In this thread I will narrate the life of Howard Phillips Lovecraft from his birth in 1890 until his death at the age of 46.
I intend to cover:
>his childhood and family
>his adolescence and early adulthood
>his relationship with others
>his views of politics and race
>his lifestyle and literary endeavours
Please bump this thread if it interests you.
On Lovecraft's birth
>"Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born at 9 A.M. on August 20, 1890, at 194 Angell Street on what was then the eastern edge of the East Side of Providence."
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On Lovecraft's earliest memory
>"I can see myself as a child of 2-and-a-half on the railway bridge at Auburndale, Mass., looking across and downward at the business part of the town, and feeling the imminence of some wonder which I could neither describe nor fully conceive - and there has never been a subsequent hour of my life when kindred sensations have been absent."
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On young Lovecraft's love of toys
>"My favorite toys were very small ones, which would permit of their arrangement in widely extensive scenes. My mode of play was to devote an entire table-top to a scene, which I would proceed to develop as a broad landscape [...] I had all sorts of toy villages with small wooden or cardboard houses, & by combining several of them would often construct cities of considerable extent & intricacy [...] There was a kind of intoxication in being lord of a visible world (albeit a miniature one) & determining the flow of its events."
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I love these threads, please continue m8
Even his life story is Lovecraftian. Is there anyone more influencial to modern day life than based Lovecraft?
On Lovecraft's solitary youth
>"You will notice that I have made no reference to childish friends & playmates - I had none! The children I knew disliked me, & I disliked them. I was used to adult company & conversation, & despite the fact that I felt shamefully dull beside my elders, I had nothing in common with the infant train. Their romping & shouting puzzled me. I hated mere play & dancing about - in my relaxations I always desired *plot*"
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On Lovecraft's female cousin's memory of him as a young boy
>"Mrs Ethel Phillips Morrish [...] confessed in an interview [...] that she did not much care for her cousin, finding him eccentric and aloof. She became very irritated because Lovecraft did not apparently know how a swing worked.
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On young Lovecraft's father's illness
>"There is little to reason to doubt Lovecraft when he says that "my image of him is but vague": he lived with him for only the first two and a half years of his life [...] The illness that struck Winfield Scott Lovecraft [...] is worth examining in detail. The Butler Hospital medical record reads as follows: For a year past he has shown obscure symptoms of mental disease - doing and saying strange things at times; has, also, grown pale and thin in flesh. He continues his business, however, until Apr 21, when he broke down completely while stopping in Chicago. [...] He was extremely noisy and violent for two days, but was finally quieted by free use of the bromides [...] By December 5 Winfield was said to be failing, with frequent convulsions [...] On December 16, 1896, Winfield developed an ulcer on the penis, possible from masturbation. [...] by the spring of 1898 [...] blood and mucus are found in his stool."
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>Sup Forums mods
You Sup Forumstards are a cancer for all Sup Forums, the mods Sup Forums are also idiots right-wings.
Three threads about that loser, and they delete the one with some worth
On Lovecraft's father's diagnosis after his death
>"the medical record diagnosed him as having "General Paralysis" [...] Leland E. Hinsie and Robert Jean Campbell write in their Psychiatric Dictionary [...] : "Paresis, general...Also known as general paralysis of the insane (G.P.I.) dementia paralytica, Bayle's disease; the most malignant form of (tertiary) neurosyphilis consisting of direct invasion of the parenchyma of the brain producing a combination of both mental and neurologic symptoms."
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On the early development of Lovecraft's distinctive style
>""I think I am probably the only living person to whom the ancient 18th century idiom is actually a prose and poetic mother-tongue," and he explained how this came about: "At home all the main bookcases in library, parlours, dining-room, and elsewhere were full of standard Victorian junk, [...] But what did I do? What, pray, but go with candles and kerosene lamp to that obscure and nighted aerial crypt - leaving the sunny downstairs 19th century flat, and boring my way through the decades into the late 17th, 18th and early 19th century by means of innumerable crumbling and long-s'd tomes of every size and nature - Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, Idler, Rambler, Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Young, Tickell, Cooke's Hesiod, Ovid by Various Hands, Francis's Horace and Phaedrus, &c. &c. &c.""
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this is interesting thanks
On young Lovecraft learning about sexual intercourse
>"In the matter of the justly celebrated "facts of life" I didn't wait for oral information, but exhausted the entire subject in the medical section of the family library [...] when I was 8 years old - through Quain's Anatomy (fully illustrated & diagrammed), Dunglinson's Physiology, &c. &c. This was because of curiosity & perplexity concerning the strange reticence & embarassments of adult speech. & the oddly inexplicable allusions & situations in standard literature. The result was the very opposite of what parents generally fear - for instead of giving me an abnormal & precocious interest in sex [...] it virtual killed my interest in the subject. The whole matter was reduced to prosaic mechanism - a mechanism which I rather despised or at least thought non-glamorous because of its purely animal nature & separation from such things as intellect and beauty"
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On Lovecraft's mother attempting to make her son learn to dance
>"Susie also attempted to mould him in ways he found either irritating or repugnant. Around 1898 she tried to enrol him in a children's dancing class; Lovecraft "abhorred the thought" and, fresh from an initial study of Latin, responded with a line from Cicero: "Nemo fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit!" ("Scarcely any sober person dances, unless by chance he is insane".
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On one local girl's memory of young Lovecraft
>"Howard used to go out into the fields in back of my home to study the stars. One early fall evening several of the children in the vicinity assembled to watch him from a distance. Feeling sorry for his loneliness I went up to him and asked him about his telescope and was permitted to look through it. But his language was so technical that I could not understand it and I returned to my group and left him to his lonely study of the heavens."
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>Lovecraft
He saw some shit man. He knew more than he was supposed to.
Have you ever read Mountain of madness? The guy talks about an ancient civ of aliens living at the south pole, hollow earth and all sorts of weird shit.
Bump for horrors you can hardly imagine.
