I don't know, maybe none. But, it is you who made the claims I questioned, so if the onus is on anyone, it is you to back up those claims. You claim he has had no influence on any major author, yet I am to prove that he has? You made the claim that he hasn't, not me. I merely question your omnipotence in knowing something like that.Originally Posted by JCamilo
Last edited by Mutatis-Mutandis; 02-14-2011 at 12:43 AM.
Virginia Woolf? Proust? Nabokov? Borges? Cortazar? Faulkner? Hemingway? Yeats? Rosa? Marquez?Fernando Pessoa?Eliot? James? Joyce? Shaw ? Kafka? Should I keep listing the major western writers of XX century? Which one have any significant (if any) influence of Lovecraft? Seriously...
And M&M, you claimed he is amazing. A great writer. Do you really find any major critic, major book that show Lovecraft influence to be that broad? Tolkien, Lovecraft, Agatha Christie, Asimov, are all good genre writers. They excell in their genre, but for this they do not became great, they are pop, cult, etc. But not great, those level of guys who go beyond genre.
Last edited by JCamilo; 02-14-2011 at 07:07 AM.
Okay, okay. I concede. You've got me beat. I bow down to you, sir!
Lovecraft is still the ****ing man, though.
Interesting conversations are continuing to form here. To add my own opinion regarding Lovecraft into the mix, although I have never read any of his works I have found that horror is a very difficult genre to write, and requires a great deal of imagination. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a horror story referred to as a "literary masterpiece," but that doesn't mean that there are no talented horror authors; perhaps it is the horror genre itself that cannot compete with the great works of Shakespeare and Dickens. Either way, as many have stated before me, greatness cannot be judged purely by popularity, but just because something is popular does not mean it's just pop trash. King is apparently doing something right to make him so popular.
If we find the answer, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-- for we would know the mind of God.
-Stephen Hawking
I would almost (but not quite) assert that James's Turn of the Screw, Bierce's An Occurence At Owl Creek Bridge and The Moonlit Road and Blackwood's The Willows are works of literature. I can think of no others. Horror, next to mystery, may be the most difficult genre to write in, but a few writers have excelled in it. I don't think horror will ever be accepted into the mainstream, but maybe that's a good thing.
Last edited by Jassy Melson; 02-15-2011 at 07:45 AM.
Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein
The history of man who have his soul taken by the devil and his fight to recover it - Faust (at least 2 great works, Thomas Mann and Goethe)
Te history of a man which obssession for vegence take him to a desperate route and his own death - Moby Dick
The history a ghost who haunts his son to make him crazy - Hamlet.
The history of a man which own mind is a psycho - Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde
The history of a a city destroyed by a crazy god and his followers - Bacchae
The history of a ghostlike sailor who is haunted - The Rhyme of Ancient Mariener
The history of a guy who returns to a city to find his father, the city is ghostlike and the memoirs are mixed with the past - Pedro Paramo
The history of a guy who find himself transformed in a vermin and is attacked by his own Family - The metamorphosis
and we had a fine thread sometime ago about what is horror and not and Mortal listed quite a few masterworks, even with the restricted idea of horror we find in libraries.
Could someone link that thread? The search function is always screwy for me. I'd be interested to read it, because only a few of those seem to be true horror stories. They all have elements of horror, but Moby Dick? Hamlet? Just not horror, to me.
What "mainstream" are you referring to? One of the worlds best selling writers (King) writes primarily horror, along with a plethora of high-selling horror authors.
http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=58556
As the genre, like all those genre, who are more fictional than real, depends how you deal with them. Children literature, horror, science fiction, fantasy, self-help are good labels to organize the selling and libraries. They are horror because the marketing says so. But the truth is that great works (and great writers) go beyond genres. Martin Amis, I think complained about it recently, about not being able to write targetting public (but it sounded particulary nasty because they were talking about children literature).
You will find hundred defintions of, lets say, Science Fiction (have seen one that included Gone with the wind). Mostly because those defition tries to include all science fiction writers. So, Wells wrote about alien invasions. Alien invasion is science fiction (even if we settle it as accidental aliens in a coment falling in a viking camping in the VIII century). Philip K.Dick about alternative realities, therefore, alternative reality is science fiction. But if you just slice down the works, the aliens are nothing but Cthulus, or Faeries - any non-human who is in contact from another reality with us.
Stephen King himself wrote about an animal who attacks a guy (Cujo) and called it horror. There is a genre of horror movies and books with animals behaving beyond their normal. And aren't them all Moby Dick? And Melville even creates an eeire atmosphere, suggesting something not natural in the book.
And Shinning is the book about a man who goes insane due to "ghosts" talking in his mind and end killing (or trying to kill his family). Wasnt Hamlet the same? And Hamlet setting is omnious, depressive, dark. (Not that horror must be like this, Macken Jade Mininatures is not, James wrote some funny ghost stories, Dorian Gray is all witty, Jekyll and Hide jornalistic, Washington Irving tales humorous, Lovecraft solemn, Hoffman and Andersen even a bit childish)..
