H. P. Lovecraft - The Strange Life Of HP Lovecraft
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- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- Howard Phillips "H. P." Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 -- March 15, 1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction
The Shadow Over Insmouth ... is the best description of "arriving in a sketchy unfamiliar town" ever put to paper. I never tire of his writing. It is always somehow...different and better.
This is really fascinating stuff. Lovecraft was to Horror what Tolkein was to Fantasy
More accurately I would say, "What Dunsany was to Fantasy." Tolkien and HP both read and admired Dunsany's work. Stop me if you've heard this one:
An angel beats a drum to keep a creator god perpetually asleep.
Sound familiar? That's Dunsany's. Lovecraft's Azathoth was riffed from that premise.
@@IggyTthunders We all get something from somewhere. No other way about it really. Some things we even take as ideas or creations of our own, funny enough. It's all recycled.
@@GentlemanLife-Beyotch we all may use a similar canvas but what we paint is unique to us
A man out of time whose visions live on and shape modern fiction in a way he scarcely could imagine.
Fantastic find! Great timing and great pacing on H.P. Lovecraft’s quotes. Highly educational. There needs to be more channels like this for horror.
He was like most of his characters, a weird loner that couldn't deal with society. He shows us the dark side of ourselves, the eldritch horrors nobody can ever understand without going hopelessly insane.
Imagine Lovecraft's surprise at what his fiction has become and how many special editions of his works are in existence. His later life must have been one of quiet frustration and sadness......if only he knew what would become an eventuality. .... a true American master.
"Suicide is the most logical thing in the world." --H.P.Lovecraft
+StateLaughter ~ How extremely sad that most great creative people in our culture are on the verge of killing thmeselfs because they just do not fit in! They can't keep down a regular job. Square pegs in round holes! WE NEED A FUNDING OF THE ARTS! Think of how that could have helped H. P. Lovecraft! Oh…. if only !!!!
+Old-Man Parker True. I agree. And think of Lovecraft's precursor, that other genius, Edgar Allan Poe, who lived in unbelievable dire poverty. America has never treated its own literary geniuses with any regard whatsoever. It doesn't speak highly of us or our history when we observe things like this. For Europe would never let this kind of thing occur, especially back in those times. Such cultural enrichers would be maintained with the basics of life somehow, by somebody, or government subsidized as being something valuable to the country. It might not be luxurious, but they would never have to contemplate possible homelessness, as both Poe and Lovecraft did at various times.
Apparently not. Lovecraft did not suicide.
and "It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane" PKD
"Yes, I seem to be a decided pessimist!-But pray do not think, gentlemen, that I am utterly forlorn and misanthropick creature. … Despite my solitary life, I have found infinite joy in books and writing, and am by far too much interested in the affairs of the world to quit the scene before Nature shall claim me. Though not a participant in the Business of life; I am, like the character of Addison and Steele, an impartial (or more or less impartial) Spectator, who finds not a little recreation in watching the antics of those strange and puny puppets called men. A sense of humour has helped me to endure existence; in fact, when all else fails, I never fail to extract a sarcastic smile from the contemplation of my own empty and egotistical career!" -- H.P. Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft is my favorite writer, his work changed my life. It's very sad he never saw the greatness of his work heralded in his life time. He saw rejection letter after rejection letter from that rag "Weird Tales" …how very frustrating. It's also very sad, that because he could not afford proper medical care, he died at such an early age, thus ...robbing us, the American Reading Public his genius, in who knows how many great novels he was going to write? Tragic! If ONLY he could have had a Patron pay him to write! If only he had a patron take care of his health! This great literary giant would have made so many more great stores! OF COURSE, one can say it is only because of his suffering that he wrote such amazingly scary and in-depth stories…. but, sheeesh…. If I had a time machine, ITHAT"S THE THING I WOULD DO : I would go back and become H.P. Lovecraft's secret rich uncle and take care of his every financial and worldly need, heath care, food, education…everything! so we could as a people enjoy this incredible MIND more…so so much more….
Bullshit. You make your own way.
