20 replies to this topic

[Zimbra]

Check it out.  The smiling Shoggoth about a third of the way down is going to haunt my dreams.

[J.T.]

Yeah..... The picture of the child dreaming of Yith is going to stay with me for a while.... in the not being able to sleep for a week kinda way....

[Evil Ash]

I'm thinking of teaching "Call of Cthulhu" in my intro English course this summer, but I'm a tad worried that Lovecraft's reprehensible racism will be a bit too off-putting, especially for summer students, who are usually just filling up a requirement, and who don't actually like to read.

[The Unholy Dragon]

Not to mention his prose is excruciating. I love the ideas Lovecraft had, but his writing...not so much.

[Evil Ash]

The Unholy Dragon, on Mar 30 2011, 12:22 PM, said:

Not to mention his prose is excruciating. I love the ideas Lovecraft had, but his writing...not so much.

That can actually work to my advantage, though.  Students like being able to identify bad writing, and being able to (justifiably) mock a famous author.  We spend too much time teaching only "great" stuff.

[J.T.]

Evil Ash, on Mar 30 2011, 11:38 AM, said:

The Unholy Dragon, on Mar 30 2011, 12:22 PM, said:

Not to mention his prose is excruciating. I love the ideas Lovecraft had, but his writing...not so much.

That can actually work to my advantage, though. Students like being able to identify bad writing, and being able to (justifiably) mock a famous author. We spend too much time teaching only "great" stuff.

Heh.  It is pretty well known that everyone does Lovecraft better than Lovecraft.  

Exhibit One being the Cthulu's Reign anthology of short prose.

[Zimbra]

Evil Ash, on Mar 29 2011, 03:56 PM, said:

I'm thinking of teaching "Call of Cthulhu" in my intro English course this summer, but I'm a tad worried that Lovecraft's reprehensible racism will be a bit too off-putting, especially for summer students, who are usually just filling up a requirement, and who don't actually like to read.

I think you can nicely tie his racism into a discussion of the whole fear of the unknown/the other that runs throughout his work.  I'd say go for it, as it'll be more interesting than most of the canonical stuff that gets into university reading classes.

And I'll come down as liking Lovecraft's prose, but I have a soft spot for really stilted writing.

[Evil Ash]

Zimbra, on Mar 30 2011, 03:35 PM, said:

Evil Ash, on Mar 29 2011, 03:56 PM, said:

I'm thinking of teaching "Call of Cthulhu" in my intro English course this summer, but I'm a tad worried that Lovecraft's reprehensible racism will be a bit too off-putting, especially for summer students, who are usually just filling up a requirement, and who don't actually like to read.

I think you can nicely tie his racism into a discussion of the whole fear of the unknown/the other that runs throughout his work.  I'd say go for it, as it'll be more interesting than most of the canonical stuff that gets into university reading classes.

And I'll come down as liking Lovecraft's prose, but I have a soft spot for really stilted writing.

So actually I'm going to talk quite a bit about his writing, which is unfairly attacked, I've decided, after reading "Call of Cthulhu" several times and doing some research in preparation of my lecture next week.  I mean, yeah, there are some bits of terrible writing, but at least I can explain what he's trying to do; it's only when something fantastic occurs that he starts piling adjectives and adverbs and similes on top of each other.  The representation of something so Other tests the limits of language, and language is found wanting.  So even if the result is kind of laugh-inducing, I totally understand why he's doing it.

Largely, I'm going to focus on two aspects of his writing: first, how he attempts to construct a believable reality for his supernatural story, and second, how he tries to represent the unrepresentable.  There'll be some discussion of math.  Wish me luck.

I'm also going to deal with his racism head-on.  Hopefully that goes well.  Michel Houellebecq, France's hottest novelist, wrote a pretty great essay on Lovecraft, and he says that, if anything, Lovecraft's racism has been understated.  I'm tempted to even read one of Lovecraft's letters, where he describes the immigrant population in Brooklyn using the same writing style he describes Cthulhu with.  But that might be offensive.  Well, because it is offensive.

[odessasteps]

Nothing wrong with discussing a creator's foibles, esp if they are in the text.

[chigarillo48]

Evil Ash, on Jun 29 2011, 05:46 PM, said:

I'm also going to deal with his racism head-on.  Hopefully that goes well.  Michel Houellebecq, France's hottest novelist, wrote a pretty great essay on Lovecraft, and he says that, if anything, Lovecraft's racism has been understated.  I'm tempted to even read one of Lovecraft's letters, where he describes the immigrant population in Brooklyn using the same writing style he describes Cthulhu with.  But that might be offensive.  Well, because it is offensive.

