dont hate me /lit/ but im not usually one for the classics. a couple chapters in and i just google the plot and summary notes just so i know the tropes and concepts. every once and a while though there's always a classic that holds up like The Island of Doctor Moreau (imho). so /lit, does lovecraft hold up or should i just google for the notes? which ones to read and which to skip?
pic fuckin related.
Generally it's agreed that the mythos he founded was good but his writing is mediocre at best, generally poor.
>>7743817
>is lovecraft any good
yes
> should i just google for the notes
no
> a couple chapters in and i just google the plot and summary notes just so i know the tropes and concepts
does anyone actually read a book for its own sake anymore?
if you scroll down a bit you'll see another thread on this.
these are the 4 /lit/ takes:
1) lovecraft is garbage
2) lovecraft was original hugely influential. he's good but not literary.
3) he's not good, but he wasn't trying to be good. a man's gotta eat
4) nigger
>>7743817
Lovecraft's work is pulp fiction. Easily digestible and entertaining, you should be fine.
>>7743836
Everyone on this board who enjoys him is pretty much "muh esotericism" so no
>>7743817
He's good, his later stuff shows marked improvement over his earlier writings. Synopses won't do him justice; many of those synopses were written by retards.
He didn't write that much; there aren't any major stories that are universally panned by people that like Lovecraft. IMO "Under the Pyramids" is atrocious, in fact intentionally lazily written, but some people actually seem to like it.
>>7743817
It's good, but you're going to see a lot of "words cannot describe" as a cop out. The stories are cool in a horror anthology / short story kind of way.
>>7744504
>It's good, but you're going to see a lot of "words cannot describe" as a cop out.
I've never read it as a cop-out. These giant, indescribable monsters are just that, indescribable. They're impossibly enormous, lumbering embodiments of entropy and chaos, they can't be described or comprehended because the human mind itself can't describe or comprehend the scope or sheer coldness of a chaotic and uncaring universe - describing Cthulu would be like telling me how many things are in the universe. It's answerable, but untellable. At least, that's the idea behind the horror of it all - the fact that we can get these glimpses of existential horror without ever fully grasping it the way we can grasp a fear of spiders or something.
I'm not saying that Lovecraftian horror is, like, super rich in depth and complexity, but it has it's merits that I think can be appreciated.
>>7743817
he's honestly not as good as Gene Wolfe. try him out sometime.
>>7744577
>Gene Wolfe
this meme's getting pushed aggressively today, what's with that?
