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Thread: HBO series supposedly about Lovecraft's works

  1. #41
    Kyriakos's Avatar Praeses
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    Default Re: HBO series supposedly about Lovecraft's works

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post

    I am impressed you translated his works into Greek, is there much of a market there?
    Lovecraft is quite popular with young readers - seems to be the case in most of Europe. The book market here isn't large, but some authors are a good bet. Not so much Lovecraft, really, but Kafka always sells (I have also translated some of his stories ).
    If you aren't bored, check out some of my youtube videos (link in sig, just click the Hagia Sophia ), cause they include four on Kafka and two on Lovecraft.
    Λέων μεν ὄνυξι κρατεῖ, κέρασι δε βούς, ἄνθρωπος δε νῷι
    "While the lion prevails with its claws, and the ox through its horns, man does by his thinking"
    Anaxagoras of Klazomenae, 5th century BC










  2. #42
    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: HBO series supposedly about Lovecraft's works

    Lovecraft's racism was apparent even to me as a teenager. In retrospect its pretty normal 1920's vintage stuff, so at the risk of saying "akchewally" he wasn't an actual Nazi: he expressed the typical Anglophile New Englander disdain for the Second Reich (his Prussian officer in the Temple is a stale parody, so more typical 1920's racism really but not Nazi) and he married a Jewish woman. Allegedly when she confronted him with his cognitive dissonance on the topic he blustered ineffectually.

    Some of his racism is the character's voice (in part to highlight the horror of his own impure blood, see below), some was the tenor of the times and some was a genuine dislike of other ethnicities: its hard to sort out exactly how "really" racist he was, but its enough to make reading it weird. The guy was the weird, sick child of impoverished former middle class family with pretension to what passes for antiquity in the US, he was never going to be a philanthrope.
    It is perhaps unfair to Lovecraft. But I not sure you can wave away his laser like focus on race and class and purity and caste (of all things) as par for the course. He certainly could never have manged a 'hero' like Nick in the Great Gadsby.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  3. #43
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    Default Re: HBO series supposedly about Lovecraft's works

    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post
    It is perhaps unfair to Lovecraft. But I not sure you can wave away his laser like focus on race and class and purity and caste (of all things) as par for the course. He certainly could never have manged a 'hero' like Nick in the Great Gadsby.
    Fair point about caste as well as race. Is it completely laser like? is there some nuance? A lot of his horror as I say comes from human expectations of purity, and the transgressions are understandable if you change your POV. Questions of race were in the news in the 1920's with European anti-semitism, the second wave of the KKK and European Bolshevism (which in the US seems to have a strong racial association, is that right?). I think he is of his time, or at least not outside one standard deviation.
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

  4. #44
    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: HBO series supposedly about Lovecraft's works

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    is there some nuance?
    Not really. That is the the point of my comparison Lovecraft bakes racism class-ism cast-ism and grasping at some New England WASP nirvana hard. Even changes in architecture are degeneration for F-sake. Thus my comparison F. Scott Fitzgerald. Sure the racism of the time is there but many of his charterers revel in in the change that is 1920s New York and some at least are not inveterate racists or in turn despise the the ruling class be it wealth or old school status as much as anything else (and you know have some not none entity female characters)
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  5. #45
    Kyriakos's Avatar Praeses
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    Default Re: HBO series supposedly about Lovecraft's works

    Surely the type of literature plays a role, I mean you can't expect the same focal points in realism-pseudorealism and a blend of romanticism with pulp (which is basically what Lovecraft is)
    Might as well try to compare Emil Zola with various french decadents, such as Baudelaire and Nerval. Different scope.

    In the end, every writer is their own thing. And most writers don't survive the test of time - Lovecraft, despite his many flaws, isn't likely to go away.

    Btw, even in supposed realism, you usually see the less realistic authors become more famous/get international fame. A good example is the case of Dickens vs Collins. Wilkie Collins is virtually unknown outside of Britain, despite being more realistic in his descriptions. I think this is logical, cause art is mostly about suggestion. If you want the surface, there's no need to look for it in books.
    Last edited by Kyriakos; September 03, 2020 at 02:28 PM.
    Λέων μεν ὄνυξι κρατεῖ, κέρασι δε βούς, ἄνθρωπος δε νῷι
    "While the lion prevails with its claws, and the ox through its horns, man does by his thinking"
    Anaxagoras of Klazomenae, 5th century BC










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