Re: The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos (S.T. Joshi)
Posted by:
wilum pugmire (IP Logged)
Date: 15 May, 2009 06:22PM
I've bought two copies, one to keep here at my writing table for quick and easy reference, and one for my shelf of Mythos in hardcover. I am now reading the book for the third time. The first time was a rush of ecstasy -- it's a great, a wonderful book. It makes me thrill to be a Mythos writer. S. T. is the ONLY critic whose opinion means anything to me, & to have him say anything positive about my work wows me. I feel that, in many ways, my work is too Lovecraftian and that only those readers who are intimate with Lovecraft's fiction can fully "get" my books. And S. T., being the world's leading Lovecraft scholar, "gets" me like no one else, in my opinion.
I have written gobs of comment on the book, and will continue to write much more at Lovecraft sites. (It feels like intrusion to write too much concerning Lovecraft here, at a site devoted to Smith.) There is much I disagree with, such as his contention that "The Dunwich Horror" is an artistic failure. But as a history of the Mythos, this book is magnificent. There were two books, when I first became Lovecraftian, that filled me with a desire to write Mythos fiction, Derleth's TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS and Carter's LOVECRAFT: A LOOK BEHIND THE CTHULHU MYTHOS. I devour'd those books, I loved them completely and utterly. They are responsible, in large part, for my being a Mythos writer. S. T.'s book has had exactly that effect, only moreso. I've completed three new books since last October, all of them Mythos/Lovecraftian fiction and poetry. I am now working on a wee chapbook of weird fiction for a press that publishes a lot of "extreme" cutting edge horror. I thought it was time for me to try my hand at non-Lovecraftian horror, the weird subtly erotic kind of thing I used to do. I've been trying for almoft two months to work on such a book, and I have completed nothing -- zilch. I realised last night that I cannot write the book because, deep down, I REALLY want to write another book of Mythos fiction, and the main reason I want to is because Joshi's magnificent book has me all on-fire about this sub-genre, excited about writing Cthulhu Mythos as never before. It is the great challenge for the modern Mythos writer: to write Mythos fiction that pays authentic tribute to Lovecraft without merely ripping off his ideas. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS has increas'd my desire to try & write such weird fiction. This is too ironic, remembering that S. T. has express'd more than once his wish that we Mythos fen would just stop writing this wank. Even more ironic, as announced in S. T.'s new issue of his EOD zine, is that he has now been employ'd by a small press publisher to edit a new line of Cthulhu Mythos books! What an eldritch world!!!
"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.