NP but Ursula Le Guin on the Unreadable HP Lovecraft.

[Johnny Marr]

Did you see the recent(ish) film adaptation?

On Tuesday, June 7, 2022, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:

> I can't believe I'm about to wade into this, but here goes...
>
> Lovecraft's writing? I'm a fan. I'm also a fan of Herman Melville, Tolstoy,
> Kafka, James Joyce, Dos Passos, William Burroughs, Bowles, Maugham, TS
> Eliot, Ezra Pound, Beckett, Nabokov, Borges, Marquez, Ballard, Phillip K.
> Dick, William Gass, Cormac McCarthy, Lee & Kirby, Alice Munro, Ramsey
> Campbell, Don Delillo, Alan Moore, Houellebecq, George Saunders, Otessa
> Mossfegh, and (of course) Thomas Pynchon, not to mention so many more that
> I'm leaving out, either due to brain fog or time/space constraints.
>
> Because, you see, old HP was quite capable of producing lovely prose. See
> "The Colour Out of Space" for probably his most superbly "literary"
> creation... the opening paragraphs alone being magnificently evocative of
> ancient and autumnal New England that one feels transported to the forests
> primeval of Wordsworth's paradisiacal Acadia in "Evangeline". He was also
> adept at evoking some truly effective moments of otherworldly fright. On
> more than one occasion, his words have "got" me.
>
> Just as a for instance, read the LeGuinn "critique", then read the first
> three paragraphs of Colour:
>
> ...
>
> West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods
> that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope
> fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught
> the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes there are farms, ancient and
> rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New
> England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now,
> the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously
> beneath low gambrel roofs.
> The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there.
> French-Canadians have tried it, Italians have tried it, and the Poles have
> come and departed. It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard
> or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not
> good for the imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night. It
> must be this which keeps the foreigners away, for old Ammi Pierce has never
> told them of anything he recalls from the strange days. Ammi, whose head
> has been a little queer for years, is the only one who still remains, or
> who ever talks of the strange days; and he dares to do this because his
> house is so near the open fields and the travelled roads around Arkham.
> There was once a road over the hills and through the valleys, that ran
> straight where the blasted heath is now; but people ceased to use it and a
> new road was laid curving far toward the south. Traces of the old one can
> still be found amidst the weeds of a returning wilderness, and some of them
> will doubtless linger even when half the hollows are flooded for the new
> reservoir. Then the dark woods will be cut down and the blasted heath will
> slumber far below blue waters whose surface will mirror the sky and ripple
> in the sun. And the secrets of the strange days will be one with the deep’s
> secrets; one with the hidden lore of old ocean, and all the mystery of
> primal earth.
>
> ...
>
> Be honest now... Is that really the WORST writing you've ever read? Does it
> not draw you in, just the teensiest bit?
>
> Cheers!
> yer old pal Jerky
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 7, 2022 at 8:44 AM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Obviously you must know you are asking us all to jump into a bottomless
> > rabbit hole.
> >
> > Is “See Dick run!” good writing?
> >
> > David Morris
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 7, 2022 at 7:41 AM Darah Kehnemuyi via Pynchon-l <
> > pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
> >
> > >  I find this interesting. And so I'd like to ask, with a language as
> > > malleable and fluid as English, and putting aside outright illiteracy,
> > what
> > > constitutes "good writing"?   Do you know it when you see it ?  Do your
> > > expectations bias your opinions?Aye, Twas brillig and the slithey toves
> > > ...                  D.
> > >     On Tuesday, June 7, 2022, 05:54:34 AM EDT, Mark Kohut <
> > > mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10159779989456465&
> set=a.10150369514816465
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>