On Lovecraft as a young man
>"All this may seem to give the impression that Lovecraft, in spite of his precosciousness, his early health problems, his solitude as a very young boy, and his unsettled nervous condition, was evolving into a relatively "normal" youth with vigorous enthusiasms (except sports and girls, in which he never took any interest). [...] But how normal, really, was he? The later testimony of Stuart Coleman is striking [...] "from the age of 8 to 18, I saw quite a bit of him [...] I won't say I knew him 'well' as I doubt if any of his contemporaries at that time did. He was definitely not a normal child and his companions were few."
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On young Lovecraft's "tics"
>"Harry Brobst [...] spoke to a woman who had gone to high school with Lovecraft. "She [...] described these terrible tics that he had - he'd be sitting in his seat and he'd suddenly up and jump - I think they referred to them as seizures. [...] oh, yes, she remembered him. I guess he scared the student body half to death."
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On young Lovecraft's friendships in highschool
>"Clarence H. Philbrick told me that he and others in high school with Lovecraft made attempts at friendliness but always were rebuffed by a chill disinterest or a shyness that seemed like it; they finally quit their attempts. Lovecraft later did have a few local friends, and loyal ones; the sort who failed to understand him and yet were impressed by his extraordinary range of interests, by his phenomenally exact memory, and by the brilliance of his talk; who found, when they gave him affection, the depth of goodwill and charm to which his later literary friends have testified."
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Bumping for the redpills
Bump
On Lovecraft's habit when making friends
>"Lovecraft was slow to make friends, but once he made them he remained firm and devoted. This is a patter that persisted throughout his life"
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On young Lovecraft's family's declining wealth after his grandfather's death
>"The corporation [Owyhee Land and Irrigation Company] lost their initiative & courage. The corporation was unwisely dissolved at a time when my grandfather would have persevered - with the result that others reaped the wealth which should have gone to its stockholders. My mother & I were forced to vacate the beautiful estate at 454 Agnell Street, & to enter the less spacious abode at 598, three squares eastward."
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On young Lovecraft's fear of poverty
>"Money as a definite conception was wholly absent from my horizon. [...] But actual decline did set in when I was about ten years old [...] Even before my grandfather's death a sense of peril and falling-off was strong within me, so that I felt a kinship to Poe's gloomy heroes with their broken fortunes."
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On the effect on Lovecraft of his family's declining wealth
>"This was probably the most traumatic event Lovecraft experienced prior to the death of his mother [...] By 1904 he and his mother were living alone [...] at 454 Angell Street [...] To compound the tragedy, Lovecraft's beloved black cat, Nigger-Man, disappeared sometime in 1904. This was the only pet Lovecraft ever owned in his life [...] Nigger-Man's loss perhaps symbolised the loss of his birthplace as no other event cold."
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is this lovecraftian?
Bumping.
On Lovecraft's worldview in his teens
>"By my thirteenth birthday I was thoroughly impressed with man's impermanence and insignificance, and by my seventeenth, about which time I did some particularly detailed writing on the subject, I had formed in all essential particulars my present pessimistic cosmic views. The futility of all existence began to impress and oppress me; and my references to human progress, formerly hopeful, began to decline in enthusiasm. [...] I looked on man as if from another planet. He was merely an interesting species presented for study and classification."
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On young Lovecraft's existential burden
>"Many times in my youth I was so exhausted by the sheer burden of consciousness & mental & physical activity that I had to drop out of school for a greater or lesser period & take a complete rest free from all responsibilities; [...] In those days I could hardly bear to see or speak to anyone, & liked to shut out the world by pulling down dark shades & using artificial light."
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On young Lovecraft attempting to educate a young Swedish boy
>"I came a cross a superficially bright Swedish boy in the Public Library - he worked in the "stack" where the books are kept - and invited him to the house to broaden his mentality (I was fifteen and he was about the same, though he was smaller and seemed younger). I thought I had uncovered a mute inglorious Milton [...] and despite maternal protest entertained him frequently in my library. I believed in equality then, and reproved him when he called my mother "Ma'am" - I said that a future scientist should not talk like a servant! But ere long he uncovered qualities which did not appeal to me, and I was forced to abandon him to his plebeian fate."
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This board is not your personal blog, you fuckface cunt.
Masturbating so much that you get an ulcer on your penis? Is that a thing, what the fuck. I did not know that about Lovecraft father
On Lovecraft's argument with highschool teachers
>"Things were not always entirely harmonious between Lovecraft and his teachers, however. He notes several occasions in which he had various academic disputes: one professor [...] doubted Lovecraft's assertion that there were two native races of Europe, Caucasian and Mongolian, until Lovecraft reminded him that the Lapps [i.e. Finnish people] were Mongol."
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On young Lovecraft's opinion of Jewish people
>"Hope Street is near enough to the "North End" to have a considerable Jewish attendance. It was there that I formed my ineradicable aversion to the Semitic race. The Jews were brilliant in their classes - calculatingly and schemingly brilliant - but their ideals were sordid and their manners coarse. I became rather well known as an anti-Semite before I had been at Hope Street many days."
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On young Lovecraft's fights in highschool
>"Any affront - especially any reflection on my truthfulness or honour as an 18th century gentleman - roused in me a tremendous fury, & I would always start a fight if an immediate retraction were not furnished. Being of scant physical strength, I did not fare well in these encounters; though I would never ask for their termination. I thought it disgraceful, even in defeat, not to maintain a wholly "you-go-to-hell" attitude until the victor ceased pummelling of his own accord [...] Occasionally I won fights - aided by my habit of assuming a dramatically ferocious aspect frightening to the nervous [...] the "by God, I'll kill you!" stuff."
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...
This is the truth why we will never have a movie based on Lovecraft
Lovecraft was a white loser writer who wrote for low-quality magazines.
Nothing he wrote can be compared to works by modern authors.
The only fans of this mediocre are edgy and lonely semi-illiterate boys and racist right-wingers.
> He was a beta that in the whole life only managed to have sex with a woman, for pity.
