Quote:Dale:
There's the comfortableness experienced by the reader. The reader (1) identifies with characters in comfortable circumstances and (2) reads a story of events and entities too bizarre and extreme to be really unsettling to him. Agreed?
Now that you bring this up, I don't think that such stories are unsettling as, for example, McCarthy's The Road. Very often I am far, far above the action--a 40k foot view. Godlike, I suppose. This goes for such tales as Dreams in the Witch House. The ones I've connected to the character--the object of the terror--enough to be a bit effected --are things like The Outsider (dead person comes to life with incomplete memory and attempts to interact with living humans, not realizing he is not like them, but dead) and Nyarlahotep--which is basically an apocalyptic nightmare, with no possible escape.
Quote:Dale:
A test of this is the type of appreciation that the reader feels, for example, when he reads the description of Wilbur Whateley in "The Dunwich Horror." I think Lovecraft wanted the reader to feel horrified and even nauseated, but the Lovecraft fan more likely, if he accurately reported what he felt, would say, "Cool!" It's like the kid I knew when I taught high school who drew the creature from the then-new Alien movie. The creature is cool!
I seldom react that way. Maybe the Call of Cthulu ("flabby claws"!!!--wow, this is a purposeful and masterly non-sequitur that highlights alienness). All those implied non-Euclidian angles....
Quote:Dale:
There's the comfortableness of characters in the story, who are in easy circumstances (like the guy in "The Call of Cthulhu" who could just take off on a 'round-the-world trip to satisfy his curiosity -- where does his money come from? Answer: he just has it).
Yes.
Quote:Dale:
They have no families or others to whom they feel obligations, or at least that seems often to be the case.
Yes.
Quote:Dale:
They enjoy what (I believe) Lovecraft yearned for: not vast wealth, but INDEPENDENCE. They can buy the books they want, travel as they want, enjoy a household in a nice and quiet neighborhood, and so on. I think the love of independence was one of the defining characteristics of Lovecraft's personality (and that it has a lot to do with his militant atheism). He imparts the independence he didn't fully enjoy to such characters, who don't have to work for a living or, if they are employees, it;s probably something like a well-endowed university's faculty position.
Seems to me it's likely that he felt this way.
Quote:Dale:
Sherlock Holmes likewise doesn't have to worry about money. Like Lovecraft's characters, he doesn't worry about meals, but they are there when they are wanted, it seems. Am I remembering fairly well?
I don't recall. I *do* recall the comfortable feeling in Holmes when the story would start in their shared apartment, furnished in the style of an eccentric bachelor, and the housekeeper/landlady was bringing them something to eat or drink.
Quote:Dale:
So I see this comfort-business, Sawfish, primarily as a matter of circumstances in the story rather than style. It is largely implied rather than being lavishly described.
If so, I'd see it as an aspect of setting. Sound about right?
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 20 Aug 23 | 10:07AM by Sawfish.