Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H. P. Lovecraft Book

Lovecraft has to be broken down into his constituent parts in order to be comprehensible.

1. Man
2. Mythographer
3. Writer

The man, by far, is easily the most reprehensible and unforgivable. This may take a little explanation for those unfamiliar with the man and the writer. Firstly, HPL believed in a crude Social Darwinism/Eugenics married to a virulent racism/xenophobia and a despicable classism. When reading Necronomicon or any of his works all of these elements become impossible to ignore and are, virtually, shouted from the pages/screens. It is popular to dismiss these beliefs as being a part of the society he was raised in. Of course, he was raised in a racist, classist, xenophobic time, as well as a time when Social Darwinism, and especially eugenics, were very popular...amongst intellectuals. Still, other writers came out of such belief systems and their work was not penetrated by hate in the manner that HPL's work is. There is something almost infantile about this, which raises the specter of a facile Freudian reading of the man's character. The latter would not be very useful because it is culturally limited and scientifically invalid. It is enough to say that hate drives much of HPL's work and it makes this of limited value.

The writer is another level that needs to be looked at because it suggests the same infantile and superficial understanding of the world as well. Firstly, there is very limited character development; the attitude of HPL to women is at best ambivalent; exposition is shaky, and HPL had a tin ear for dialogue. The prose is almost exclusively purple--even for his creaky, gothic constructions. No writer or reader will find anything at this level to learn from HPL. The only element of HPL's writing worth the reader's attention is that he may be the first Horror/Science-Fantasy writer to leave the big-bad alive and well and man's position relative to this as tenuous.

The last element of HPL that should be looked at is his myth. Here is the one place where HPL shines. His creation of an ante-diluvian world of races not human on earth and others that came from off of earth is fascinating and worthy of study. Given the amount of fiction and 'fan-fiction' which his 'Cthulian' mythos has generated HPL remains a significant presence in the world of genre fiction--and, yes, there is a difference between genre and literature. For this reason, and this reason alone, HPL remains a writer worth revisiting.

However, the reader needs to be prepared for the moral vacuity and hate which they will encounter in the work of HPL. Not to mention, the horrific writing, which is often responsible for some of the worst published writing I have ever come across.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Not recommended for morally sensitive readers...or aesthetically inclined ones either.