> He was an affected racist, his hatred of minorities was a shame even at that time
> He was totally devoid of talent,skill and experience, his works were limited to a few pages without a deep narrative and really complex characters, all of them imitations of himself, an incapable, boring and pathetic white male
> It was too anglo, all his work is based on the limited spectrum of the life of an anglo-saxon man.
> Even though he was only focused on this limited racist expectation of an Anglo-Saxon, he was unable to create characters with whom we can identify with ourselves. Even if you are a descendant of Anglo-Saxons, you cannot identify with his racist and poorly educated characters.
> His scientific knowledge was pathetic even for works from the early 20th century. There would be great difficulty in adapting his lack of knowledge to intelligent content for modern audiences.
> Lack of economic and political knowledge. He flirts several times with eugenic and socialist conduct. Had he lived long enough, he would probably be an admirer of Hitler. This lack of knowledge in these issues makes their work become even more outdated and less complex.
> Total lack of subtexts. He probably did not even know what that word means. He also had an extraordinarily poor vocabulary.
(OP)
In summary, Lovecraft is a lame """"""""""artist"""""""""", his work is incapable of captivating people endowed with education, imagination and taste.
Hollywood understands this and seeks to stay away from the pitiful quality and racism that the name Lovecraft is eternally bound.
Here is an example of the """"""""legacy"""""""" of Lovecraft
change.org
On young Lovecraft's fourth existential crisis
>"In 1908 Lovecraft stood at the threshold of adulthood: he was doing reasonably well at Hope High School, he had become prodigiously learned in chemistry, geography, astronomy, and meteorology [...] He seemed destined for a career as an academician of some sort [...] What derailed that future - and what ensured that Lovecraft would never lead a "normal" life - was his fourth "near-breakdown," clearly the most serious of his life. In some ways he never recovered from it. Lovecraft is very reticent about the causes or sources of what we can only regard as a full-fledged nervous breakdown in the summer of 1908. [...] the period 1908 - 13 is a virtual blank in the life of H.P. Lovecraft."
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On young Lovecraft's regretful lack of foresight after leaving highschool
>"I made the mistake in youth of not realising that literary endeavour does not always mean an income. I ought to have trained myself for some routine clerical work [...] affording a dependable stipend yet leaving my mind free enough for a certain amount of creative activity - but in the absence of immediate need I was too damned a fool to look ahead. I seemed to think that sufficient money for ordinary needs was something which everyone had as a matter of course - and if I ran short, I could always sell a storm or poem or something. Well- my calculations were inaccurate!"
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On Lovecraft as a young hermit
>"Lovecraft was a bit more than a bit troubled. In 1908, at the age of 18, he was the victim of what we might describe as a "nervous breakdown", and sank into a lethargy that was to last for a dozen years. At the age when his old classmates, impatiently crossing the bridge of childhood, threw themselves into life like a marvelous adventure into the unknown, he cloistered himself in his home, did not speak to his mother, refused to get up all day, shuffling about in his dressing gown all night."
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Maybe if he got laid every now and again he wouldnt have much a stick up his ass.
On young Lovecraft's mother's opinion of her unemployed son
>"[Winsfield Townley] Scott rightly conjectures; "However she adored him, there may have been a subconcious criticism of Howard, so brilliant but so economically useless." No doubt her disappointment with her son's inability to finish high school, go to college, and support himself did not help this situation any."
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On Lovecraft's mother's relationship with her son
>"Lovecraft's wife, although she never knew Susie, makes a plausible claim that Susie "lavished both her love and her hate on her only child."; this comment may received confirmation from the following disturbing anecdote related by Clara Hess [...] "She was considered then to be getting rather odd. My call was pleasant enough but the house had a strange and shutup air and the atmosphere seemed weird and Mrs. Lovecraft talked continuously of her unfortunate son who was so hideous that he hid from everyone and did not like to walk upon the streets where people could gaze at him."
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On Lovecraft's appearance as a young man
>"by the age of eighteen or twenty he had perhaps reached his full height of five feet eleven inches, and had probably developed that long, prognathous jaw which he himself in later years considered a physical defect [...] As late as February 1921 [...] Lovecraft writes to his mother of a new suit that "made me appear as nearly respectable as my face permits."
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your just not doing it right
Don't talk to me or my wife's son like that ever again. Britanon always brings quality posts every time.
>Around 1898 she tried to enrol him in a children's dancing class; Lovecraft "abhorred the thought" and, fresh from an initial study of Latin, responded with a line from Cicero: "Nemo fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit!" ("Scarcely any sober person dances, unless by chance he is insane".
Literally this meme
Notice how the only people ITT who are shitting on Lovecraft include a non-white monkey eater and a potato nigger.
On Lovecraft's demeanor in the years of unemployment after leaving highschool
>"Clara Hess [...] wrote: "Sometimes I would see Howard when walking up Angell Street, but he would not speak and would stare ahead with his coat collar turned up and chin down." [...] [Harold W.] Munro states: "Very much an introvert, he darted about like a sleuth, hunched over, always with books or papers clutched under his arm, peering straight ahead recognizing nobody."
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On Lovecraft's shame at being unemployed
>"Of my non-university education, I never cease to be ashamed; but I know, at least, that I could not have done differently. I busied myself at home with chemistry, literature, & the like [...] I shunned all human society, deeming myself too much of a failure in life to be seen socially by those who had known me in youth, & had foolishly expected such great things of me."
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On another poem written while unemployed during his early 20s
>"When, long ago, the Gods created Earth
>In Jove's fair image Man was shap'd at birth.
>The beasts for lesser parts were next design'd;
>Yet were they too remote from humankind.
> To fill this gap, and join the rest to man,
>Th' Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
>A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
>Fill'd it with vice, and call'd the thing a NIGGER."
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>so desperate for (you)s he comes back and posts the exact same thing as he did 50 minutes ago, this time mass replying
Holy shit man, what are you doing with your life?
