My problem with Lovecraft was that I thought I would be scared out of my pants. Instead, at the end of each story I thought to myself "The end.. or is it? Dumdadumdum!" Maybe I'm just too spoiled and can't be frightened by oldskool (sic) horror. I don't know, but I think Lovecrafts name is the coolest part of his books.
I ultimately do not find Poe and Lovecraft similar. This is not "'cause one is better than the other one yuk yuk yuk" comparison, I honestly feel different concerns and different anxieties running through their work, even though they are both considered Gothic horror. I think if Lovecraft were a better writer, he wouldn't be considered Poe Lite by anybody and would be considered his entire own entity without the comparison at all.
Cthulhu-worshippers in his work are found in what he considered "savage" peoples/societies: among the Inuit and in Haitian Vodoun circles, for example.
From "The Call of Cthulhu":
"...the prisoners all proved to be men of a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type. Most were seamen, and a sprinkling of negroes and mulattos, largely West Indians or Brava Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands, gave a colouring of voodooism to the heterogeneous cult."
In "Herbert West, Reanimator," he describes a black man who had just died:
"He was a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms that I could not help calling fore legs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon."
In the Wikipedia article on him, there are some equally revolting extracts from his personal letters. The bigotry had to do with class as much as race -- there's an example where poor Hispanics are scum, but an educated doctor from the same location in the story is admirable.
I might be alone in this thinking, but I always figured Lovecraft's ethnic prejudices were a product of the time period he grew up in, as well as his background. In the first half of the 20th century, it was expected and totally acceptable for "pureblood", middle-class white people to be prejudiced against non-whites and people of mixed ancestry (mulatto, for example) and lower classes.
Personally, I would have been surprised if the writing didn't hint at some ethnic prejudices, but that's just me, and I learned to not waste much thought on it when I'm reading Lovecraft.
Of course they're a product of his time, to an extent, and likely his upbringing. Other writers, however, don't fixate on race and class quite the way ol' Howard Phillips does, or equate them with closer ties to the supernatural. If you compare Poe, for example, the black servant in "The Gold-Bug" is no genius or hero, but he also isn't a malignant worshipper of unspeakable evil from beyond the cosmos. Poe's villains are almost entirely European or European-descended white people doing each other in (e.g. the Fortunato/Montresor feud in "The Cask of Amontillado" -- they're from the same social class and, indeed, social circles) without the help of any people of color summoning Elder Gods.
Probably the best rendition of the mythos, IMO, is the musical A Shoggoth on the Roof, which can be found on YouTube. The stirring opening number, "Tentacles, Tentacles," and the plangent, eldritch lament, "If I were a Deep One, blub blub blu-blu-blub" etc., guarantee there won't be a dry seat in the house wherever this show is produced.
Edit: The Lovecraft-mythos versions of Christmas carols are pretty lulzy, too.
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Get out of my head, you.
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Instead, at the end of each story I thought to myself "The end.. or is it? Dumdadumdum!" Maybe I'm just too spoiled and can't be frightened by oldskool (sic) horror. I don't know, but I think Lovecrafts name is the coolest part of his books.
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--DiB
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From "The Call of Cthulhu":
"...the prisoners all proved to be men of a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type. Most were seamen, and a sprinkling of negroes and mulattos, largely West Indians or Brava Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands, gave a colouring of voodooism to the heterogeneous cult."
In "Herbert West, Reanimator," he describes a black man who had just died:
"He was a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms that I could not help calling fore legs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon."
In the Wikipedia article on him, there are some equally revolting extracts from his personal letters. The bigotry had to do with class as much as race -- there's an example where poor Hispanics are scum, but an educated doctor from the same location in the story is admirable.
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Personally, I would have been surprised if the writing didn't hint at some ethnic prejudices, but that's just me, and I learned to not waste much thought on it when I'm reading Lovecraft.
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Edit: The Lovecraft-mythos versions of Christmas carols are pretty lulzy, too.
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