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144 lines
6.3 KiB
144 lines
6.3 KiB
11 months ago
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<title>Julio Biason .Me 4.3</title>
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<div class="sidebar-about">
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me"><h1>Julio Biason .Me 4.3</h1></a>
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<p class="lead">Old school dev living in a 2.0 dev world</p>
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<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/pt/tags">Tags (PT)</a></li>
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<div class="content container">
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<div class="post">
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<h1 class="post-title">The Complete Collection - H.P. Lovecraft</h1>
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<span class="post-date">
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2014-11-29
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/books/">#books</a>
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/h-p-lovecraft/">#h.p. lovecraft</a>
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/reviews/">#reviews</a>
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/horror/">#horror</a>
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/stars-1/">#stars:1</a>
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/published-2002/">#published:2002</a>
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</span>
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<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50029451-h-p-lovecraft">GoodReads Summary</a>:
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The weird fiction short stories of H.P. Lovecraft from 1917-1935. Excludes
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collaborations.</p>
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<p>The eBook’s table of contents is listed below. It includes the year each story
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was written.</p>
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<span id="continue-reading"></span><div>
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★☆☆☆☆
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</div>
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<p>I'll spoil my impressions of this book with two phrases, which will surely
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make some Lovecraft fans really angry:</p>
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<ol>
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<li>
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<p>Lovecraft loved to write, but not tell stories.</p>
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</li>
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<li>
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<p>Lovecraft got paid by the word, and he really liked the money.</p>
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</li>
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</ol>
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<p>But before you come with pitchforks and torches to get me, let me explain the
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whole affair.</p>
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<p>First off, the first story of the book is "At the Mountains of Madness"
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(because all stories are in their alphabetical order) and it really rubbed me
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in the wrong way: It does a good job setting the ambient for the story but
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when it reaches its crux, it starts to dragging down and the story pace goes
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really <em>really</em> slow, because at this point, Lovecraft decides that almost all
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-- if not all -- substantives must have a proper adjective. This doesn't help
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the pace at all. It's like a murder scene, when the murderer appears behind
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the poor girl and slowly walks towards her, except he's on the other side of
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the house and the whole thing is in slow motion. At the end, you start to hope
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that the murderer runs and kills the girl already, because the suspense is
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already over and the thing is already dragging itself out.</p>
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<p>"But that's just ONE story!" you may cry. I agree with you in that, except the
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pattern appears everywhere. "Nameless sound", "sinister with latent horror",
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"clock's abnormal ticking". It goes on and on and on, apparently trying to
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scare you with adjectives instead of the story itself. There are so many of
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those dragging the pace down that I felt asleep more than once reading the
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book. Yes, you read it right: A book about horror stories put me to sleep.
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Also, it was the first time in my whole life that I got tired of reading; no,
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I didn't got mentally exhausted, I didn't get physically tired; I got <em>tired
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of reading</em>. It was the opposite of what I felt when I finished reading "Lord
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of the Rings": When the story ended, I wanted to read more; with Lovecraft, I
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wanted to read <em>less</em>.</p>
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<p>Also, in general, Lovecraft managed to create his own little universe where
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his stories float around. Most authors would get this universe and expand it
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further and further, but Lovecraft manages to make the incredible feature of
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never expanding the universe, to the point that more stories actually
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<em>diminish</em> the universe instead of expanding it.</p>
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<p>Not only the stories are not superb, but the editing leaves a lot to be
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desired. There are two or three stories written by Lovecraft in his
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childhood/early teens, which seem to be added to tell that Lovecraft loved to
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write since the early ages, but they are put without any editing or even
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grammatical checking, which does more harm to the author than help him.</p>
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<p>Not that all stories are bad, some are good. But they are drowned in the world
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of stories that go nowhere that they are the exception instead of the rule.</p>
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<p>In the end, you can think of this: You have heard about "Necronomicon", you
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probably heard about "Cthulu", you may have heard about the "Old Ones" -- and
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that's probably it. Of about 2000 pages of stories and a lot more words, only
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4 got beyond Lovecraft stories.</p>
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