On Lovecraft's twenty-first birthday
>"He celebrated his twenty-first birthday - August 20, 1911 - by riding the electric trolley cars all day"
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On Lovecraft reading anything available to him
>"One specific type of fiction we know he read in great quantities was the early pulp magazines. [...] One [...] interesting - indeed, almost alarming - fact is that Lovecraft read the entire run of the Railroad Man's Magazine (1906 - 19), a staggering quantity of fiction and articles about railroad. This was the first specialised Munsey pulp, and the image of Lovecraft reading 150 monthly issues of this magazine is somewhat unnerving."
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On Lovecraft's impressive literary stamina
>"What is remarkable is that most of these writers [mentioned by HLP in a letter] did not even write weird fiction [...] This meant that Lovecraft read each issue - sometimes 192 pages, sometimes 240 pages - from cover to cover, month after month or even (when it changes to a weekly) week after week. This is an appalling amount of popular fiction for anyone to read, and in fact it contravened the purpose of the magazines, whereby each member of the family would read only those types of stories that were of interest to him or her. One begins to develop the impression that Lovecraft was compulsive in whatever he did"
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nigger
His writing is okay, just a bit of a sperg.
bump for good bread
bumping, keep it up OP. Always loved his cosmic horror books.
On Lovecraft's early defence of "Weird" fiction
>"Scorning the plea [...] for more "probable" stories, Lovecraft declaims: "If, in fact, man is unable to create living beings out of inorganic matter, to hypnotise beasts of the forest to do his will, to swing from tree to tree with the apes of the African jungle, to restore to life the mummified corpses of the Pharoahs and the Incas, or to explore the atmosphere of Venus and the deserts of Mars, permit us, at least, in fancy, to witness these miracles, and to satisfy that craving for the unknown, the weird, and the impossible which exists in every active human brain."
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On Lovecraft's angry letters to a literary magazine
>"Lovecraft's tirade was not inspired merely by unwonted dominance of [romance author Fred] Jackson in the pages of Argosy [...] noting a little dryly that "There is a numerous set of people whose chief literary delight is obtained in the following of imaginary nymphs and swains through the labyrinthine paths of amorous adventure"; [...] it is a fact, maintains Lovecraft, that Jackson is simply a bad writer: "Apart from the mere choice of subject, let me venture to describe the Jacksonine type of tale as trivial, effeminate, and, in places, course. [...] Into the breasts of his characters, and appearing to dominate them to the exclusion of reason, he places the delicate passions and emotions proper to negroes or anthropoid apes.""
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On a summary of the years Lovecraft's early 20s
>"Lovecraft had no job, was only toying with chemistry and astronomy, was living with a mother who was steadily losing her mental stability, was writing random undistinguished bits of verse about his native region, and was devouring the Munsey magazines but had no thought of contributing any fiction to them or to any other market. But [Fred] Jackson's work so irritated Lovecraft that he emerged from his hermitry at least to the extent of bombarding letters to the magazines in question."
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>didnt know how a swing worked
Oh I love these threads kind anglo man have a Bumb
RIP Nigger-Man
On Lovecraft becoming an amateur journalist
>"The literature produced by members [of the United Amateur Press Association] varied widely in both content and quality: poetry, essays, fiction, reviews, news items, polemics, and every other form of writing that can fit into a small compass. [...] Lovecraft realised the beneficial effects of amateurdom when he wrote in 1921: "Amateur Journalism has provided me with the very world in which I live. Of a nervous and reserved temperament, and cursed with an aspiration which far exceeds my endowments, I am a typical misfit in the larger world of endeavour, and singularly unable to derive enjoyment from ordinary miscellaneous activities. In 1914. when the kindly hand of amateurdom was first extended to me, I was as close to the state of vegetation as any animal well can be"
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On Lovecraft explaining the purpose of the United Amateur Press Association
>"The United aims to assist those whom the other forms of literary influence cannot reach. The non-university man, the dwellers in different places, the recluse, the invalid, the very young, the elderly; all these are included within our scope. [...] In no other society does wealth or previous learning count for so little [...] It is an university, stripped of every artificiality and conventionality, and thrown open to all without distinction. Here may every man shine according to his genius, and here may the small as well as the great writer known the bliss of appreciation and the glory of recognised achievement."
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>>""I think I am probably the only living person to whom the ancient 18th century idiom is actually a prose and poetic mother-tongue,"
is he elliotrodger posting?
On Lovecraft's statement in The Conservative magazine
>"That the arts of literature and literary criticism will receive prime attention from The Conservative seems very probably. The increasing use among us of slovenly prose and lame metre [...] demands an active opponent, even though a lone one [...] Outside the domain of pure literature, The Conservative will ever be found an enthusiastic champion of total abstienence and prohibition; of moderate, health militarism as contrasted with dangerous and unpatriotic peace-preaching; of Pan-Saxonism, or the domination by the English and kindred races over the lesser divisions of manking; and of constitutional representative government, as opposed to the pernicious and contemptible false schemes of anarchy and socialism."
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On Lovecraft's "Americanism" and attacking Israel Zangwill's "Melting Pot"
>"The essay "Americanism [...] embodies this conception. For Lovecraft, Americanism is nothing more than "expanded Anglo-Saxonism": "It is the spirit of England, transplanted to a soil of vast extent and diversity [...] It is the expression of the world's highest race under the most favourable social, political, and geographical conditions. [...] Most dangerous and fallacious of the several misconceptions of Americanism is that of the so-called "melting-pot" of races and traditions. It is true that this country has received a vast influx of non-English immigrants who come hither to enjoy without hardship the liberties which our British ancestors carved out in toil and bloodshed. [...] But from this it does not follow that a mixture of really alien blood or ideas has accomplished or can accomplish anything but harm [..] Immigration cannot, perhaps, be cut off altogether, but it should be understood that aliens who choose America as their residence must accept the prevailing language and culture as their own; and neither try to modify our institutions, nor to keep alive their own in our midst."
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Bowden on H.P. Lovecraft - youtube.com
Kafka
That's aFinal Fantasy character silly.
