The Master of Disgust

Salon has posted an article "The Master of Disgust" on H.P.Lovecraft, creator of the Cthulhu Mythos, discussing the two opposing camps whose views have grown up around his work: those who think Lovecraft was a "hack"; and those who champion him as an artist of "philosophical and literary substance".

I love Lovecraft, having first read most of his stuff when I was about thirteen, but I don't strictly belong in either camp. I do think he was a bit of a hack, just a bit, but in a great way! Like how old Godzilla movies, or an Ed Wood film, are really bad but all the better because of it! They go beyond bad and into genius.

Robert E.Howard, creator of Conan, was a bit of hack, but I love his work too! Like Lovecraft's work, it has a darkness and an urgency that surpasses its over-weighted use of adjectives, implausible plot lines and clichéd characterisation.

There is more to Lovecraft than purple prose and, although it might not be scary, it has had an enormous influence on both the Horror and Science Fiction genres, in print and screen.

(But Clark Ashton Smith... now there was a writer!)

I love my Cthulhu creatures; I love the over-written descriptions of things that cannot be described; I love the places writers such as Stephen King, Ramsay Campbell and Charlie Stross have taken the style and ideas of Lovecraft. I love the fact that we can laugh at the tentacled horror we call Cthulhu (now available as a plush toy).

Maybe that was Cthulhu's plan all along? Get us to love his, worship him as a plush toy, an action figure, a film, an auto-biography even? It would make it so much easier to take over the world if we already love him :)