w h pugmire esq
Well-Known Member
I thought that I could rest easy knowing that I wouldn't have a new book publish'd in 2013 -- but, you know, it's 2013 -- how can I not have a new book out in so deliciously dated a year? Strangely, the thing that has me suddenly hot to write a new book is yet another reading of Fungi from Yuggoth, this time by that delightful Brit, Paul Maclean. I have always preferred poetry read by British voices rather than American voices, which I often find "flat". Paul's reading, which is now available for download at his yog-sothoth.com site, is magnificent. And it has me obsessed, now, with the ache to write yet another book inspired by Lovecraft's sonnets.
This brings up again my frustration in not having a modern single edition of the sonnets readily at hand. It is unthinkable that such an edition does not exist today (or if it does, I don't know about it). Some day we'll have a wonderful annotated/illustrated edition from Hippocampus Press, edited and annotated by David E. Schultz. I can taste that wonderful edition in my darkest dreaming. It will be a wonder. I hope to live long enough to actually hold it in my burning palm. Until then, I return to ye Fungi in the slim Arkham House edition of Lovecraft's poems. S. T. Joshi has revised and re-edited his The Ancient Track, his edition of Lovecraft's complete poetry for Night Shade Books. It's a wonderful edition, for too bulky for working purposes.
My new book will be called Monstrous Aftermath, and will be a collection of short stories, unlike Some Unknown Gulf of Night, which was prose-poems/vignettes. As I see the book in my imagination, it will consist mostly of tales set in Sesqua Valley. I study the Fungi in that wonderful Arkham House edition, with its magnificent illustrations, and I listen to Paul's remarkable readings, which are really superb and evocative.
I am curious as to your reaction to Fungi from Yuggoth as poetry. I find some of the sonnets silly and ineffectual, and I find others profoundly powerful and original. My love for them is affected by my obsession with Lovecraft's Mythos and my life as modern Lovecraftian author. I have, now, an emotional connection with Fungi from Yuggoth that has intensify'd because of the experience of writing Some Unknown Gulf of Night, my finest book. I was in such a state of intoxication as I wrote that book, as J. D. can attest. But it's fascinating, how listening to another person reading the Fungi aloud can bring the sonnets to new life. Paul's reading is, in many ways, what I would call ethereal, because of the whispery nature of much of his recitation. His performance brings certain lines and their imagery to "life" in ways that I had not previously experienced. In many cases it was like discovering the sonnets anew, which is a main source of the aesthetic thrill that prompted my new ache of composition.
Anyway, let me know your feelings about Fungi from Yuggoth. I'm interested mainly in their effectiveness as weird verse, as a product of Lovecraft's peculiar genius. I'm not concern'd with the debate as to whether the Fungi is a connected whole that tells some kind of narrative; & yet we cannot ignore the fact that H. P. Lovecraft himself attempted to write the Fungi as some kind of prose narrative, as is evidenced in the fragment known as "The Book."
What be ye thoughts, lassies and lads?
This brings up again my frustration in not having a modern single edition of the sonnets readily at hand. It is unthinkable that such an edition does not exist today (or if it does, I don't know about it). Some day we'll have a wonderful annotated/illustrated edition from Hippocampus Press, edited and annotated by David E. Schultz. I can taste that wonderful edition in my darkest dreaming. It will be a wonder. I hope to live long enough to actually hold it in my burning palm. Until then, I return to ye Fungi in the slim Arkham House edition of Lovecraft's poems. S. T. Joshi has revised and re-edited his The Ancient Track, his edition of Lovecraft's complete poetry for Night Shade Books. It's a wonderful edition, for too bulky for working purposes.
My new book will be called Monstrous Aftermath, and will be a collection of short stories, unlike Some Unknown Gulf of Night, which was prose-poems/vignettes. As I see the book in my imagination, it will consist mostly of tales set in Sesqua Valley. I study the Fungi in that wonderful Arkham House edition, with its magnificent illustrations, and I listen to Paul's remarkable readings, which are really superb and evocative.
I am curious as to your reaction to Fungi from Yuggoth as poetry. I find some of the sonnets silly and ineffectual, and I find others profoundly powerful and original. My love for them is affected by my obsession with Lovecraft's Mythos and my life as modern Lovecraftian author. I have, now, an emotional connection with Fungi from Yuggoth that has intensify'd because of the experience of writing Some Unknown Gulf of Night, my finest book. I was in such a state of intoxication as I wrote that book, as J. D. can attest. But it's fascinating, how listening to another person reading the Fungi aloud can bring the sonnets to new life. Paul's reading is, in many ways, what I would call ethereal, because of the whispery nature of much of his recitation. His performance brings certain lines and their imagery to "life" in ways that I had not previously experienced. In many cases it was like discovering the sonnets anew, which is a main source of the aesthetic thrill that prompted my new ache of composition.
Anyway, let me know your feelings about Fungi from Yuggoth. I'm interested mainly in their effectiveness as weird verse, as a product of Lovecraft's peculiar genius. I'm not concern'd with the debate as to whether the Fungi is a connected whole that tells some kind of narrative; & yet we cannot ignore the fact that H. P. Lovecraft himself attempted to write the Fungi as some kind of prose narrative, as is evidenced in the fragment known as "The Book."
What be ye thoughts, lassies and lads?