OP here. Two things:
1. Apologies if some quotations seem too long; some need full context.
2. I am narrating this chronologically, and will make sure to point out when HPL reaches his 30s, 40s etc.
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On Lovecraft's counter-attack against a Jewish critics of The Conservative magazine
>"In "Concerning the Conservative" Isaacson, keenly [points] out that "There comes a musty smell as of old books with the reader of the Conservative," [...] What Lovecraft did do was write a magnificent poem, "The Isaacsonio-Mortoniad," around September 1915 [...]
>'Whilst the brave Semite loud of freedom cants.
>Against this freedom he, forgetful, rants:
>Eternal licence for himself he pleads,
>Yet seeks restraint for his opponents' deeds;
>With the same force that at oppression rails,
>He'd bar The Jeffersonian from the mails!'"
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On Lovecraft's reaction to the outbreak of the First World War
>"Lovecraft's immediate reaction to the war, however, was a curious one. He did not care what the causes of the war were, or who was to blame; his prime concern was in stopping what he saw was a suicidal racial civil war between the two sides of "Anglo-Saxondom." [...] "High above such national crimes as the Serbian plots against Austria or the German disregard of Belgian neutrality, high above such sad matters as the destruction of innocence lives and property, looms the supremest of all crimes, an offence not only against conventional morality but against Nature itself; the violation of race. In the unnatural racial alignment of the various warring powers we behold a defiance of anthropological principles that cannot but bode ill for the future of the world."
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This guys was patrician as fuck
lmao i love lovecraft.
i spent the first 18 years of my life in Rhode Island and no schools, public or private, teach about HP Lovecraft just because he said bad things about da joos
On Lovecraft attempting to join the National Guard
>"impressed by my entire uselessness in the world, I resolved to attempt enlistment despite my almost invalid condition. [...] As you may have deduced, I embarked upon this desperate venture without informing my mother [...] In fact, my mother was almost prostrated with the news, since she knew that only by rare chance could a weakling like myself survive the rigorous routine of camp life. [...] My mother has threatened to go to any lengths, legal or otherwise, if I do not reveal all the ills which unfit me for the army. [...] Her activities soon brought my military career to a close [...] my final status is that of a man "Rejected for physical disability.""
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On Lovecraft's wartime allegiance
>"I shall not stoop to explain that I am an invalid who would certainly be fighting under the Union Jack if able."
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On Lovecraft's dejection at failing to join the war effort
>""I am feeling desolate and lonely indeed as a civilian. Practically all of my personal acquaintances are now in some branch of the service [...] I would try to enter, were it not for the almost frantic attitude of my mother; who makes me promise every time I leave the house that I will not make another attempt at enlistment!" [...] Here was one more indicating, for Lovecraft, of being left behind in life; having failed to finish high school and enter college, he had seen his boyhood friends go on to gain good jobs in journalism, trade, and law enforcement. Now he saw them go off to war while he remained behind to write for the amateur press."
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Is there a pastebin or something? Good info btw.
On Lovecraft's depression during his mid-20s
>"Adulthood is hell. Faced with a position this stubborn, the "moralists" of our time grumble in a vaguely disapproving manner, waiting for the moment to float their obscene subtexts. Maybe Lovecraft really couldn't become an adult; but what is certain is that he did not want to. And considering the values which rule the adult world, it's difficult to argue the case. The reality principle, the pleasure principle, competition, permanent challenge, sex and work...nothing to sing Hallelujah about. Lovecraft knows there's nothing to this world. And he plays the role of the loser every time. In theory as in practice. He has lost his childhood, he has equally lost his faith. The world disgusts him, and he sees no reason to suppose that things could be presented otherwise, by 'looking on the bright side'. [...] Very few will have been at this point of saturation, penetrated right to the marrow by the absolute void of every human aspiration.The universe is merely a chance arrangement of elementary particles. A transitory image in the midst of chaos. [...] Lovecraft is well aware of the depressing nature of these conclusions. As he wrote in 1918, "all rationalism tends to minimize the value and importance of life, and to diminish the total quantity of human happiness. In some cases the truth could cause suicide, or at least precipitate a near-suicidal depression.""
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>>"When, long ago, the Gods created Earth
>>In Jove's fair image Man was shap'd at birth.
>>The beasts for lesser parts were next design'd;
>>Yet were they too remote from humankind.
>> To fill this gap, and join the rest to man,
>>Th' Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
>>A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
>>Fill'd it with vice, and call'd the thing a NIGGER."
Thanks, love these threads, the Goebbels one was the best thread I've ever read on Sup Forums
On Lovecraft's overall opinion of the First World War
>"As to the general situation, it seems very discouraging just now. It may take a second war to adjust things properly."
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On Lovecraft's support for alcohol Prohibition
>""The practical difficult in enforcing Prohibition is admittedly great, but no man of virtue can do otherwise than work towards the downfall of Rum. [...] even in the open air the stench of whiskey was appalling. To this fiendish poison, I am certain, the greater part of the squalor I saw was due. Many of these vermin were obviously not foreigners - I counted at least five American countenances in which a certain vanished decency half showed through the red whiskey bloating." [...] One had to wonder why Lovecraft became so obsessed with temperance. He himself was fond of declaring that "I have never tasted intoxicating liquor, and never intend to."
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On Lovecraft's hostility to smoking
>"Lovecraft's hostility to smoking nearly equalled his disapprobation of drinking. [...] Lovecraft admits [...] "I cannot see yet what anyone finds attractive about the habit of imitating a smokestack!"
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On Lovecraft's hostility to sexual intercourse
>"Eroticism belongs to a lower order of instincts, and is an animal rather than nobly human quality [...] The primal savage or ape merely looks about his native forest to find a mate; the exalted Aryan should lift his eyes to the worlds of space and consider his relation to the infinity!! [...] About romance and affection I never have felt the slightest interest [...] And in truth, is this not the natural attitude of an analytical mind? What is a beauteous nymph? Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, a dash or two of phosphorous and other elements - all to decay soon. But what is the cosmos? What is the secret of time, space, and the things that lie beyond time and space?"
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OP very good thread. Where are you getting all this info? It sounds like from I Am Providence.
