ATDTDA (5.4) - Bad Ice After Midnight

[Monte Davis]

> The Creature would somehow be less scary if it were 
> specified that [etc, etc] ... By surrounding the odalisque with an 
> aura of vagueness, Pynchon succeeds in making his tale 
> both more scary and more universal.

Luc Sante on H.P. Lovecraft, who sent a number of ill-starred expeditions to
polar wastes:
( http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19454 )

"His horrors themselves are, with a few unhappy exceptions, described
loosely and suggestively enough that in effect they present a blank screen
on which the reader can project whatever visual imagery is most personally
unsettling."

"Lovecraft is at his most effective when he evokes this inhuman realm, just
as he is at his best when he suggests, rather than attempting to describe."

"It is possible to view Lovecraft's work as an expression of the mingled
fascination and revulsion he felt for his Puritan heritage... It is all less
reminiscent of Poe or Mary Shelley than of Cotton Mather and Jonathan
Edwards."

I ripped through Lovecraft in a year long long ago. He doesn't have
sustained appeal for many readers out of their teens. But there's no
question in my mind that P is paying homage here to his narrow,
idiosyncratic, but undeniable skill at evoking a certain kind of cosmic
unease.