Re: Lovecraft's Burial
Posted by:
Scott Connors (IP Logged)
Date: 1 August, 2008 07:43PM
"Not to be harsh, but Long was not always the most reliable of sources for information, having a tendency to fictionalize things a bit for drama's (or melodrama's) sake... whether this was unconscious or not is another question entirely...."
Having known Frank, I'd say it was unconscious. His memory was never the greatest, and he tended to remember things in the most interesting way possible.
Regarding HPL and suicide: the important thing to remember is that he did not. Many, I might go so far as to say most, people consider suicide at some point in their life, although it is usually only a fleeting thought. But it is a taboo subject, and they will usually not mention it unless they feel really comfortable with the other person.
What is amazing is that CAS never seems to have considered suicide seriously, despite the very desperate conditions in which he found himself during the 1940s. Consider all of the people he knew or knew of that took that route: Nora May French, Carrie Sterling, Bierce, Jack London, Herman Schefflauer (sp?), George Sterling, Robert E. Howard, R. H. Barlow.... If he hadn't married Carol and found a degree of security and love late in life, I don't know what might have happened.
Scott