I should mention that I have a youtube channel and I make the occasional video regarding Lovecraft and his mythos. Its called Arkham Reporter. It might interest some of you.
OP here. Joshi's book is one main source here, yes. I avoid the parts where he guesses or includes conjecture etc.
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On Lovecraft's hostility to dogs and appreciation of cats
>"In essence, Lovecraft's argument is that the cat is the pet of the artists and thinker, while the dog is the pet of the stolid bourgeoisie. "The dog appeals to cheap and facile emotions; the cat to the deepest founts of imagination and cosmic perception in the human mind." This leads inevitably to a class distinction that is neatly summed up in the compact utterance: "The dog is a peasant and the cat is a gentleman.""
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On Lovecraft's new hobby
>"Lovecraft [...] was not actually doing much during this period aside from writing; but he had discovered one entertaining form of relaxation - moviegoing. [...] Lovecraft reports that the first cinema shows in Providence were in March 1906; and, even though he "knew too much of literature & drama not to recognize the utter & unrelieved hokum of the moving picture," he attended them anyway [...] One develops the idea that watching films may have occupied some, perhaps much, of the "blank" years of 1908 - 1913, as a letter of 1915 suggests: "As you may surmise, I am a devotee of the motion picture, since I can attend shows at any time, whereas my ill health seldom permits me to make definite engagements"
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On Lovecraft losing interest in motion pictures
>"Save for a few Triangle, Pramount & Vitagraoh pictures, everything I have seen is absolute trash [...] I have yet to see a serial film worth the time wasted in looking at it - or dozing over it. The technique could be surpassed by most ten year old children." [...] With rare exceptions, Lovecraft did not care for the surprising number of films he saw in the course of his life."
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MODS
feck off
Wyatt is that you?
imagine being the dumbest guy in Swaziland
>"In essence, Lovecraft's argument is that the cat is the pet of the artists and thinker, while the dog is the pet of the stolid bourgeoisie. "The dog appeals to cheap and facile emotions; the cat to the deepest founts of imagination and cosmic perception in the human mind." This leads inevitably to a class distinction that is neatly summed up in the compact utterance: "The dog is a peasant and the cat is a gentleman.""
/ourguy/
On Lovecraft's changing perspective on writing
>"It is one of Lovecraft's great virtues that he never buckled down to hackwork even in the face of ever-increasing poverty; as he wrote poignantly in 1924, "Writing after all is the essence of whatever is left in my life, and if the ability or opportunity for that goes, I have no further reason for - or mind to endure - the joke of existence."
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On Lovecraft as a literary gentleman
>"He wholeheartedly believed it unsuitable to pursue literature as a profession. As he wrote: "a gentleman doesn't try to become famous, but leaves that to the little parvenu egoists". It's obviously difficult to appreciate the sincerity of this declaration; it might appear to us to be the result of a formidable mass of inhibitions, but it must equally be considered as the strict application of an obsolete code of behaviour, to which Lovecraft adhered with all his might. He always wanted to be seen as a provincial gentleman, studying literature as one of the fine arts, for his own pleasure and that of a few friends, without care for public tastes, fashionable themes, or anything of that sort. Such a person has no place in our societies; he knew this, but he always refused to take account of it. And, ultimately, all that distinguished him from a true 'country gentleman' was that he possessed nothing; but even so, he didn't want to take account of it"
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On Lovecraft's own distinctive Cosmic perspective
>""I could not write about "ordinary people" because I am not in the least interested in them. Without interest there can be no art. Man's relations to man do not captivate my fancy. It is man's relation to the cosmos - to the unknown - which alone arouses in me the spark of creative imagination. The humanocentric pose is impossible to me, for I cannot acquire the primitive myopia which magnifies the earth and ignores the background."
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>"Eroticism belongs to a lower order of instincts, and is an animal rather than nobly human quality [...] The primal savage or ape merely looks about his native forest to find a mate; the exalted Aryan should lift his eyes to the worlds of space and consider his relation to the infinity!! [...] About romance and affection I never have felt the slightest interest [...] And in truth, is this not the natural attitude of an analytical mind? What is a beauteous nymph? Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, a dash or two of phosphorous and other elements - all to decay soon. But what is the cosmos? What is the secret of time, space, and the things that lie beyond time and space?"
>>>>>r9k
cats are for fags
It's a shame that these high IQ individuals didn't go out and do greater things in the world, like lead our governments or contribute to science/philosophy etc. I mean sure Lovecraft wrote interesting stories, but I would have rather seen this man live a few extra years and lead our country through WWII: the breaking point for the West.
On Lovecraft's mother encouraging her son to find employment
>"he was slowly - probably through his mother's urging - making tentative forays at professional employment. His scorn of commercial writing prevented him from submitting his work to paying magazines [...] it means that Lovecraft [...] commenced what would become his only true renumerative occupation: revising and ghostwriting."
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On Lovecraft and his mother's lifestyle in his mid-to-late twenties
>"Lovecraft himself [...] continued to live alone with his mother at 598 Angell Street. The nature of their relations for much of the period 1904 - 19 is a mystery. [..] His sporadic efforts to earn an income by revision, and his whimsical thoughts of turning into a hack writer, give the impression that he was not very serious about supporting himself; but we shall see that Susie was very concerned about this matter [...] All in all, relations between Lovecraft and Susie could not have been very wholesome. Lovecraft was still doing almost no travelling outside the city, and the lack of a regular job must have kept him at home nearly all day, week after week. "
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On Lovecraft considering becoming a teacher
>"in early 1920 Lovecraft mused about the following: 'I have been wondering lately if I could ever manage, under the pressure of poverty, to accept a position in an evening school. A day school, of course, would be out of the question - for I can rarely keep up that long for two successive days. If fairly frequent absences could be pardoned. I might manage to keep up with the evening hours - but fancy my trying to hold in check a roomful of incipient gangsters! It seems as though every avenue of remunerative activity is closed to a total nervous wreck!' [...] How he could have imagined that any night school would hire a high-school dropout who might be subject to "fairly frequent absences" is beyond fathoming."
