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I have to say it wasn't a patch on the Telenecronomicon.
FraterLibre said:I loved Hardy first time I found his pristine, controlled prose and his vivid people and land. I'm among the few who simply doesn't understand why Jude, the Obscure is considered such a downer. Oh, sure, Jude's misused, abused, and kicked when down throughout, but the book is really about the woman who does this to him, and the type of dolt he is for allowing it. In the end he even becomes something ennobled, almost a saint, by his beatific acceptance of such unrelenting abuse. Which was the point, I think, not to depress an audience of semi-literate egotists. lol
Which is why Hardy switched to poetry and never wrote another novel again, tant pis.
Someone, maybe me, should write a Lovecraftian tale involving Hardy and how he brought doom to himself by meddling in eldritch horrors meant to be kept from our mortal ken... Strangely, it'd fit. lol
Return of the Ichor? Far From the Madding Chaos?
Jason Colavito on the origins of the Necronium.
Uncovering the "Real" Necronomicon
6/6/2018
I have been waiting a very long time to report a fun and fascinating story of the “true” origins of the Necronomicon, and now I finally can! Several years ago, Jeb J. Card shared with me some of his intriguing research into the influence of the so-called “Curse of King Tut” on H. P. Lovecraft’s work as well as some conclusions he drew about the parallels between a particular episode in the history of the curse and Lovecraft’s fictitious history of the Necronomicon. I haven’t said anything about it because I have been waiting for Card to publish his findings, which are now in print in the compelling new volume Spooky Archaeology, published this month by the University of New Mexico Press. With the material in print, I can share with you how I accidentally translated the “real” Necronomicon and lived to tell the tale.
As most of you know, Lovecraft invented a dark grimoire for his story The Hound, which he called “the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.” It was a book covering the dark history of the world and its magic. “We read much in Alhazred’s Necronomicon about its properties, and about the relation of ghouls’ souls to the objects it symbolised; and were disturbed by what we read.” Over time, Lovecraft developed an elaborate history of his fictitious tome, from its origins as an Arabic volume called the Al Azif in the eighth century, to its translation into Greek and Latin, the loss of the original Arabic, and an English version composed by the occultist John Dee at the court of Elizabeth I. “Reading leads to terrible consequences,” Lovecraft wrote. ...
http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/uncovering-the-real-necronomicon
Agreed. Lovecraft is a surprisingly original writer. In an age when audiences were utterly terrified of the rehashing of Vampire/Werewolf/Frankenstein's monster stories, in Lovecraft's own words he wanted to "write stories that would scare an atheist". His work "At the Mountains of Madness" is the first literary work to ever include a detailed use of notions of geological time, for example, and he is considered the creator of the philosophy of Cosmicism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicism, which is no small feat.Think you've nailed it there. I've read quite a bit of the occulty nonsense that claims the Lovecraft Mythos/necronomicon is real recently, and it's actually convinced me to go back and reread Lovecraft's own work. The original stories are far far creepier than any of the garbage that has been based on them.
Well said, I couldn't agree more.Agreed. Lovecraft is a surprisingly original writer. In an age when audiences were utterly terrified of the rehashing of Vampire/Werewolf/Frankenstein's monster stories, in Lovecraft's own words he wanted to "write stories that would scare an atheist". His work "At the Mountains of Madness" is the first literary work to ever include a detailed use of notions of geological time, for example, and he is considered the creator of the philosophy of Cosmicism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicism, which is no small feat.
While many people are utterly critical of his racism (as a student of history I have encountered far worse), my own impression that it is integral to Lovecraft's sense of what creates fear. The destruction of purity, the encroachment of the "other", the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" seen not as human but as a shoggoth i.e. an agglomeration of violent protoplasmic monstrosity that seeks liberation at the expense of your existence, and gods of totally alien conception that know no human pity and are at best utterly indifferent to humanity.
H.P.L. has an interesting legacy, and one that apparently doesn't translate well into film.