I don't get the appeal.
>>25298889Because at any given moment you might be at the mercy of something you can't see.
>>25298896kek spbp
>>25298889For me, I like the position of the narrators that Lovecraft writes as incredible skeptics and often men of science, that up until they’re cornered by whatever horror, they dismiss the existence of these otherworldly powers or entities, even doubting what has happened after the fact (in spite of residual evidence) and attribute it to their own insanity instead. I think it’s a position that we all take during incredible circumstances in our own lives, doubting our own perception, and he writes that aspect of denial incredibly believably. Also, I’m always a fan of human insignificance in writing.
>>25298889>The Complete Fiction Probably doesn't contain his collabs, edits of others writers' work (often obvious as he would frequently heavily edit and as such make the other's work equally his), and stories written as an adolescent. Lovecraft's corpus is much bigger than most think at first glance, since he did so much (heavy) editing of others' work as well as many collaborations.
>>25298889Pioneers often suffer because their work isn't the best and then it is pillaged by others. These days you get so much "lovecraftian" shit from other media that there's nothing new when readers go back to his work. Too much derivative bullshit becomes cultural osmosis, like the whole "Simpsons did it" bit. If you want to try to understand what made it different you need to go back and read other "horror" at the time. Poe, obviously, but try the lesser knowns as well. Gothic horror like Rebecca. It's all pretty stilted, the fears seem almost comical (another victim of cultural osmosis, we associate this shit with Scooby Doo). Lovecraft wanted to dig past the comprehensible spookiness of being haunted by a ghost, or villains like Dracula who have a whole elaborate backstory making them people with a curse. At the same time he's interested in science and archaeology, so you get things like Color Out of Space where it's more of a sci-fi scenario at the core, leading into a horrific mystery nobody can really understand even at the end. This whole describing the indescribable becomes a bit of a meme in his writing and is easily satirized, but it's really hard to do well. I think Solaris and Roadside Picnic are some of the best attempts. Then you have the more earthy hidden history element like Innsmouth, where it's not just some cult to an unknown god, but the idea of human degeneration and crossbreeding (again often satirized as just 'haha racism') with forces that aren't just evil for the sake of it but have goals that transcend the human altogether. Pigeonholing him as just a lame horror writer is a disservice I think. The Shadow Out of Time's body swapping time travelers is pretty fucking out there for 1936, even Twilight Zone would have trouble conceptualizing anything like that in the 60s. The diversity of the aliens is also something sci fi has struggled with, even in the golden era it comes down to "human with a funny forehead" most of the time. Just the Yith, Mi-go and Elder Things mog most of the history of sci fi aliens up and including today's.
>>25298889I used to pretend to like Lovecraft. When I did, I probably would've given a similar answer to >>25299289 or >>25299578
>>25298889Edgar Rice Burroughs except a normal guy instead of Tarzan is discovering all these lost civilizations and fighting monsters and the gods are real. Hope that solves it for you.Conan is also Edgar Rice Burroughs except in the past not the present.
>>25298889If you have the time, read his main essay. "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx
It's reddit. Redditors who post here love it. Redditors love pulp
>>25299578>the narrators that Lovecraft writes as incredible skeptics and often men of scienceBut his narrators are nothing but blank slates, we hardly get to know of their disposition or world views other than a hasty "I could hardly believe such things were possible until a year ago when I visited the musty villages of New England"
he's proto-manchild core, simple as