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Thank you once again for these threads OP. And I'm a big fan of Lovecraft so this is a great thread.
>"The dog is a peasant and the cat is a gentleman."
FUCKING DROPPED
Fuck off, Lovecraft the Aryan seer is definitely politics
On the decline of Lovecraft's mother's health
>"In the winter of 1918 - 19 she finally cracked under the strain of financial worries. [...] On March 13, Susie, "showing no signs of recovery," was admitted to Butler Hospital, where her husband had died more than twenty years before and where she herself would remain until her death two years later. [...] She wept frequently under emotional strains. In common lingo, she was a woman who had gone to pieces. When interviewed, she stressed her economic worries, and she spoke [...] of all she had done for "a poet of the highest order"; that is, of course, her son."
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On the death of Lovecraft's mother
>"[Lovecraft] used to visit his mother at the hospital, but he never entered the building: always she met him on the grounds, usually at 'the grotto,' and they would stroll together through the Butler woods about the river. To other patients she spoke constantly and pridefully of her son, but they never saw him."
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On Lovecraft's reaction to his mother's death
>"I lack the will and energy to do anything heavier. The death of my mother [...] gave me an extreme nervous shock [...] I am, of course, supremely unemotional; and do not weep or indulge in any of the lugubrious demonstrations of the vulgar - but the psychological effect of so vast and unexpected a disaster is none the less considerable [...] For two years she had wished for little else [than death] - just as I myself wish for oblivion. [...] For my part, I do not think I shall wait for a natural death; since there is no longer any particular reason why I should exist. During my mother's life-time I was aware that voluntary euthanasia on my part would cause her distress, but it is now possible for me to regulate the term of my existence with the assurance that my end would cause no more than a passing annoyance. [...] My mother was, in all probability, the only person who thoroughly understood me"
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4pleb us, if you would.
I have the complete anthology of all his works, carefully annotated on the side for context and clarifications. Well worth the 50 bucks I shelled out for it. Also was Lovecraft a Freemason? His tomb has a masonic obelisk.
He's almost sort of right, but so insulated from reality he misses it. Cats are an incarnation of raw predatory spirit, dogs can't be because they'd eat your children.
My cat is currently cleaning my German Shepherd's ears. Pretty adorable tbqh.
On Lovecraft's "perfected" cynicism
>"In "A Confession of Unfaith" Lovecraft suggests that the immediate postwar period let to the solidifications of his philosophical thought: "The Peace Conference, Friedrich Nietzsche, Samuel Butler (the modern), H. L. Mencken, and other influences have perfected my cynicism; a quality which grows more intense as the advent of middle life removes the blind prejudice whereby youth clings to the vapid 'all's right with the world' hallucination from the sheer force of desire to have it so. [...] One should come to realise that all life is merely a comedy of vain desire, wherein those who strive are the clowns, and those who calmly and dispassionately watch are the fortunate ones who can laugh at the acts of the strivers. The utter emptiness of all recognised goals of human endeavour is to the detached spectator deliciously apparent - the tomb yawns and grins so ironically!"
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On the arrival of Sonia Green in the life of Howard Lovecraft
>"It is worth pausing to ponder the sources for Lovecraft's attraction to Sonia. It seems facile to say that he was looking for a mother replacement; and yet, the emergence of Sonia into his life a mere six weeks after his mother's death is certainly a coincidence worth noting.
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On Jewess Sonia Green's romantic pursuit of Lovecraft
>"Lovecraft heard from Sonia as early as mid- to late July of 1912, by which time she had already read some of Lovecraft's stories [...] It was Sonia who took things into her own hands. She visited Lovecraft in Providence on September 4 -5, staying at the Crown Hotel."
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I'd love to but I can't find it
user please. We're gonna topple your shit god from his pedestal.
When the history of fiction is written, his work will only be a footnote.
>"Apart from the mere choice of subject, let me venture to describe the Jacksonine type of tale as trivial, effeminate, and, in places, course. [...] Into the breasts of his characters, and appearing to dominate them to the exclusion of reason, he places the delicate passions and emotions proper to negroes or anthropoid apes.""
what did he mean by this?
On Lovecraft's first impression of New York
>"My gawd - what a filthy dump! I thought Providence had slums, and antique Bostonium as well; but damn me if I ever saw anything like the sprawling sty-atmosphere of N.Y.'s lower East Side. We walked - at my suggestion - in the middle of the street, for contact with the heterogeneous sidewalk denizens, spilled out of their bulging brick kennels as if by a spawning beyond the capacity of the places, was not by any means sought. [...] these swine have instinctive swarming movements, no doubt, which no ordinary biologist can fathom. Gawd knows what they are [...] a bastard mess of stewing mongrel flesh without intellect, repellent to eye, nose, and imagination - would to heaven a kindly gust of cyanogen could asphyxiate the whole gigantic abortion, end the misery, and clean out the place."
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On Sonia's reaction to Lovecraft helping to edit and refine her short story
>"His continued enthusiasm the next day was so genuine and sincere that in appreciation I surprised and shocked him right then and there by kissing him. He was so flustered that he blushed, then he turned pale. When I chaffed him about it he said he had not been kissed since he was a very small child and that he was never kissed by any woman [...] and that he would probably never be kissed again. (But I fooled him)."
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On Sonia and Lovecraft's relationship
>"Sonia seems to have understood Lovecraft very well, his frigidity, his inhibition, his denial and his disgust for life. As for him, who considered himself an old man at thirty, one is still surprised that he could envisage union with this dynamic, vivacious creature. A divorced jewess, what’s more; which, for a conservative antisemite like him would seem to constitute an insurmountable obstacle. [...] But it is perhaps the most unlikely explanation that seems the best: Lovecraft really seems to have, in a certain manner, loved Sonia, as Sonia loved him."
