The Call of Cthulhu

[J-WO]

Oh blumin' 'ell! I wrote a big post on Blackwood's quote last night and it has disappeared! Not pleasing.

I'll think about it some and come back...

 

[j d worthington]

Oh blumin' 'ell! I wrote a big post on Blackwood's quote last night and it has disappeared! Not pleasing.

I'll think about it some and come back...

I've had that happen more than once. The best thing to do when you write a lengthy post (especially one where you are likely to exceed the time limit before the system signs you out) is to copy the text before hitting "submit"; then, if it fails to appear (for whatever reason) then you can simply try again by using "paste" instead of having to re-enter all of it....

 

[J-WO]

I know, I know. But I never learn, dammit!

One thing I recall mentioning was an essential difference between The Call of Cthulu and the Centaur (Or, at least, what I read of it). Both tales have a primordal, supernatural force that has shaped humanity's consciousness, but with Blackwood that force is of this Earth, natural to it, if utterly unguessable.

With TCOC, it's alien, of course, a power from beyond the stars that has warped life on Earth in some fundamental way, merely by its presence. The root of this tale is different to the one it quotes, and it could almost be argued Lovecraft is cherry picking himself an effective paragraph for his needs, though one removed of its original context.

That said, reading that quote was the impetus for me to go hunt out A.B's tales.

 

[j d worthington]

Interesting point; and yes, I suppose you could describe it as cherry-picking... though I think I would argue that what Lovecraft also has in mind is that Cthulhu is the cosmic equivalent of what Blackwood is talking about there. It isn't that Cthulhu (or the Old Ones, for that matter) are evil or necessarily inimical to humanity, any more than, say, Blackwood's Wendigo or whatever force it is in "The Willows" would be. But their very alienness to us and our understanding of nature (including the larger nature of the universe itself) threatens to annihilate us with its presence. Where the supernal forces in Blackwood's work can be beneficent, indifferent, or malign, Lovecraft's generally tend to feel malign to us (whether they are so in reality or not) because of that factor... and, of course, because Lovecraft was consciously choosing to write "horror" fiction, which by necessity emphasizes the emotions of fear, dread, and terror:

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind of fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown" -- Supernatural Horror in Literature

P.S.: If you've never read Blackwood before, you are in for an enormous treat... that is, if you enjoy works which stress the numinous and sublime rather than violence, gore, and physical repulsion. I would highly recommend picking up a copy of The Complete John Silence, Incredible Adventures, and/or a copy of The Best Ghost Stories (ed. by E. F. Bleiler)....

 

[J-WO]

Have read The Wendigo (it was in The Ithaqua Cycle from Chaosium--I love those books! You never know quite what you're gonna get.) and have heard an audio version of The Willows.
I managed to get a penguin edition of some of his short stories, but I've subconsciously placed it at the bottom of my reading pile--on account of the print being so small it hurts my eyes after a few pages. High time I face facts and go to the opticians!

What I have been reading presently--and this is something of a return to thread--is a lot of modern short stories. I haven't read a single one that tells its tale in what one might call Cthuluvision--someone collating several disparate reports into a whole that hints at some hidden, greater truth. Which is odd, because it works really well, especially for horror, though I would imagine it would be great for SF and F too.

 

[j d worthington]

Machen's "The Great God Pan" has that, in a way: accounts of different characters, papers put together by one character, rumors, reports, etc., all correlated until they finally piece together what they are dealing with...

 

[J-WO]

Yup, that's a great one, too. People just don't write tales in that shape anymore. Not only is it fascinating to read--putting the mystery together as you go, but it must be a total lark to write. Its like getting to write several short stories in the space of one.

Bonsai novels, in a way. CoC and GGP feel far larger than their physical size suggests.

 

[Viatorium Press]

What I have been reading presently--and this is something of a return to thread--is a lot of modern short stories. I haven't read a single one that tells its tale in what one might call Cthuluvision--someone collating several disparate reports into a whole that hints at some hidden, greater truth. Which is odd, because it works really well, especially for horror, though I would imagine it would be great for SF and F too.

