Trying out Embedding a Goodreads Book Review

H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life by Michel Houellebecq

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you love Michel Houellebecq you'll find this fascinating. Howard Phillips Lovecraft is an underrated tale teller and misanthrope with an amazing imagination, the influence of which can be felt in Houellebecq's works especially the last, The Possibility of an Island. And even tho, at times, Houellebecq gets as close to a hagiography as one can with a sexless racist, his explanation of Lovecraft's life and works is a captivating read due in no small part to the quality of Houellebecq's writing.



Lovecraft's "great works" included in this volume might leave you a little colder, however. I found The Call of Cthulhu verging on the unbearable and had to gallop through it like I was taking some nasty medicine, but took enormous guilty pleasure from the second, The Whisperer in Darkness, from which the influence of Lovecraft's stories on modern culture are evident.



The foreword by Stephen King is rather good as well.


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Cure Sought for Chronic Dartitis

As you may have gathered, I've picked up a nasty case of blogger's dartitis.

Yes, I've been writing, but with spasms of focus, like the automatic scrawl of a medium channelling a peripatetic Cleopatra who keeps drifting off to chat to Einstein and John the Baptist just when things are getting interesting. As a result, the following posts have been started but not quite finished:

1. The Joy of Serendipity - how meandering paths of content discovery led me to share a scar story and appreciate a racist writer of weird fiction

2. Opine on the Ovine - thoughts on decreed mutton moments from long hair to footless tights (just noticed what could be the first case I've ever noticed of misogyny in enhanced search results - why the images?)

3. Can I Have a Rewind? - how and why it's important to remember what you're all about, inspired by the inadvertent wisdom of my mother "You really must take time to rewind at the weekends"

4. How I feel about the budget cuts and redundancies at Channel 4

Give an old lady a hand - if you've any preferences*, do leave a comment or drop me a line and I'll do my best to knuckle down and deliver. Else I'll just wait here 'til I'm filled with the spirit of Pocahontas or similar.

*Nope, not a chance on number 4; do you think I'm insane?