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Huxley and Orwell
Obligatory
On Lovecraft marrying Sonia Green
>"Sonia writes: "I have nothing in life to attract me to Life and if I can help the good and beautiful soul of Howard Lovecraft find itself financially as it has found itself spiritually, morally and mentally, my efforts shall not have been in vain." [...] On March 3, at St Paul's Chapel at Broadway and Vesey Streets in lower Manhattan, H.P. Lovecraft had married Sonia Haft Greene."
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On a summary of Lovecraft's marriage
>"Here was a man with an unusually low sex rive, with a deep-seated love of his native region, with severe prejudice against racial minorities, suddenly deciding to marry a woman who, although several years older than he, clearly wished both a physical as well as intellectual union, and deciding to uproot himself from his place of birth to move into a bustling, cosmopolitan, racially heterogenous megalopolis without a job and, it appears, entirely content to be supported by his wife until such time as he got one."
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On Lovecraft's revised notion of love
>""shunning a world which exhausted and disgusted me, and having no goal but a phial of cyanide when my money should give out. I had formerly meant to follow the later course, and was fully prepared to seek oblivion whenever cash should fail or sheer ennui grow too much for me; when suddenly, nearly three years ago, our benevolent angel S. H. G. stepped into my circle of consciousness and began to combat that idea with the opposite one of effort and the enjoyment of life through the rewards which effort will bring." [...] He does not say: "I love Sonia and Sonia loves me"; says that he and she need each other for "mental contentment and artistic and philosophical enjoyment.""
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>those buttmad leftist
These same people are Harry Potter fanboys. Into le trash it goes.
He wouldn't do it for what I am reading here, I don't think he would care much and perhaps he would be hate since the populus wouldn't understand. They are inteligent but they arent mary sues ready for everything I think.
Allow me to shill my youtube channel:
youtube.com
> cats better then dogs
> I will prove it. How ?
> Listen to cosmic explanation of it!
What the fuck. Love his works (mostly the later stuff) but this Is autism the world may never see again. And I own 2 cats.
Jesus Christ stick to books Lovecraft
On Lovecraft's reaction to other races in New York
>"Soon after we were married he told me that whenever we have company he would appreciate it if there were 'Aryans' in the majority. [...] whenever he would meet crowds of people - in the subway, or, at the noon hour, on the sidewalks in Broadway, or crowds, wherever he happened to find them, and these were usually the workers of minority races - he would become livid with anger and rage. [...] It was then that he said: "It is more important to know what to hate than it is to know what to love.""
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On Lovecraft's sexual relations with his wife
>"We learn [...] that: first, he was a virgin at the time he married; second, prior to his marriage he had read several books on sex; and third, he never initiated sexual relations, but would respond when Sonia did so. [...] Sonia herself has only two comments on the matter. 'As a married man he was an adequately excellent lover, but refused to show his feelings in the presence of others. [...] One way of expression of H.P.'s sentiment was to wrap his "pinkey" finger around mine and say "Umph!""
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On Lovecraft's attempts to find a job to provide for himself and his wife
>"Lovecraft was forced to look much more vigorously for a job - any job - than before. Now [...] begins the futile [...] hunting through the classified ads every Sunday in the New York Times for any position that might conceivably be available; but Lovecraft came face to face with a realisation as true then as now: "Positions of every kind seem virtually unattainable to persons without experience" [...] What he says is the job that "came nearest to materialisation" was a salesman's position with the Creditors' National Clearing House [...] he attended a salesmen's meeting in Newark to learn the ropes [...] but did not generate a single sale [...] the head of the Newark branch, William J. Bristol, [...] quickly took him aside."
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t. Salty monkey
>I was with him through the crippling betamax autism but cats hurrr dropped wtf triggered
Why are people on here so fucking fickle? Just switching back and forth between total approval and total dismissal like a light going on and off
the oven is calling
>defranchised
>not disenfranchised
uh-huh. And what have YOU done to contribute to the world of literature or the world in general? All this shit talk and yet the only thing you'll ever amount to is being a stain on God's earth. How does it feel knowing Lovecraft's legacy will survive long after you're nothing but worthless dust.
Top 5 Best Lovecraft stories IMO:
1. The Shadow Out of Time
2. The Call of Cthulhu
3. The Color Out of Space
4. Beyond the Wall of Sleep
5. Polaris
Honorable mention to The Street because while not perfect it's essentially "Sup Forums: the story."
Rate my taste.
haha fuck jews
Nuh-uh. Read up on AAVE and educate yourself, sugar.
On Lovecraft's feelings towards his wife and her efforts to help him while he is unemployed
>"I have never seen a more admirable attitude, full of disinterested consideration and solicitude; each financial difficulty that I face is accepted and excused as soon as it becomes obvious that it is inevitable [...] A devotion capable of accepting without a murmur this combination of incompetence and egoism, so contrary as it might be to everything one could hope for at first, is assuredly a phenomenon so rare, so close to saintliness in its historical sense, that it is enough to have the least sense of artistic proportion to respond with the warmest reciprocal esteem, with admiration and with affection."
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On Lovecraft's failure to find a job
>"This task would prove absolutely impossible. He would try, though, responding to hundreds of job advertisements, writing to employers speculatively...Total failure. Certainly, he had no idea of the realities indicated by words like dynamism, competitivity, commercial sense, efficiency... But all the same, in an economy which wasn't even in crisis at the time, it would surely be possible for him to find some junior position... But no. Nothing whatsoever. There was no conceivable place, in the American economy of his epoch, for an individual like Lovecraft. There is here a sort of mystery; and he himself, fully aware of his maladaption and shortcomings, doesn't wholly understand it."
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On Lovecraft's cold dinners while Sonia worked in another city
>"In October Lovecraft was forced to buy an oil heater for the winter, since the head provided by [landlord] Mrs Burns [...] was quite insufficient. [...] Lovecraft could now indulge in the high luxury of "the preparation of hot dinners. No more cold beans & spaghetti for me". Does this mean that, for the first nine and a half months of the year, Lovecraft was eating cold meals, mostly out of cans? [...] this seems to be a dismal probability"
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I love that your interest in people is always very similar to mine
Don't forget to mention his 7 formula one championships.