If I've learned anything in my years as a time traveller it is this : Don't fuck with history. Your patronage might turn him into a lazy hack.
You sir are spot on.
...American Reading Public ? How unworldly you are
he had no heirs, and his work was not popular in his lifetime; as a result, most if not all his work is in the public domain, making it accessible to all.
Thank you for this -- fascinating. Love the spooky illustration, too.
~ How extremely sad that most great creative people in our culture are on the verge of killing thmeselfs because they just do not fit in! They can't keep down a regular job. Square pegs in round holes! WE NEED A FUNDING OF THE ARTS! Think of how that could have helped H. P. Lovecraft! Oh…. if only !!!!
he died of illness I believe
+TappySapJr Right. Stomach cancer
Creative people don't deserve any special consideration at all. I am an artist. I worked shit jobs, and worked for many years, until I began to sell my work.
+Vertical Horizon Well I'm intrigued now. What art form exactly? And where can we sample some of your work?
+Old-Man Paker That would impoverish the entire affair. All sorts of "creative" people would pop up with shoddy, worthless ideas and expect public acclaim as nothing else than their due; junk exhibits would sprout like gangrenous mushrooms in in modern art museums. Oh, wait...
It's not a bad thing that such people are not propped up and placed on an assembly line. The surest way to ruin anything is to turn it into an industry--toilet paper and coffins being the obvious exceptions.
"Of the various conceptions brought forth before the human mind by the advance of science, what can be compared in strangeness and magnitude with that of eternity and infinity, as presented by modern astronomy? Nothing more deeply disturbs our settled egotism and self-importance than the realisation of man's utter insignificance which comes with knowledge of his position in time and space." --H.P.Lovecraft (1918)
Respect from Romania from old students who studied american-english literature
What an interesting program. Thanks for posting.
It's taken me a long time to look into Lovecraft. I started a few years ago, but after reading the article "The 'N' Word Through the Ages: The Madness of H.P. Lovecraft" by Phenderson Clark, an article that shows the extend of Lovecraft's racism through excerpts from his personal letters, I was completely repulsed. So repulsed I couldn't bring myself to finish it. I kept flip-flopping: One minute I would feel immense pity for Lovecraft, that his mind had been twisted to look at his fellow humans in such a way, and the next, I'd want to punch him in the face for seeming like such a xenophobic asshole and for not-so-subtly spreading such ideas in his stories. And his poor wife! A Jewish lady just happened to marry a blatant anti-Semite and racist. Wow. What were the odds? I felt awful for her.
Needless to say, I was completely turned off after reading the article and had no desire to learn more about him personally.or go further into his work, no matter how skilled of a writer he was.
But a few years later, after a lot of soul-searching and events in my personal life that have helped me grow, I decided to look again. At the very least, I would learn more about him. Even if I found his personal views deplorable--which I hope even his literary admirers do, too--I would at least try to understand them and where they came from. After all, how can we as individuals and societies move forward if we don't try to understand each other, even those we disagree with? In order to understand light, we have to see darkness in order to know what we're striving against. We have to come to terms with our own shadow selves, which, in my opinion, aren't malevolence, but just our own fears, prejudices, misunderstandings, etc, that we've left unexplored or unchecked.
So, yes, I think I will give Lovecraft another chance, and listening to this was one of my first "baby steps" in doing so. Thanks for uploading (and sorry for the long post; I wanted to make sure I explained myself). Blessed be! + )O(
Indeed, Lovecraft's upbringing twisted him. A syphilitic father. A" wealthy" grandfather whose fortune proved worthless. Being allowed to avoid school...
He managed to create some truly impressive art out of that dreadfulness.
People can hate who ever they want to hate. Step off the cross.
@@danieljliverslxxxix1164 I never said people couldn't hate Lovecraft. The dude obviously had some gross views about people which should be opposed, and rightfully so. But opposing those views without trying to understand the systemic or individual reasons behind them won't do anything. You can't defeat abhorrent ideologies by just dismissing them as "Being evil just for evil's sake". We don't live in a Saturday morning cartoon.
