Why Lovecraft is cringy, a self reflection

[Agentt]

So, I have been wanting to write this, along with part 2 of this for a long time, but couldn't due to my fingertips getting bruised.

I don't like horror.
Humans dying is either funny, or traumatic, there is no inbetweeners for me.

So when I first learnt of the concept of this 'Lovecraftian horror' I didn't pay any heed to it,

I knew Love craftian horror didn't contain much gore, but depended on that whole, "something too weird to comprehend" stuff, nevertheless, I put it among other horrors,

This continued until one day, someone asked me how i feel about it, and I said, "it's stupid."

On that night, I saw a dream in which the spirit of HP Lovecraft himself asked me,
"How can I improve my work?"
He didn't say anything else, just that statement.

And that left me dumbfounded.

If any horror author were to ask me to review his work, I would had annoyed the hell out of him, pointing out every cliche and stuff that didn't made sense.

But I possibly can't do that to Lovecraft.
He created the genre.

It's like...such an absurd idea, I don't even have an analogy for this.

I mean, you can teach the inventor of chess the rules of chess, I am sure he would love to learn more about en passant or casting or any other variations you play with.

But with Lovecraft, for the first time, I just felt like I am not qualified.

When i woke up that day, I googled who he was.

A great author who used real life locations and his knowledge of geography, they said.

Now, google recommended that I read The Calling Of Chuthulu(I hope I spelled that right)

But, I mean, the title wouldn't be "why lovecraft is cringy" if I had just read his most loved book and ended it there.

Nope!

I went and searched for the first story he had every written.

Not even a book, but a story.
Aye, this was the time when HP would write stories for a local magazine.

And people, I must say,
Lovecraft, was cringe indeed.

And it's not that he didn't knew it, I could feel him cringing from my screen, by passing the time and space gap.

One problem that newbie authors face is choosing a name,
Even when they do choose a name, if the said name happens to be of another language or culture, it feels very cringy to say it.

Lovecraft himself always avoided naming his characters.
Even when he did had to name them, he would name them Bob, Joe and other generic names and then never mentioned it again by having the characters not say each other's name at all.

Even while naming places, he would often name them, 'City A'

For a long time, Lovecraft's earliest stories suffered like this.
It was only when he started collaborating with another author did he first named all his characters, as opposed to having butlers named Butler as seen in his earlier works.


As for the plot, while it's not the greatest thing in the world, Lovecraft has tried to deliver an unexpected ending to every one of his stories, even though most of them are predictable.

The characters couldn't possibly be plainer, they had more 2d personality than an isekai villain.

The world building was the worst and would contradict itself in order to make things more convenient for the MC.

For a 500 word stories, these were decent, but not very alluring.

Better luck next time Lovecraft, I hope you improve.

 

[Amok]

haven't read him for a while. recall he's a lover of the journal format(which I generally find trite). Remember most stories to be way longer than 500w(though yeah, many are v. short on the whole).

i recall his language use to be superb, definetely unique godbuilding with Nyarlthothep and Nig Shiggurath etc. Some gore, but seldom something visceral happening to the MC iirc. fevered opium dreams, cats jumping to the moon. I recall him actually fanboying over set locations, describing the architectural styles and changes over time in places like New York, Boston etc. etc.

Hmmm... have his works dl'ed, will read again sometime, see whether I still hold it in the same regard as my previous self. At the Mountains of Madness > Call of Cthulu from what I remember. Walls of strange ancient materials, fucking albino penguin monsters hiving subterra and such.

Shit... the Tiger Lilies? Was a band that did a hole Lovecraft performance, some songs eerie if I recall rightly.

 

[Maldon]

I don't think lovecraft himself was very succesful while he was alive, so the public of the time might've agreed with you.
Personally I think the thing that made him big was a very unique type of horror and aesthetic, and people liking his cool lore.
And is this post only about his first story? IDK why you think that should be his magnum opus, if anything I think it should be comparable to something you'd find here, at least try to read some of his books before saying his writting is cringe.

You should google the name of his cat, it's very funny, and very telling of the kind of guy he really was.

 

[NotaNuffian]

I did not really care for the guy, I just like the tentacle shit he created. Like how I would lament about the death of a doujin artist before continuing fapping to his work.

 

[Amok]

Oh yeah found it. When I was younger I loved this quote and the following passage; read it randomly bout a month ago and wasn't as impressed, way too dualistic and definitive. pre-assumption of existential angst, while irony and wonder would be a more productive reaction to the infinite abyss.

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age.”

this seems more passable tho:
“Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty.”

 

[BenJepheneT]

You should google the name of his cat, it's very funny, and very telling of the kind of guy he really was.

There was a misconception regarding his cat: it was given to him by his father, and by then, it was old as shit, so he didn't even bother changing its name.

