Re: How *do* we know the definitive HPL texts are just that?
Posted by:
Kipling (IP Logged)
Date: 8 May, 2020 04:50PM
Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Kipling Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The "path of perfectionism" ... is
> > just what should be followed in the future.
> > ... perfect accuracy,
> > ... what Lovecraft
> > actually wrote. ... It remains only for an
> editor with more
> > integrity and less eccentricity to follow that
> > path, ... and publish the very
> > first definitive text of Lovecraft's fiction. A
> > consummation devoutly to be wished.
>
>
> Such a consummation is highly desirable, since H.
> P. Lovecraft is the ultimate genius prose artist
> of fantastic fiction. Yes, he is even better than
> Arthur Machen, Clark Ashton Smith, or J. R. R.
> Tolkien. No one else has quite such an ability as
> him to put together the exact right words, and in
> the right order, to create a magically vibrating
> supernatural setting or in the painting of a
> scenery (his prose is like a perfectly constructed
> incantation rite). He is the complete master; more
> fully than any other he understands how to be
> clear, he is concrete and spiritual at the same
> time, speaking to the human cerebral tools in us,
> in order to conjure the illusions of the
> supernatural. He knows exactly what buttons to
> push, how to move us completely in every aspect,
> where others are either too subtle, too
> specialized, too alien, too vague, or too
> artificial. No one had such a deeply insightful
> command, and unassuming natural panache for the
> English language, as Lovecraft.
>
> I really don't understand those who say that
> Lovecraft was a "bad prose writer". They must be
> blind. He is supreme.
>
> I am not sure where, and if, Joshi has faltered in
> his editing. I am not involved enough in that
> discussion. Surely the 1980s Arkham House volumes
> were, at least, a vast improvement over the
> earlier editions. Anyway, those are the books I
> have, and my re-readings in those of certain
> stories, like "At the Mountains of Madness",
> seemed much more satisfying than in the older
> editions. Of course, my older, more matured mind,
> and therefore ability to better understand the
> natural and cosmic perspectives, may also have
> played a part in that improved sensation.
>
> I am not sure either, if a perfectly objective,
> definite text is at all possible. For example,
> Lovecraft made changes in the texts later, after
> his manuscripts had been published. So which is
> the objectively correct? His initial surge of
> inspiration and creative energy, or his subsequent
> intellectual refining of those written words?
Saying that Lovecraft is a better writer than Smith is like saying John Bonham was a better drummer than Max Roach.
jkh