It's always great to learn about one of the greatest in horror stories.
I share a birthday with him. He was born in Providence Rhode Island. I was born at Providence hospital in Michigan. Happy Birthday Howard. He was born August 20th 1890. I was born August 20th 1990.
You and I share a birthday too, august 20 1990.. compulsory spooky spirits we share 😊
@@kash.e.w2936Are you a Leo or a Virgo?
I love how they talk like its a visual medium even though it's a radio show
The film Re-Animator is a popular cult horror film from the 1980s that is mostly based directly on HPL's work fo the same name. Many writers and film directors were inspired by Lovecraft and the spirit of his work can be found in some films. The Thing, The Fog, and the Prince Of Darkness were John Carpenter films which have Lovecraft inspirations in them. Guillermo Del Toro has been a fan of Lovecraft too. His Hellboy films and other movies have aspects of Lovecraft in them.
The Thing had nothing to do with Lovecraft- it was based on another story titled Who Goes There and Frozen Hell written by John W. Campbell.
@@Exquisitec0rpsyI thought The Thing was a loose adaption of At The Mountains of Madness. No?
I love that saying "inverted awe"
"The most merciful thing to remain Unseen, Is inability, of comprehending. "
lol thats just me imagining his version of " the most beautiful thing .ect 'is a tree." or something like that.
ITs great that all his stuff is now kept at browns,his miskatonic uni.i bet he is chuffed if he is floating about in the outer darkness.
its a great shame he died so young..
He was paid 165 dollars for Call. And the most he was paid was around 600 dollars for his last two. That's insane! How did he make money in the long intervals between stories? It must have been all the ghost writing.
Actually, it was.
His writing became a side hustle more than anything
Black House was written by both Peter Straub and Stephen King. I remember thinking it was a decent enough book and it's precursor, The Talisman, being somewhat more memorable because of the dark alternate world the characters had to travel through.
Late reply but I agree with you. There was supposed to be a third and final book in the series but unfortunately that's not happening now that Peter Straub has passed.
Lovecraft is correct. If humans were to "see" ultimate reality you would go mad!
Only if you think there is something supernatural to find.
It is why Mary was totally enveloped by the Holy Spirit, for she housed the greatest of all men to ever have been conceived, God made Man, hence the most perfect temple was born without original sin, because it was a necessity as, to house the developing conception of the Fetus of God..., for if she where not completely pure and protected, being so intimately close to the creator of all, she would have burned completely from the fruits of sin, original sin and eternal justice. Thus we have the true title of 'Immaculate' Mary. God respecting the laws of His Universe, creation, Man comes from Woman, thus God became Man through a Woman, Mary, His mother and His queen of Heaven and earth.
Is that some kind of philosophical statement or do you really believe that? And what does it have to do with Lovecraft? His stories always point out the insignificance of man and is in obvious contrast to, at least, all monotheistic religions. Lovecraft was an atheist.
Curry & Raisins Go to bed you're drunk.
nontheistdavid DMT was a scary Lovecraftian experience
Lovecraft lives on through us all. And also, we can be the authors of the future to continue his tails. I am working on writing a story based on one of his letters to Loveman.
160th comment, I'm using this to make a bibliography for my freshman English class
I hear rats in the walls...
The rats... The rats in the walls..
Weird Tales gave the Shadow Over Innsmouth the cover as I recall. . .
During the 45 minutes I was listening to this biography, I couldn't help but wonder this one thought. Even though I try to find validation through friends, strangers, and the internet...I will more likely find disappointment and sideline acknowledgements. So maybe i should just record and preserve my work, so that later generations may then appreciate what it is, for what it is....only from the future...looking into the past. :-P
MindCompletely Blown A great idea!
Brilliant! I may do the same...👏👏👏
Thanks for the upload. Great biography.
i truly love this documentary audio... i come back to it often, but is there a video somewhere of the original film?
Poffo Ortiz This was a BBC Radio Broadcast from 2006.
Stephen King has Maine. Anne Rice has New Orleans. Lovecraft's beloved territory was the North Shore of Massachusetts.
