Thoughts on HP Lovecraft and his works?

Definitely! He did call himself an Antiquarian, and he was scrupulous about research and historical accuracy in writing historical tales. He felt he was born a century or so too late. I have a book of letters (called Writers of the Dark I think) between him and Fritz Lieber, who was getting his start shortly before Lovecraft's career ended, and he pushed accuracy and research really hard.

I would say their different subject matter is partly responsible for the differences in tone and wording between HPL and Howard. Or maybe the other way around. I couldn't see Lovecraft writing anything like Conan. I try to imagine it and I see him shuddering at the thought of it instead. He just didn't have the rugged manliness required.

 

Yeah, totally. Especially his story 'The Reminiscence of Dr. Johnson' which if you get the joke is really funny. His stories set in Ancient Greece and Rome are also pretty fun, you can really tell the guy knew Latin and had read a lot of it. And, you know, Latinists have to stick together.

 

Don't worry about it. I had a feeling you had missed it when I saw your Like under Friedrich's post but not mine. I should have Liked your original post—I think that's why you saw his but not mine. I'll just consider that quarter a collective offering for both of us, plus anyone else who wants in retroactively.

 

Do you read Latin? It wouldn't surprise me, considering you're quite the scholar.

 

Yeah, the quote in my signature is one of the bits I really like. Virgil can be a bit wordy himself, and very descriptive, Catullus is more my jam when I just want to read something. But yeah, Virgil, he's awesome.

 

Lovecraft loved Poe and intentionally copied him and his style, and yeah they do get compared a lot. You weren't exactly wrong, 'contemporaries' in the sense of his place in the horror genre you are totally right. Whenever I see contemporaries it is usually about time, though.

And yeah, ha. He was a lover of words like 'gibbous' and 'bacitracin'.

 

Without him I don't think I would have ever heard of Gibbering. Though I don't think that's quite what you were referring to. I often try to imagine exactly what gibbering consists of. I picture apelike creatures, or humans reduced by excessive horror to an apelike mental capacity, waving their arms above their heads with loose dangling hands and making some kind of sounds, a sort of gibberish I suppose. Probably under a gibbous moon (whatever that is).

And I just realized, gibbering means the same thing as speaking gibberish. I had never made the connection before. I don't know how I can be so stupid sometimes. <—(gibbering smiley)

 

Thanks for the photo, I'll treasure it always.

 

There's something so cool about seeing Mark Twain @ Lovecraft's grave...