Is lovecraft overrated...

Is lovecraft overrated? I've been reading a collection of his work and he seems to have a really bad sense of atmosphere and pacing.

Worse yet, a lot of the time when he's describing something that's supposed to be terrifying or disturbing he just said it is instead of describing it

Which stories have you read?

Everythings 'indescribable' or 'unspeakable' as well. Come on m8, you're a writer, at least have a go. He has good titlesthough, eg 'At the Mountains of Madness'

overrated? well, he has had his awards stripped away.

he's far from overrated. he's an awesome launching pad.

I have read The Dunwich Horror and it was fantastic.

hes got a pretty sizeable vocabulary and I find his style interesting. his stories are pretty good most of the time, too. hes not the best at it but he's a very good place to start.

>he has had his awards stripped away.
No, they just stopped making the WFA in the shape of his head.

I think the horror sorta comes from the indescribable nature of it all. Also from the weird descriptions. At the mountains of madness, for example. When he's describing the elder things, it's supposed to be really confusing and abnormal, so he uses really confusing and abnormal phrases. That's the kind of fear he's trying to insight, the fear of the unknown. He has intentional gaps in his descriptions because you're supposed to fill those gaps with the most frightening shit you can think of. And the few things that you can imagine leave you with a lot of questions. The pacing is supposed to make you anxious, and uneasy. Like he'll have a long jump in time, and then proceed to describe the most minuscule shit. It all works in conjunction to create a unique set of horror stories. I dunno if he's as good as a lot of people think he is but he's worth reading.

>not having an imagination

Pleb tbqh

He's one of my favorite authors and this pisses me off.

Although he executes this technique "oh fuck, its too horrible to describe" a lot better in his best stoires. Like Mountains of Madness and Dunwhich Horror.

Try and see it from the perspective of his protagonists. Many of them are well educated men living in a time when rationality and empiricism can not only tell us everything about rthe world, but also demonstrates how awesome human beings are to have come this far.

And then they come face to face with realities, beings and laws of the universe that is completely incomprehensible to them and more importantly, couldn't give a fuck if they we're there at all. Man is a tiny speck in a massive universe and just trying to wrap your head around the "implications" "abominable conclusions" as Lovecraft calls them makes them go crazy.

Here's why they probably stopped making the award a bust of his head

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove's fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.

>probably

Not probably, definitely. We already know they changed it because Lovecraft was a racist. It's supposed to be freakin Octavia Butler's head on those awards now.

because he had very little proper education or experience in writing and for the most part wrote edgy stories in large quantities to live; were he able to flourish he would become much better.

>Try and see it from the perspective of his protagonists
Yeah but that would require me not having everything spoonfed to me so I don't have to think aka .

But the same situation applied to Poe who invented an entire genre and made instant classics effortlessly

poe went to school and came from some wealth, was just edgy enough to appeal to a wider audience, and had a muse

> Using "overrated" as legitimate criticism of an author's body of work

Jesus christ. I know this is Veeky Forums but I would hope Veeky Forums would at least be above *this*

>Worse yet, a lot of the time when he's describing something that's supposed to be terrifying or disturbing he just said it is instead of describing it

That's the point. He's talking about things that defy logic and reason, let alone our limited vocabulary. So when he says something is maddening or horrific, it's because that's the sense it gives.

>accepting reality for what it is
>racist

Pick one.

Why are so many Lovecraft threads meme-tier ?

Lovecraft is terrible.

And yet his works has inspired thousands of writers, artists and filmmakers. And he is so fucking well-known that you can say "lovecraftian horror" and everyone has an idea of what you mean.

He wrote the words "unspeakable horror" and the description is so fucking vague that you can take that and imagine whatever the fuck you want: Be it a giant octopus, a blob that changes colors, or mass full of appendixes and eyes and teeth.

Not taking five pages to describe his monsters is exactly why he is famous, because it let other writers or artists go nuts with idea. He is the open-source of horror.

Racist. He puts most pol/acks to shame, and his brand of eugenics would put most of them in his perosnal "degenerate" category

Read Beyond The Wall Of Sleep and Old Bugs to get a sense of white people who are WORSE than darkies and see if you would still call his views reality