Vance Pollock Wrote:
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> Got my copy for Christmas and read way into the
> night. Interesting stuff... and very
> conversational.
I agree. I got it last week and have been reading it on and off since then (I've now reached early 1935).
> The autobiographical notes by
> Barlow were quite sad, almost a premonition of his
> suicidal end. The guy was obviously quite
> brilliant, and also quite disturbed. The
> introduction was spot on and the index is very
> detailed and makes the book a very useful
> reference title. The appendices with stories
> referenced and the bibliography make this one of
> the most well-organized and thorough presentations
> one could hope for.
Absolutely! It's a magnificent book.
>
> I only have a couple of modest complaints... There
> are a number of references to photographs which I
> wish had been footnoted if not reprinted. The
> photograph of Barlow standing by the chimney of
> the cypress log house in Cassia, FL (see my thread
> on Dunrovin' in this forum) is dated "circa 1931"
> though it can hardly be earlier than mid-1933 when
> the house was built. There is a reference to
> Lovecraft's letters to "Eunice" Barlow being
> included. This was a slight mistake. The only
> postcard to Mrs. Barlow that I have run across
> thus far is addressed to "Mrs. E. D. Barlow,"
> actually her husband's initials. Her name,
> Bernice, must have been mistakenly crossed up with
> Major Everett's first initial to come up with
> Eunice, which is not correct.
I've noticed one possible mistranscription (p. 24, 3rd line from bottom), and some dates are off -- in the list in the back, Mrs. Clark's birth year is given as 1847; in the notes, Sime's death year is given as 1942 (it's 1941) and Utpatel's birth year is given as 1908 (it's 1905; correct in the list). On p. 170 a note reference for Kingsport is given, but there is no actual note. And in the index, the one reference for Alice Sheppard is given as 357n7, but it should be 357n8.
>
> There is mention that only 7 of RHB's letters to
> Lovecraft survive (HPL was not the fanatical
> pack-rat that Bobby Barlow was, mentioning in some
> letters his habit of keeping only choice pieces of
> correspondence). I wish that these had been
> included in proper chronology. It would have
> helped me get a mental hold on the tone of
> Barlow's letters so that I could at least imagine
> more vividly what the other side of the dialogue
> might have been like.
Yes, that sure would have been nice. BTW, I noticed that [
chrisperridas.blogspot.com] is listing Lovecraft's Christmas card (1934) to Barlow; it's not in O FORTUNATE FLORIDIAN, but on the other hand there doesn't seem to be any writing on it except Lovecraft's monogram and the date MDCCCCXXXIV.
>
> Perhaps a future issue of Lovecraft studies or
> some fanzine, or even a good forum article might
> address these little mysteries. The book is
> certainly worthy of close attention, especially
> among HPL's modern "cracker" readers. It left me
> with a great sense of pride that I come from a
> long line of Floridians.
>
> One last item that jumps to mind. There is
> repeated reference to a sculpture of Cthulhu made
> by Barlow and photographs of it which HPL proudly
> shared. Does this artifact, or one of the
> photographs, exist? I also noticed HPL in refering
> to the photograph calls Cthulhu by the nickname
> Clulie. This gives me a more exact feel for how
> HPL must have intended the name to be
> pronounced... the 'cth' at the front sounding more
> like a 'click' than a hard 'T.'
I think that one of HPL's friends -- it may have been Wandrei -- refers to HPL's pronunciation of Cthulhu in his memoir.
Yes, a photo of "Clulie" would have been nice. :-) Come to think of it, an entire Lovecraftian photo album would be nice. There are so many nice photographs of Lovecraft, his family, his correspondents, and places associated with him, that have appeared only in out-of-print magazines and Arkham House collections.
Yrs
Martin