STJ now has a review of the book linked from his blog: [stjoshi.org]

walrus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> STJ now has a review of the book linked from his
> blog: [stjoshi.org]

Ouch! :)

In the main, this is very much Joshi's often acerbic approach to bumbling scholarship and editing. Generally, though, he tends to find at least something to praise, however faintly. Here we are given nothing but a lightly toned comment on the artwork; nothing on the book itself. And the points he makes are entirely on-point. As noted, there are valid reasons for returning to the pulp texts, but they are few and quite limited. Here, though, we don't even have that, but a bastard mixture of the pulp texts, the semi-corrected (yet still massively corrupt) Arkham House texts, and a few corrections from Joshi's established texts... a mishmash if ever there was one. And the mistakes made in the introduction and notes are the sorts of things it would take at most a few hours to check on and correct. In all, a thoroughly bad job of editing.

That such would come from such a prestigious press, with a long history of presenting definitive texts and scholarly research, is disheartening, to say the least. And there is simply no reason for such a botched job, with all the qualified editors/scholars out there who are interested in Lovecraft and could do a truly fine job.

If STJ ever plans to review my book, someone let me know, so I can have time to find a high bridge to jump off of---------

Hey Gavin, I'm spending Saturday with him, so I'll loam him my copy, cool? But, yes--the idea of what he may say in a review can cause one to tremble with nameless adventurous expectancy; so you can imagine how I felt when he told me that he is writing a review of my last THREE books for the next issue of LOVECRAFT ANNUAL. One of the books, ENCOUNTERS WITH ENOCH COFFIN, came about because of Joshi's harsh words concerning the Mythos writing of Jeffrey Thomas, which had Jeff so upset that he said he would never again write another Lovecraftian tale. I said bollocks to that and invited him to collaborate with me on a new book of such stories. We really should have dedicated the book to Joshi, the man who inspired its creation--but I wanted to dedicate it to J. D. instead. But Joshi is FULLY aware of why the book exists. It will be amusing to see if that "colors" his remarks concerning it.

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

wilum pugmire Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ENCOUNTERS WITH ENOCH COFFIN, came about because
> of Joshi's harsh words concerning the Mythos
> writing of Jeffrey Thomas, which had Jeff so upset
> that he said he would never again write another
> Lovecraftian tale. I said bollocks to that and
> invited him to collaborate with me on a new book
> of such stories. We really should have dedicated
> the book to Joshi, the man who inspired its
> creation--but I wanted to dedicate it to J. D.
> instead.

Yes, with STJ's critical opinions, one never knows what to expect. I seem to recall reading, in one of my back-issues of a certain Lovecraftian journal (I can't remember exactly which one), an essay by STJ (at least I think it was by Joshi?) in which he claimed he refused to ever watch a horror comedy [like Beetlejuice, etc.], because he claimed humor insults/denigrates the horror genre by making fun of it. Which is just silly. Can you imagine missing out on classics like Beetljuice, Frankenhooker, Re-Animator, etc.? But perhaps STJ has mellowed out since then!

The combination of humor with horror is a very interesting one. You wouldn't think it would work, but often it does. Films such as Evil Dead II and Mr. Vampire are both funny and scary (at least I find them to be). Perhaps to pull off the combination successfully you have to be serious about both parts of the equation--as well as being humorous you must also be willing to be as frightening as possible.

To name just one example, "The Traveling Grave" simply would not work at all without the humor. If anything, the very careful use of humor there not only does not take away from, but enhances the horror tremendously. Ramsey Campbell has managed this as well, on various occasions, such as Needing Ghosts....

I also love all those weird/cool Mickey Mouse/Walt Disney cartoons with the dancing skeletons, haunted houses, etc. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy as "Spookbusters." There's also a Flip the Frog cartoon by Ub Iwerks, with Flip in a haunted house. Plus all those old dark haunted house comedies, like Cat & the Canary, Abbott & Costello's Hold that Ghost. Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd, & the Ritz Brothers all mined the "old dark house" comedy vein to good effect -as did the 1980s Ghostbusters. Horror and humor can go together. Perhaps it all derives from the idea of gallows humor, the danse macabre, Death's Jest Book, etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 4 Jul 13 | 04:05PM by Gavin Callaghan.

Wilum Pugmire wrote:
> Lovecraft abhorred the treatment of his work by ASTOUNDING.