AND, this is the best part, Lovecraft was racist to the point where even prominent racist groups (like the K³) distanced themselves from him. Though his views did stem from his secluded lifestyle and very paranoid personality. Man's schizoid without the phrenia, which can be reflected in his stories.

If he had a twitter account he'd be a pretty funny shitposter

 

[Amok]

View attachment 11296

just me or is that ELon Musk with a comb-over?

 

[Zirrboy]

>Why Lovecraft is cringy, a self reflection
>On that night, I saw a dream in which the spirit of HP Lovecraft himself asked me,

Next thing you know, you're mumbling lines from a book you never read.

Spoiler: Another joke

>Humans dying is either funny, or traumatic, there is no inbetweeners for me.

 

[SilvCrimBlac]

I can't really see what the point of this post was. You say Lovecraft is cringey, spend some time downing his FIRST story....and then other posters whined about the dense language he used? And I mean really, as if mentioning he was racist has any meaning or point in regards to his literary talent? It doesn't. I don't know why people mention personality traits like this in discussions that aren't about is personality.

It's like starting a post about my neighbor where I say she is a horrible cook, but then also mention that she has this weird habit of smirking to herself when she thinks no one is looking, and then acting as if the two have any correlation. This whole post is cringey, and almost all the responders were as cringey, if not more so, and none of you needed any help from Lovecraft to be cringey apparently.

 

[Daitengu]

The issue is that storytelling improves. Old works just don't hold up like the geriatrics think they do. I mean people think Shakespeare is a master, but they're the most generic "appeal to the majority" works I've ever read. I might as well be watching a Michael Bay movie.

 

[IdleLucifer]

Well, his works shouldn't be judged by his first book. Maybe read the story he poured most effort into?

 

[BenJepheneT]

I can't really see what the point of this post was. You say Lovecraft is cringey, spend some time downing his FIRST story....and then other posters whined about the dense language he used? And I mean really, as if mentioning he was racist has any meaning or point in regards to his literary talent? It doesn't. I don't know why people mention personality traits like this in discussions that aren't about is personality.

It's like starting a post about my neighbor where I say she is a horrible cook, but then also mention that she has this weird habit of smirking to herself when she thinks no one is looking, and then acting as if the two have any correlation. This whole post is cringey, and almost all the responders were as cringey, if not more so, and none of you needed any help from Lovecraft to be cringey apparently.

Well, it is a thread about Lovecraft. Mentions of his racism/name of his cat IS bound to come up. It's like talking about the government and NOT expecting a flame war to come up out of it.

If you ask me, his racism was integral to his story, whether you liked it or not. His prose depicting of foreign isolation and fear against alien concepts worked so well that if he WASN'T racist, he wouldn't be half as successful. As stated, man's was paranoid to the level of a boiling kettle. It's like playing an old record at this point: it was a different time.

AND barring OP, there were only two passing mentions of Lovecraft's racism, and none of them were of demeaning quality.

You sure you're not having a moment there?

 

[Zirrboy]

I can't really see what the point of this post was. You say Lovecraft is cringey, spend some time downing his FIRST story....and then other posters whined about the dense language he used? And I mean really, as if mentioning he was racist has any meaning or point in regards to his literary talent? It doesn't. I don't know why people mention personality traits like this in discussions that aren't about is personality.

It's like starting a post about my neighbor where I say she is a horrible cook, but then also mention that she has this weird habit of smirking to herself when she thinks no one is looking, and then acting as if the two have any correlation. This whole post is cringey, and almost all the responders were as cringey, if not more so, and none of you needed any help from Lovecraft to be cringey apparently.

Typical rookie mistake. Never use your brain on Agentt posts.
Every single actual thought you think is more than he invested, so you lost.

 

[SilvCrimBlac]

If you ask me, his racism was integral to his story, whether you liked it or not. His prose depicting of foreign isolation and fear against alien concepts worked so well that if he WASN'T racist, he wouldn't be half as successful. As stated, man's was paranoid to the level of a boiling kettle. It's like playing an old record at this point: it was a different time.

So tentacle-horror was relevant and integral to his racism. Wild and crazy horror is somehow relevant to "them blacks". Lol okay then. Quite the stretch. Are you sure YOU aren't having a moment? I mean you posted the video and all so you must have experience with the subject. Lol, bet it was in your bookmarks just waiting for a moment like this huh? Don't project. It's beneath you. Or at least I hope it is.

AND barring OP, there were only two passing mentions of Lovecraft's racism, and none of them were of demeaning quality.

I like how you used the word "demeaning", which is something I didn't do. I never even described what I thought of it. I just said I thought it had no place in a discussion of literary talent.