Is this what makes up Houellebecq's "Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life"? An ex-girlfriend of mine found the book on Amazon a couple years ago and briefly considered buying it for me since I'm a huge fan of the Cthulhu mythos. I never got around to picking it up myself or reading it but have always been curious about the cotent.

[Evil Ash]

Yep, that's the one.  Good book.  There really isn't a lot of good Lovecraft criticism, and Houellebecq's is both pointed and refreshingly un-academic.

Lovecraft lecture tomorrow.  Some of them were upset about the racism in "A Rose for Emily" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find," so oh boy, this could be ugly.

[theintensifier]

Ash, you have been a favorite of mine since The Realm, VALIS, and Home of the Whopper.  Shoot me a PM some day, man.

Quote

I'm also going to deal with his racism head-on. Hopefully that goes well. Michel Houellebecq, France's hottest novelist, wrote a pretty great essay on Lovecraft, and he says that, if anything, Lovecraft's racism has been understated. I'm tempted to even read one of Lovecraft's letters, where he describes the immigrant population in Brooklyn using the same writing style he describes Cthulhu with. But that might be offensive. Well, because it is offensive.

I recently got to watch a Philip Pullman video where he got called out in a press conference situation about the controversial title to his newest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.  The questioner, through his dialog that finally reaches a mostly inaudible question, remarks that the title is offensive to Christians.  Pullman, through his excellent, well-timed, and well said response points out that, "No one has the right to spend their life without being offended."

I say test the waters first, and if the waves aren't too insane, douse 'em with it head on, man.  I have largely been bored by my college career thus far.  All of the teachers are so deflated, tired, and unenthusiastic that it sucks the fucking life out of my participation and overall interest in yet another dry lecture or ridiculous class read around for an hour and fifteen minutes.  Even the instructors who are teaching my major concentration, creative writing, are that way too.  I'd love to have a professor such as yourself Ash, or Decagon.  At any rate, man, good luck with whatever path you do go down.

And regarding the pictures...that is frightening in so many different ways.  And I don't know a thing about the mythos behind those stories either.  The next Columbine generation at work already.  Unless those are normal pictures for kids to draw and I'm weird for thinking it's a terrible idea to allow a child to draw things of that nature.

[Zimbra]

So Ash, how did the Lovecraft lecture go?  Which texts did you end up discussing and how did they respond?

[Evil Ash]

It actually went really well, thanks for asking Zimbra.  My thesis adviser sat in for the first part of it, and actually said that he's now considering teaching "The Call of Cthulhu" himself, so that's something.

I just discussed "The Call of Cthulhu," and tried to focus specifically on two aspects of Lovecraft's writing: first, the techniques he uses to make the story seem 'real' (this was actually the introduction to verisimilitude), such as his use of exact dates, newspaper clippings, references to texts (both real and imaginary, such as the Necronomicon), etc.; and second, the techniques he used to try to represent the "unrepresentable" (in this case, Cthulhu and the city or R'lyeh).  And I think that all worked.

I also did tackle the racism angel head-on.  I think saying "Really, fuck H. P. Lovecraft, he should know better" sent the right message.

I'm not sure how many of them actually liked the story, mind you, but all-in-all it was pretty successful, and I'd definitely teach it again.  The weird thing is, I'm finding that I'm referring back to it quite a bit, now that I'm teaching Life of Pi.

[MarcosLoura]

Peter, age 13 draws a fucking awesome Cthulu.

The lecture sounds great Ash.

[Roman Coke]

Daphne's version is quite terrifying.

[The Magnificent 7]

I'm reading a bunch of Lovecraft's stuff right now (in the middle of Herbert West Reanimator).  The Picture in the House is awesome.

[J.T.]

Happy Birthday, HP Lovecraft, you crazy racist bastard.

Hope the lecture went well, Ash!

[Evil Ash]

So I'm giving a conference paper on Lovecraft in a week and a half in Boston, at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association national conference.  Weird.

[Zimbra]

Evil Ash, on Apr 1 2012, 06:42 PM, said:

So I'm giving a conference paper on Lovecraft in a week and a half in Boston, at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association national conference.  Weird.

Congratulations, that's awesome.  One of my friends presented a paper on Batman at the conference a few years ago and said it was a great time.