What about Ligotti?
I am providence
i hear Neil Gaiman's voice there.
Love this! Who's reading the excerpts?
Thank you :)
The inimitable Jeff Harding
Christopher Heyerdahl is excellent and exactly as I had always "pictured" HP. Be ware though, he is also extremely effective as "Alastair" in Supernatural - what a part to play. He's a bit too believable! Great job Christopher.
So, in conclusion...:
H.P. Lovecraft 1 - Edmund Wilson 0
Edmund Wilson had a stick up his ass about fantasy and horror in general; he hated on J.R.R. Tolkien in the same contemptuous, snooty manner. Now, almost no one remembers Eddy, but these "hacks" he derided stand as giants and beloved masters. So, yes...go back to the shadows, Eddy. Nobody wants to hear your hate.
Edmund Wilson was terrible. I read both is "horror/sci-fi" hack books (Mind Parasites and Space Vampires). They're badly written, with totally flat character, hack Lovecraft pastiche and only serve as propaganda for his mysticism.
@@alexandresobreiramartins9461
Colin Wilson wrote those books. His histories of the occult are more interesting than his fiction.
Edmund Wilson was an influential critic in his day. But that day has passed.
BBC Radio 3 broadcast, from 2006. Geoff Ward narrates.
Reading the Hound now.. Shunned House is next.
The Hound is sooo creepy!!!
How does the creator/narrator insult Lovecraft at the same time they r attempting to profit from his fame? Sure maybe he was racist but does noone ever stop to ask why? He was watching his way of life being destroyed, yet everyone jumps on the "oh he is racist" bandwagon, pointing fingers at others without realizing in doing so they r pointing four fingers at themselves.... Fail....
He was genius incarnate.
google NecroNomicon 2015, the festival in Providence this August. The first, two years ago, was a truly bizarre experience. ST Joshi and Robert Price will be there again this year
I was at the California, in both 14 and may 2015, great times
Lovecraft describes angels and demons better than the church's humanoid bullshit
People tend to misunderstand why Lovecraft is "horror". The reason it's so terrifying is because it dares you to imagine a world where God does not exist...at least the Abrahamic God we've all come to know. It continues the horrors presented by the evolutionary theories of Darwin.
"If flesh continues to evolve the way Darwin theorizes...if there are indeed lifeforms who've evolved billions of years before we (humans) did ...who the fuck are you to say they've become more "civilized" according to our primitive understanding? It's MUCH more likely that they've become more like the universe around them, and became brutal, unforgiving, and oblivious to lower life forms" ~ me ...
Civilized is not the opposite of "brutal"
Thank You Mr. Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
Man, so unfortunate he passed away while his works were recognized..💔
Interesting. Thanks!
Excellent♥
I love HPL, view of lesser peoples....
How I wish this is a video coz it seems very interesting.
excellent story
Is this from radio 4?
Tengo la serie completa de ¨En la noche de los tiempos de radio UNAM, pero en cintas magnéticas, que yo mismo grabé. Si a alguien le interesan, me pueden contactar. También tengo "Los cuernos de la luna", de Rock 101. De entre todas la serie de programas de narradores de relatos, esta de Radio UNAM es la mejor, para lograr una excelente narración, como esta, se necesita que sea no solo leída como en la mayoría de los casos, sino que se actúe como lo hace ese gran actor Guillermo Henry.
The 1985 gloriously tasteless film, Re-animator, directed by Stuart Gordon, was based on Lovecraft's short story, Herbert West-Reanimator. This was followed a year later by the superior adaptation, From Beyond. These were followed by several, other versions of Lovecraft tales.
+snakemansnakes Eaton
Also there are several small films created by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society 'The Call of Cthulhu' from 2005
(which IMHO is probably the most faithful film adaptation of any Lovecraft story)
and some other short Lovecraft film adaptations.
+snakemansnakes Eaton Stuart Gordon is my hero!
Excellent Hero!
Unfortunately that movie and others like it that followed are full of pornographic material that would have Lovecraft turning over in his grave given his Puritan origins in the culture of New England at the time.