Mortalterror's list can be found here.
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As for the Lovecraft = great/good argument:
I think an argument could be made that Lovecraft influenced Borges--a major XX century writer. I would also argue Lovecraft influenced Alan Moore, a major XX century graphic novelist. Nevertheless, I would agree most of his influence is within the genre of horror. But heck, I would personally take being a central influence to an entire genre (Tolkien) than just an influential writer that inspired a few other influential writers.
Really, though, my biggest quibble with Jcamillo's argument is that he is placing influence as a central criteria for the talent of an artist. Sure, Michelangelo is an artist who influenced countless other artist's styles and paintings, but when I take a look at:
. . . my first thought isn't all the other artists he influenced and that's how I should judge his work. My first thought is to look at the work itself. Michelangelo isn't primarily great because he influenced so many other artists, but he's great because his work is great in its own right (without any reference to who he may or may not have influenced).
Getting back to Lovecraft, while I disagree that Jcamillo's tendency to focus on a writer's influence is a good approach to judging the merit of a writer's work, I do ultimately agree with his assessment that Lovecraft is a good writer, but not a great one. Basically I would place Lovecraft as a second-tier Canonical figure, similar to Dumas' place. He just isn't as good or important as a Faulkner, Hemingway, Joyce, Shakespeare, Dickens, whomever.
What evidence do I have to support this contention? Eh, like anything in literature a kind of gut feeling. While I enjoy Lovecraft's conscious archaic style and I think there is even an originality to it, it lacks the sheer memorability and beauty of say something by Shakespeare. When I say memorability, Lovecraft's writing is interesting as a totality in its anachronistic feel, but Shakespeare is someone who writes single lines or monologues that linger in your mind and have a fame in their own right (To be or not to be . . .; A tale spoken by an idiot, all sound and fury, signifying nothing; etc.,) as well as working as a totality. But it really boils down to: while I enjoy Lovecraft and think he's a writer worth reading, did Lovecraft produce anything capable of standing up to Hamlet, Macbeth, The Sound and the Fury, Ulysses, A Farewell to Arms, The Fairy Queene, Moby Dick?
As far as the question of who is more well known as a monster Moby Dick or Cthulhu? Once again, I think JCamillo is wrong in his assumption that only horror buffs will know who Cthulhu is. Cthulhu has found its way into popular culture beyond specifically horror paraphernalia. For example, South Park recently featured Cthulhu.
Long before I had any clue who Lovecraft was I was listening to Metallica sing about Cthulhu.
"You understand well enough what slavery is, but freedom you have never experienced, so you do not know if it tastes sweet or bitter. If you ever did come to experience it, you would advise us to fight for it not with spears only, but with axes too." - Herodotus
https://consolationofreading.wordpress.com/ - my book blog!
Feed the Hungry!
Just a note: Influence is not what determiny quality of an artist. I did not said it. But it is an evidence of his quality. Great artists will have greater influence. Great artworks also. Mostly because the so called immortality of art, is more the revival of those artists in other works.
And I said Lovecraft is popular. I mentioned he has influence on pop (Metallica, South Park are here, Alan Moore, you can add, Roleplaying games, Neil Gaiman, etc) and cult productions. Of the "genre" authors, he is probally the King of Horror. Just like Agatha Christie is the Queen or detective stories. They are worth to be read? Of course, they are very fun, they have good ideas (I like Lovecraft joke with Blake' Tyger for example, his poetry is not all that bad), good momments, characters. But if you say Great is where guys like Melville and Borges are, then Lovecraft is not there.
As Borges, he wrote a single short story that was a Cthulhu myth. And he said he wrote because he always felt Lovecraft was someone who always tried to copy Poe and failed. This is hardly any significative influece (specially considering the ammount of minor writers Borges loved to mention and more, to re-work their ideas to his own.)
Just to add, I am not against genre writers, quite otherwise. This started when it was questioned if King would or not be recalled in years to come. And I said : Why not, Lovecraft is. King is certainly the central horror writer of last decades, just like Lovecraft was. So, why not? While I think Lovecraft is better, the difference is not sooooo huge.
Last edited by JCamilo; 02-15-2011 at 12:04 PM.
Yeah, I'll agree. Lovecraft does not belong to the "great" group if that group contains authors that have been mentioned. Still, I consider Lovecraft great, just not one of the Greats. I don't know. Probably putting a bit too much importance on adjectives. That, and I was trying to hold on to a futile argument.
For the most part, horror stories are not in the mainstream. What I mean by mainstream are stories taught in college or stories that are part of "the canon." Please don't ask me what the canon is. If you are at all familiar with the great works of literature then you are familiar with the canon. If you still have no idea what the canon is, take some college literature courses. You will learn what the canon is right quick.
Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein
I know about the debatable and ambiguous canon. You're right, though. I just usually associate mainstream with whatever is big in popular culture.
The canon ignore genres.
Surely, there must be a few genre pieces in the canon? What about Shelley's Frankenstein and Stoker's Dracula (at least for horror)?
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