[ SECRET POST #4025 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4025 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 20 secrets from Secret Submission Post #576.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

08. https://i.imgur.com/Bx0iRPa.png

[(Anonymous)]

I don't have time (at the moment) to go into too much detail, but I dont think the central aspect of Lovecraft's stories is just that there's no inherent meaning in the universe. Rather, I think it's that the cosmos is actively malign, that mankind does not belong in it, and in particular, that the exercise of human reason leads ultimately to madness and oblivion..

SA

[(Anonymous)]

also, I agree that Lovecraft's stories aren't necessarily great, but imo that's mostly because of the limitations of his prose

Re: SA

[cbrachyrhynchos]

And his thinly veiled racism is one of those things you can't stop unseeing once you start. "... and the mud-races are going to take over and erase all that you hold dear" is a big part of it.

[(Anonymous)]

100% AGREED, OP.

The stories also lose their impact if you're not as xenophobic as Lovecraft (as in LITERALLY xenophobic in every sense of the word.)
I think sea life is really cool and fascinating and I'm not afraid of black people either, so Lovecraft's actual stories leave me cold.

[were_lemur]

White dude horror - having to face the fact that you're not the center of the universe.

[(Anonymous)]

It's a denouncement of the then post Victorian and Christian world view that mankind is the center of everything, something that he was quite comfortable with, and fascinated with. He tried to give it an element of horror in his writings, but it really was a sense of wonder.

[(Anonymous)]

Thiiis.

[greghousesgf]

I'm an atheist who believes the universe does have meaning, because people give it meaning. (yeah, I know, this has fuck all to do with Lovecraft.)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm an atheist too, but I think that's basically what OP was saying in their secret.

[(Anonymous)]

You know, I've never liked that particular phrasing for that concept, because it implies that meaning is a product of human artifice, of conscious human construction, subject to the human will. Which I don't think would be a satisfactory account of meaning.

[cactus_rs]

I never cared for Lovecraft for fairly inconsequential reasons, but one of them was I just never thought the stories were scary. This and this anon's take:

hat the cosmos is actively malign, that mankind does not belong in it, and in particular, that the exercise of human reason leads ultimately to madness and oblivion.

neatly sums up exactly why I don't find his stories scary—I've been totally at peace with the fact that the universe is at best indifferent and at worst outright hostile towards humanity more or less my whole reading life.

Or, at least, this gives me a more robust reason for not liking his writing than just "meh." Thanks, OP and anon!

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I kind of like Douglas Adams's shade on that premise.

[nightscale]

I find the concept of Lovecraft's mythology interesting but I've never been able to get into any of his books.

[(Anonymous)]

I could not agree with this secret more. I recently started trying to read some Lovecraft for the first time, and although I read a LOT of classic lit and usually manage to get through it just fine, I kept having such an intense eyeroll response to Lovecraft that I ended up stopping after reading only three of his short stories.

The whole "My paradigm was toppled, my mind couldn't handle it, and I descended into madness and despair" thing is just so melodramatic, unrelatable, and silly to me that I couldn't handle it.

[(Anonymous)]

God, me too. I've always liked the aesthetics of Cthulhu mythos and also recently have gotten his short story collection. Have only read 'Dagon' and 'Call of Cthulhu' so far, but dang the protagonists are all a bunch of wussies. The one in 'Dagon' is understandable, but the Cthulhu one is stupid.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a fan of Lovecraft, but I wouldn't say that I find the stories scary. If I was reading them as horror, I'd be disappointed, and I generally find the endings to the stories weak. But there's a certain evocative fever-dream quality to Lovecraft's prose that, while it's understandably not everyone's thing, I really enjoy. (When he's not slapping me in the face with his racism.)

[were_lemur]

(Oops, got logged out somehow.)

[feotakahari]

I’ve never read Lovecraft, but I’ve tried some of the writers inspired by him, and I just don’t think the human mind works that way. I can’t comprehend quantum mechanics, but that doesn’t mean quantum mechanics drives me insane. I simply can’t interpret it, like static on a television screen.

[(Anonymous)]

But that's the whole point, that it's incomprehensible in a way not compatible with even our human ideas of comprehension. (Also pulling the "science doesn't work that way" card in the facenter

[(Anonymous)]

I think the idea itself is pretty horrifying to contemplate, even if I don't necessarily think it's true.

[(Anonymous)]

I just don’t think the human mind works that way. I can’t comprehend quantum mechanics, but that doesn’t mean quantum mechanics drives me insane.

Loling at this because it's so damn accurate.

[bio_obscura]

The only Lovecraft work that's really impressed me was Mountain of Madness, because it was able to sustain such a strange and eerie tension throughout. His work seems to follow a pattern of 1. character notes strange and scary atmosphere 2. character further explores setting, it becomes scarier and stranger 3. character witnesses something so horrible, so unbelievable, so not of this earth that he can't explain it to you except that it was fishy and stinky.

[(Anonymous)]

+1000000

This comment is gold. Literally still laughing at "except that it was fishy and stinky."

Also, I will give Mountain of Madness a try. Can't hurt. I mean, unless the story turns out to be so horrible, so unbelievable, so not of this earth that I can't comprehend it, no words can express it, and I sink slowly into madness. But eh, I'll take my chances.

[(Anonymous)]

Lovecraft's protagonists don't actually break down the way popular culture often portrays them as doing - that's mostly an artifact of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying games, honestly. CoC ends with the heroes ramming Cthulhu with a boat; Dunswich has the protagonists actually win; Innsmouth has a "classically" downer Lovecraftian ending, but only after the FBI has shelled out the town.

Put another way, Lovecraftian protagonists meet the "The universe is inimical to human life and understanding" problem in a variety of ways, and "my sanity is utterly shattered" isn't actually very common. "I persevered in the face of overwhelming odds in spite of it", "I now know too much, and the knowledge is gnawing away at me - I see threats in every shadow", "this whole time I've been a part of this", and so on.