I agree wholeheartedly. But another source of why the shape of the story works so well with the message, is the complete lack of dialogue in the story. Somehow, that lack of people chattering away, the deadpan nature of the text's voice, allows the words to penetrate into the subconscious. It is as if our own mind is talking to iteslf when we read this story. Lovecraft is planting it in our minds, making us feel that we are originating the thoughts. In a way, Lovecraft does for writing what Cthulhu does for dreaming!

 

[J-WO]

A fascinating observation. I don't suppose that was his intention (Certainly not if his dialogue track record is anything to go by) but that does seem to be the effect with pretty much all his work.

Lovecraft's prose as this languid, almost opiated quality; especially his dream lands stuff.

 

[j d worthington]

"Orchestrated prose" it has been called, and quite rightly I would say. I don't recall if you've been in on any of the discussions where I've remarked on what his original manuscripts look like, but it is quite obvious how much work he put into choosing exactly the right word or phrase, altering things, interlineating, subtracting or adding, etc., in order to make sure that every single word contributed to the effect he was aiming for, very much as every note in a symphony contributes to the cumulative effect there.

As for dialogue... he never cared much for using dialogue, as he felt it detracted from the oneiroscopic quality of his work. Hence most of the "dialogue" is actually monologue, and even that is very carefully constructed. For example: the archaic dialect he used with his New England rustics would appear to be based on an already extinct form of dialect recorded by Lowell in his Biglow Papers; quite authentic, but not contemporary with HPL... which went even more toward creating the feeling of a place which had somehow slipped "out of time", where the past lingered fearsomely, long beyond its due season.

In some of his very earliest writings -- largely influenced by the dime novels of his day -- he did include dialogue which is much more contemporary and an actual give-and-take... but these are the exception even then, as by 1904 he was almost entirely eschewing such for either the monologue or simple narrative without any attempt to capture his characters' speech (save by summarizing it). Then again, being so heavily influenced by the classics and the eighteenth-century writers, dialogue as we tend to see it today (which in turn has been heavily influenced by radio, films, and television, with the quick patter and/or editing) would have been completely alien to either his own nature or the effect toward which he was striving.

 

[J-WO]

Often, his 'dialogue' pulls me out of the story, I'm afraid. It throws the rhythm.

 

[j d worthington]

I can see that; and it certainly does take some getting used to.

I suppose, too, there may be another factor at work. This sort of attempt at transcribing dialectical speech has, by and large, died out, in part because many came to feel it was a way to make invidious socioeconomic distinctions, which are frowned upon in a (supposedly) egalitarian society. Couple this with the fading (though not extinction) of such dialects due to the influence of such widespread media as television and the film, so that an increasing number of people use similar speech patterns and pronunciation (even when they may be quite erroneous), and the continued use of dialect has become very much a matter of "swimming upstream".

What such people -- I am speaking of in general rather than specific here -- tend to forget is that dialect served many purposes. True, it often did denote differences in socioeconomic status; but it also brought in a flavor of the region from which a character came; was sufficiently individual to add to characterization in many cases by revealing the pattern of that character's thoughts overall; added a "homely" quality in many cases, giving the sense of the "salt of the earth", not infrequently given much sympathy and respect; and added a spice of the "exotic" or "other" to readers lacking experience of the particular regions in question. As I noted long ago in a comment on Mary Shelley, a writer would also include such because they had a genuine fondness and/or for the people of a particular region and simply found including such variations added to the richness of the whole.

Even in his own day, Lovecraft knew that such dialect as he depicts was extinct, and says as much in one of his letters, where he comments that, were he to address any of the country folk in the dialect he uses, he would most likely get a stare, followed by a question as to which theatrical troupe he had wandered from....

 

[J-WO]

Gads, don't tell me that! I'm scribbling away at a story the moment with a character using dialect. Ho hum...

Despite it sometimes throwing my reading, HPL really does have an ear for speech. 'Old Bugs' (And thanks for linking to that on another thread, BTW) is a brilliant example. Given that tale was merely part of a letter it wasn't subject to his usual 'Orchestral' standard of editing and kind of shows another path his writing might have gone (Had his muse been not so dark and tentacley).