I guess so! His imagination for horror was vivid and unrepressed, yet certain things still had to stay in the closet
Enjoyed this but was curious was this an edit from video footage? The visual footage would have greatly increase my enjoyment.
I like this guy and his lack of political correctness programing....now all I see are control system zombies...DUHHHHH
.Yes, the myriad of zombie movies is placed before the masses to mock and make fun of them. The ALL EYES are playing the NOT SEES for fools!
Hubbard is for those who can't take Lovecraft.
I don't know how this HP lovecraft link to warhammer 40k
I really like white ship .
This is awesome 26:46
2017, Oumuamua was descovery. An Old One visiting Earth
who is the narrator? sounds like Jeremy Wade...
"The Thing" was based on the story by John W. Campbell, "Prince of Darkness" was influenced by the works of Nigel Kneale. "The Fog" may have been Lovecraftian, but the best Lovecraft-based work by John Carpenter was "In the Mouth of Madness."
I think you missed the point of the statement you are replying to. He didn't say they were derived directly from Lovecraft works but rather were inspired in some areas in those films.
By no means, IMO. I think The Thing is far superior to all those films, and is the best of Carpenter's movies. The Thing itself is absolutely Lovecraftian, far more than the overly-represented creatures in Mouth of Madness. And the plot can't compare. In The Thing we have a claustrophobic commentary on human behavior in the face of absolute distrust and the most marvelous of open endings. ItMoM has a very clear ending (the monster things taking over the Earth or the protagonist going insane or both, all of which amount to the same thing), which TT is totally open-ended. The narrative structure together with the wonderful but sparingly and pinpoint-accuracy-used soundtrack, together with an extremely believable set of characters (unlike Madness, whose characters are cartoonish) elevate the movie way above nearly all horror movies in existance.
With Lovecraft & Poe then modern horror writers like Koontz or Anne Rice; America has a pedigree in the genre to match Great Britain. Are there any other countries with as rich a pantheon?
How can you mention Lovecraft and Poe without mentioning Hitchcock?
Scott Breon No, I'm talking about the horror pantheon, not their ability to convey dread or suspence.
Scott Breon I was watching north by northwest(again).. and was sure right at the start hitchcock is getting on a coach after a lady,it looked like him in profile have a look.you know how he liked to cameo.
Mike Ebertz Sorry? Mary Shelley? Bram Stoker? Formulaic? Are you on crack?
Sheridan le fanu.
An irish horror writer wrote Carmilla(Vampire lovers) made into a hammer film.
He is well worth a look at.
Personally lovecraft has always been my favourite,i found poe hard to read(to get into,but i shall try again)..
NOTE i read a story about a shrunken head on a mantelpiece,which gibbered and cried at night-I cannot name the writer...Anyone know ?sound fammiliar?
Some of the audio comes from "Fear of the Unknown", which is another documentary on his life.
This was broadcast in 2006 and Fear of the Unknown is from 2008. Seems like it is the other way around (or perhaps they are joint productions somehow?).
Is Jeremy Wade narrating?
te hago la invitación para que descargues la app El Libro Total de forma gratuita, y continúes nutriéndote por medio de ella. Un abrazo.
Not to mention humble.
Poor brain washed kelly 25:48....LOL..Control system programing at its best!!!!!
Lovecraft wrote Innsmouth after he found and he had Welsh in him and not 100% brit
Wales is part of the island of Britain. You can't really get more British. I think you mean English as he was an anglophile.
@@verandisoldusty6834 Yes, thank you
I am a big fan of Lovecraft. Though too bad he was an atheist. He thus limited himself.
"Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit" lmao. Dance school rekt
Peter Straub-why did you publish Black House? Silly attempt at ryting
What would Lovecraft think of today's England, & Paris.. (that he was right?)
fyi physics is a physic
any famous films based on his stories?☺
Re-Animator and The Whisperer in Darkness
The Thing- directed by John Carpenter 1982
...and many more
33rd comment
lucifer excelsis Enlightenment achieved