Irrelevant. Luckhurst's texts follow HPL's hand-corrected copies of the ASTOUNDING texts (probably indirectly, via Derleth's 1939 editions, which do this). If the ASTOUNDING texts are unsatisfactory as first published, then we should obviously follow HPL's instructions on how to fix the problem. We should do this, at least, if our goal is to respect HPL's wishes.

> His snide attitude toward Joshi's texts (he uses quotations again when he describes the restored text for
> "The Shadow out of Time" as "corrected," as if to suggest that a corrected text is a laughable idea) is very
> queer.

He's right, especially in this case. Joshi has a very funny standard of "correctness" which has nothing to do with respecting the wishes of the author or following the author's instructions. His "corrected" version of "The Shadow out of Time" ignores the author's final instructions (his corrected copy of ASTOUNDING) in favor of a hand penciled draft that HPL abandoned in favor of a working typescript about 18 months prior to publication. The inspiration for this gimmick is that, here in the USA, unpublished texts can (sometimes) be used a basis for new copyright.

> I think the re-paragraphing is not even the major problem of these pulp versions, but the various cuts and
> other alterations.

There are no cuts or alterations, if the standard is HPL's final instructions. Yes, Joshi got some additional material from raiding early drafts for variant and additional readings, but found nothing of value. HPL cut this material from the text for a reason. Joshi likes to speculate that these cuts and changes were all made by typists or editors, and not by HPL. In most cases this is mere speculation, but even if true, cannot change the fact that HPL reviewed and okayed the result. Who are we to trust? The author? Or the posthumous editor who wants to generate a newly-copyrighted version of a public-domain text?

We are very lucky that amateurs such as Platypus, who have no understanding of Lovecraft's texts, will never be allow'd by respectable publishers to edit an edition of H. P. Lovecraft.

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 25 Apr 14 | 04:33PM by wilum pugmire.

Wilum Pugmire wrote:
> We are very lucky that amateurs such as Platypus, who have no understanding of
> Lovecraft's texts, will never be allow'd by respectable publishers to edit an
> edition of H. P. Lovecraft.

I am merely a member of the public comparing two different editions. And the fact is that Luckhurst's texts of AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS and THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME, do indeed follow HPL's final instructions as to the text. The newly copyrighted Joshi texts of these stories distinguish themselves by failing to do so. Even Joshi does not deny these facts. Insults and lies will not change this.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 25 Apr 14 | 04:40PM by Platypus.

walrus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> STJ now has a review of the book linked from his
> blog: [stjoshi.org]

If you read the review carefully, and sift out all the indignation, you can see that Joshi actually admits that Luckhurst's text follow (via Derleth's editions) HPL's final instructions, while his own texts include material from early drafts that HPL never even submitted for publication.

An more-extended analysis of Joshi's review is posted here on google groups:
[groups.google.com]

phillipAellis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Regarding the principle of latest appearances
> during an author's lifetime serving as the basis
> of a text, the pulp appearances aren't strictly
> speaking the latest appearances. We know that
> Lovecraft circulated copies of the pulps with
> textual amendments afterwards, so these amendments
> must form the basis of such publications.

If you mean Luckhurst's texts of the old Arkham House texts, you are correct. These are based (when available) on HPL's hand-corrected copies. The Joshi texts, however, usually ignore the author's final amendments in favor of variants drawn from early drafts.

The difficulty here is that Lovecraft himself did not have his manuscript to hand for referral, nor was he a particularly good proofreader; hence even obvious misprints would not be corrected, while at other times he was particularly keen on searching them out. He was certainly intensely angry about what happened to "Mountains" in Astounding, calling poor Tremaine (who really wasn't behind the problem) all sorts of names; he also made it quite clear that his own typescript was his preferred text, one which he spent infinite pains on. The major differences between that and his later corrections which he does make clear were intentional alterations involved revising the portions of the novelette concerning his theory about the Antarctic landmass; these were corrections based on the scientific data which had arisen since... things which Joshi also included in his corrected editions.

As for "Shadow"... he didn't abandon the original manuscript; it was a gift to Barlow in thanks for his typing it up... yet HPL also remarked on the problems with that typescript. He didn't find Astounding's handling of it as bad, certainly not enough to go into extreme detail as he did with the earlier story, but it was more a matter of degree, not kind, of reaction.

So yes, any edition which uses the original pulp versions of these without taking all this into consideration, is something to be viewed with caution (to say the least), as Lovecraft was certainly not at all happy with either of them as they appeared there.

However, all this should be quite easy to decide in the near future, as a variorum edition of Lovecraft is to begin publication from HP within a year or two, as I recall.