Two ships sail from Boston Harbor on September the 2nd, 1930, one the stately Miskatonic and the other, the rugged Arkham. At the helm of each is a weathered whaling-boat captain, and distributed between the two ships are a drilling apparatus, four men of science, their assistants and skilled mechanics, and their means for surviving the frigid Antarctic. Thus begins the journey of the fateful Miskatonic Expedition.
Of Lovecraft’s contributions to our culture, it may be argued his most enduring is the Necronomicon.
When a traveler in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean's Corners he comes upon a lonely and curious country.
Last week, my erudite and astute coworker José did what we in the activism community refer to as, “call me out on my sh*t.” Meaning, he cut right to the obvious issue readers of Lovecraft must grapple with in a more enlightened 21st century: the author’s real world bigotry that seeped into his writing. I may have hoped to skip this issue. Lovecraft is well-known for his racism and anti-Semitism, and we're just beginning to discuss his classism as well. I hoped other people had written enough about it, but José is right: I have to face the issue before I can blog on.
What terminology do we use to describe the stories of strange and unfathomable beings? Lovecraft and his contemporaries in the early twentieth century called them weird tales, but for we readers of the new millenium, this term might not hold the same cachet. We could begin with genre definitions. In Lovecraft’s work, we find themes of horror – he was called the “dark, baroque prince of horror” by Stephen King, and was graduated to the “pope of horror” by China Miéville – but we also find themes in his work that are more neatly categorized as science fiction, and still others so fantastic they defy categorization.
America: The Farewell Tour Chris Hedges
Simon & Schuster
9781501152672
Hardcover
$27.00
America: The Farewell Tour is a scathing indictment and a call to action.
Beginning 19 September with a new post each Wednesday leading up to Halloween, I, Red Emma will blog abouty Lovecraft: his writing, his life, and his odd predilection for Anglicized spellings. If you'd like to follow along at home, I'll be reading the Del Rey compilations from 1996, all of which can be ordered through wellerbookworks.com.
Holden Battles the Summer Doldrums is a summer series of blog posts about one bookseller's lofty goal to read two books a week this summer. Each week I will reflect on the books I read, how I felt reading them, and what challenges or epiphanies presented themselves. But this week I end my blog and turn myself to different projects. I explain why. You can find previous posts at wellerbookworks.com under "Holden's Blog" or you can search on social media using the hashtag #holdenreads.
Holden Battles the Summer Doldrums is a summer series of blog posts about one bookseller's lofty goal to read two books a week this summer. Each week I will reflect on the books I read, how I felt reading them, and what challenges or epiphanies presented themselves.This week I read Nicotine by Nell Zink and fell behind my schedule for Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre. You can find previous posts at wellerbookworks.com under "Holden's Blog" or you can search on social media using the hashtag #holdenreads.
Holden Battles the Summer Doldrums is a summer series of blog posts about one bookseller's lofty goal to read two books a week this summer. Each week I will reflect on the books I read, how I felt reading them, and what challenges or epiphanies presented themselves.This week I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh and Being and Nothingness, Part Two by Jean-Paul Sartre. You can find previous posts at wellerbookworks.com under "Holden's Blog" or you can search on social media using the hashtag #holdenreads.