Oh the bitter irony: HP Lovecraft died on this day 84 years ago at Jane Brown Memorial Hospital in Providence, and he had never had the chance to find out that his writings would shape the world literary canon—and change it forever for that matter.
Last year on this day I mentioned that at least Lovecraft managed to see the first ever printed copy of his “Shadow Over Innsmouth,” albeit with lots of errors: it was published by the Visionary Publishing Company, which later was transformed into the Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc. (FPCI) by its founder, William L. Crawford. A double irony here yet again: one of HPL’s best novellas was released as “one of the lousiest jobs,” as HPL himself pointed out, by the publishing outlet, which fell into obscurity soon afterwards.
Damnatio memoriae? Not in the least, but a shame. It still bugs me that the Old Gent died in utter precarity—basically, in poverty, which looked “genteel” only in the eyes of a person who knew nothing about how discouraging, degrading and insulting impoverishment could be—and surely was for Lovecraft. Yet his works have survived—thanks to the widest circle of his friends, pen pals and a small but thriving fan base, who did everything and even more to preserve, to distribute, to edit, and to give away his works, fiction and non-fiction.
What should we note about Lovecraft on this sad and memorable day? Of course, you will see many nicely worded statements about his essential place in literature, and not only in regard to horror and Weird, but in a broad sense, as a key writer who was able to show the volatility of his time and beyond—and rightfully so. But there is one aspect that I really want to include in my own tribute, and it would be HPL’s opposition to everything banal and vulgar.
You might ask: but isn’t it common knowledge that horror is considered to be borderline paraliterature? And I reply: yes and no. Horror as a genre is too broad to be reduced to trash fiction only (no matter how hard highbrow critics would convince you otherwise), although you can easily find numerous examples of this very thing. But we all understand that it is not the case: once you read enough of a classical compendium, you can confidently separate “excellent” and “moderately good” from “mediocre” and “astonishingly awful,” because you can see it clearly with your very eyes.
I can’t but agree with Graham Harman who once wrote in his “Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy”:
“And in a final wonderful litany, Lovecraft denounces further clichés of the genre as “worship of the travellers as deities,” “participation in the affairs of pseudo-human kingdoms,” “weddings with beautiful anthropomorphic princesses,” “stereotyped Armageddons with ray-guns and space-ships,” “court intrigues and jealous magicians,” and best of all, “peril from hairy ape-men of the polar caps.” All of these examples establish that Lovecraft is perhaps an even more acerbic critic of pulp literature that Wilson* himself, and that as an author he is fully aware of the minefields of banality that one must scrupulously avoid.” (Harman 21).
As much as we can criticise HPL for using (and overusing in places) that clunky, baroque, intricate language in his stories, we cannot dismiss the fact that of course he did it on purpose. It turned out that his ponderous cadences were indeed the best for portraying increasing havoc: the best praising of his works not only copying but parodying this. And I think it’s great.
I am a weird (a sublime pun intended) reader of Lovecraft: I am not interested in Lovecraftaesque literature as much as I love the original writings, which for me, as for a scholar, are an inexhaustible source for inspiration. It is bad that I rediscovered HPL being that middle-aged disillusioned one from the crowd. But it is also a good thing: he has helped me to escape all deceptions altogether, giving me a world of grotesque phantasmagorical chimeras instead.
And I am forever grateful for that.
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* Edmund Wilson—American writer, essayist and critic.
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