 

[Amok]

The issue is that storytelling improves. Old works just don't hold up like the geriatrics think they do. I mean people think Shakespeare is a master, but they're the most generic "appeal to the majority" works I've ever read. I might as well be watching a Michael Bay movie.

Storytelling changes, I say, there's always gonna be shit stories and good stories depending on the reader. Technology via films and vidya games have changed the scene, yes, but the written word is as it was: words.
I don't judge art on a scale, merely by taste... like contemporary surrealism being more poignant than renaissance masters to me, tho the techniques the latter applied were stringent and meticulous af, and their art was in no way sub-par (their grasp of anatomy formed a base for many who came after them)

Shakespeare is a mixed bag, and I admire him for going against the linguistic norms of his time, as well as some of the philosophies in his works(esp. Hamlet). Sometimes his langauge bores the shit out of me, sometimes I delight in its subtlety.

If Lovecraft used modern language his works wouldn't be as creepy, foreboding and strange imo. It is exactly his viewpoint as an early 20th-century bloke which creates the disconnect for an 21st cent reader, as not many have created stories like his in that time peroid, and he uses relatively normal people in his explorations of the absurd.. Honestly I would find it more tense to read 'bout an interdimensional entity in Roman times rather than a modern setting... to each their own.

 

[SilvCrimBlac]

Typical rookie mistake. Never use your brain on Agentt posts.
Every single actual thought you think is more than he invested, so you lost.

Yep, my mistake.

 

[BenJepheneT]

I like how you used the word "demeaning", which is something I didn't do. I never even described what I thought of it. I just said I thought it had no place in a discussion of literary talent.

That was my bad. I was used to every mention of Lovecraft's racism being a sore subject on every discussion. Didn't read the room. Mistake on my part.

So tentacle-horror was relevant and integral to his racism. Wild and crazy horror is somehow relevant to "them blacks". Lol okay then. Quite the stretch. Are you sure YOU aren't having a moment? I mean you posted the video and all so you must have experience with the subject. Lol, bet it was in your bookmarks just waiting for a moment like this huh? Don't project. It's beneath you. Or at least I hope it is.

No, I only ever drew the comparison between Lovecraft's intense racist paranoia to his stories. He took reference from his schizo and displayed them in his story well. That was all I mentioned. If he wasn't the guy he was he wouldn't have written stories like this. The man makes the tales. I never once made parallels between "them blacks" and tentacle monsters, the fuck?

So as I said, you sure you aren't having a moment there?

 

[SilvCrimBlac]

No, I only ever drew the comparison between Lovecraft's intense racist paranoia to his stories.

Yes I know. You mentioned his racist paranoia as a direct correlation as to why he wrote the kinds of things he did. So, minus all the extra words you used to say the same thing more than once, you did in general, say his tentacle horror was brought about by his racist paranoia against "them blacks" if you shorten it and drop all the useless fluff in your statement. His mental issues just enhanced the literary outcome.

Again, are you sure YOU aren't having a moment? You had the link all ready and everything. Speaking from experience?

 

[owotrucked]

I can't really see what the point of this post was. You say Lovecraft is cringey, spend some time downing his FIRST story....and then other posters whined about the dense language he used? And I mean really, as if mentioning he was racist has any meaning or point in regards to his literary talent? It doesn't. I don't know why people mention personality traits like this in discussions that aren't about is personality.

It's like starting a post about my neighbor where I say she is a horrible cook, but then also mention that she has this weird habit of smirking to herself when she thinks no one is looking, and then acting as if the two have any correlation. This whole post is cringey, and almost all the responders were as cringey, if not more so, and none of you needed any help from Lovecraft to be cringey apparently.

The post looks cringe to some because it's an attempt at throwing loose connection leaning completely towards intuitive random perception like brain vomit. It completely throws rigorous sorting of the thoughts which can look immature for people who likes polishing and cleaning up concrete data because it's something they would be able to do as babies with eyes closed.

There's no need to be mad, you can let them do their job vomitting ideas and find something valuable on their own, and encourage them to form clean concrete fact based thesis afterwards ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[BenJepheneT]

Yes I know. You mentioned his racist paranoia as a direct correlation as to why he wrote the kinds of things he did. So, minus all the extra words you used to say the same thing more than once, you did in general, say his tentacle horror was brought about by his racist paranoia against "them blacks" if you shorten it and drop all the useless fluff in your statement. His mental issues just enhanced the literary outcome.

Again, are you sure YOU aren't having a moment? You had the link all ready and everything. Speaking from experience?

Then I don't know what the hell we're banting about. You just paraphrased me. I agree with that. Hell, I was agreeing with you on the start. I just thought you were a bit on edge with the racism mentioning thing. What's the problem here?

And you act like it's a Herculean effort to look for The Caretaker on YouTube and copy a link. It's just a video man, chill.