, including the identifying (and supporting) of a completely new literary category (the Modernist Grotesque), thorough analysis of Lovecraft as a modernist, and careful study of Lovecraft's deconstruction of important institutions through satire and depictions of logical fallacies. This book also discusses fan phenomena like Cthulhu worshipers, hoax Necronomicon copies, and literary elitists' bias against fear-based fiction. After reading about Lovecraft for years, a have seen very few works that accomplish as much as this one in terms of really developing an understanding of Lovecraft's work. Some great biographies exist (Joshi's especially) but not enough true, classic literary criticism. In order for Lovecraft to be given the respect he deserves, we need real literary scholars analyzing his work the way they would analyze the work of any other great writer. That's why I like this book so much.
If You Want to Know the Truth About H.P. Lovecraft, Cthulhu, and the Necronomicon, Read H.P. Lovecraft and |
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