As in “… makes me similar to” or “… do I have in common with.” In the words of Hegel, “philosophy always comes too late.” Me too - “Mr. Behind The Times, the present called to say you’re not out of step enough to be retro and there’s handwritten notes here saying you are not in any way the prefiguration of the future.” Plus I’m just generally late to things, to my continual chagrin. In this instance, though, I’m referring not to my own general (*ahem*) untimeliness as I am to my being slightly late to notice the recent shindig on H.P. Lovecraft.
Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Theory
The Centre for Cultural Studies hosted a unique one-day symposium dedicated to exploring H. P. Lovecraft’s relationship to Theory. The event did not follow the ordinary format of the academic conference. Some written materials were circulated beforehand, but there were no papers delivered on the day. Instead, there was structured discussions based on five of Lovecraft’s stories: ‘Call of Cthulhu’, ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’, ‘The Dunwich Horror’, ‘The Shadow out of Time’, ‘Through the Gates of the Silver Key’.
Participants included: Benjamin Noys (Chichester) - author of The Culture of Death and Georges Bataille: A Critical Introduction; Graham Harman (Cairo) - author of Tool-Being and Guerilla Metaphysics. (Graham says that a philosophy should be judged on what it can tell us about Lovecraft); China Miéville - acclaimed author of Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and other tales of the Fantastic.; Luciana Parisi (Goldsmiths) - author of Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Biotechnology and the Mutations of Desire; Steve ‘Kode9’ Goodman (UEA) - author of the forthcoming Sonic Warfare; Justin Woodman (Goldsmiths) - expert on the Chaos Magick appropriation of Lovecraft’s mythos; James Kneale (UCL) - author of ‘From Beyond: H. P. Lovecraft and the Place of Horror’; Mark Fisher (Goldsmiths) - k-punk weblog; Dominic Fox - Poetix weblog. (via.)
See also.
Happily, or if you prefer, nightmarishly, several things(-that-should-not-be) from the event caper scabrously within the vast reaches of the infernal internet.
Here, here, here, and here. For anyone not yet converted, please read the following piece of evangelism.
Four of the five Lovecraft works circulated for the event are online.
‘Call of Cthulhu‘, ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth‘, ‘The Dunwich Horror‘, ‘The Shadow out of Time‘.
I haven’t found ‘Through the Gates of the Silver Key’ online. The story is a sequel to ‘The Silver Key‘ and stars the recurrent Lovecraft protagonist Randolph Carter. Among other places, Carter appeared in ‘The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.’ When I was in high school I called BBS’s for a while (shocking I know). On them people all had handles like “The Doctor” and “Rancid” and “Big Al.” I picked “Randolph Carter” as mine, which caused much confusion from people who thought that was my real name. According to wikipedia, Carter was loosely based on Lovecraft’s own life.
There’s a substantial online archive of Lovecraft works here.
Hi Nate–
You should never worry about being late for the latest academic intellectual fetish. If anything, your neurosis only strengthens the case for reading more Bourdieu!
Comment by John — May 15, 2007 @ 9:44 am
Ah some post-mod marxista types have taken an interest in old HP. HP was quite a craftsman really: perhaps not quite EAPoe, yet in ways more effective (tho’ few writers can match “Masque of the Red Death”). The Dunwich Horror is pretty terrifying, as is the “Dreamquest …”. Dreamquest features those odd Lovecraftian vistas which are somewhat sci-fi like: quite beautiful and eerie, if perhaps sinister–JG Ballard-like. Some of us grew up with Randolph Carter and a copy of “The Tomb.”
Was Lovecraft a fascist? Maybe. Oh well. Probably less so than many other sci-fi or goth writers–say RA Heinlein, or L-Ron. Even EAPoe offers a few fascist hints, though he was maybe a bit more Vichy. Yet there are leftists who read someone such as LF Celine, are there not? And Celine more or less approved of the Waffen SS itself (I don’t approve of Celine’s politics, but he was an entertaining writer). Life has been absurd for the last century: and fascism one of the greatest absurdities (as is communism).
Comment by Perezoso — May 15, 2007 @ 11:08 am
But I don’t really perceive the connection between Lovecraft and “philosophy” (and however cool Lovecraft was he did not exactly write treastises on language or logic). Many of the k-punk/weblog/IT crew seem to mistake psychoanalysis for philosophical analysis—or they psychologize various philosophers (like Kant). Blogland seems headed for a sort of bizarre ironic surrealism, where everything is recombined (or reiterated, as they say(, even few months: the goal being to avoid any substantial political or economic discussion (however, I do understand to some degree the criticisms of realism, whether political or philosophical: part of postmod ambiguity, perhaps). A few weeks of Quine would work some miracle cures on the crew (and the web as a whole)–and could even be of benefit to “progressives.” Or perhaps one says phuck it, takes that leap into the aesthetic, picks up the old EAPoe or Lovecraft and Ballard or Andre Breton, at least after a hard day of crime………………..
Comment by Perezoso — May 15, 2007 @ 12:08 pm
hi John, Per,
I don’t feel bad for missing a hot trend, I feel bad for coming late to an event dedicated to an author who I really, really like. I read Lovecraft when I was a kid, I used to stay up late reading his stuff. I liked it a lot but also I would get too scared to sleep. Then it was like, well, I’m up already so I’ll keep reading. Which meant I’d keep getting scared. Etc.
I’m with Per that HP had questionable, probably fascistic politics. Still a great read, though. Lovecraft was also a source of some of my first music related cool-points, because I knew what the Metallica song “thing that should not be” was about. Many years later I got additional similar points when I was the one who knew that several songs on this really good record (I forget the name just now) by this pop-punk band The Marshes were based on Lovecraft (the best is a very short song, an exchange of letters from a young member of a massachussettes family to his grandfather, the grandfather ends his reply “don’t stare at humans longer than you have to. Think: ‘They won’t last long.’ Ia! Ia! Ia!”) I guess their band name also is a Lovecraft reference.
Per I also agree that a few weeks of Quine would do some good for all and sundry (word and object is in the mess on my desk right now actually) though I think I like continental stuff more than you do. There’s a book you might be interested in - Deconstruction As Analytic Philosophy. Rorty said for a long time that he wished someone would write a book called ‘Derrida for Davidsonians’, that’s basically what this book is. I think the author’s name is Wheeler. I’ve got it out the library right now, haven’t read it yet though beyond the beginning.
On Lovecraft (ish), I found a 2 buck copy of an paperback last night - The Shuttered Room and Other Tales Of Horror. We went to a local used bookstore to see Irvine Welsh read from his new novel (they also gave out free eclairs!). Someone asked him “why does Blair go along with Bush?” He said “because they’re both scumbags.” Someone asked him for advice for aspiring writers, and he gave what I thought was actually decent advice, which is essentially to keep going. Things get good with revision. Don’t let initial lack of quality prevent writing further. That’s the spirit of this blog, so I guess I’m something of a Welshian.
cheers,
Nate
Comment by Nate — May 15, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
Lovecraftian prose does seem to possess a certain subversive quality, which may be what the k-punk posse are picking up on. Ballard’s writing (as in Crash) also is capable of producing a certain bewilderment, which we might term surrealist– i.e. supra-rational, psychologically complex, and macabre but not simply ghoulish—mindfucks, as we formerly yawped in the pre-postmod etiquette day…..(WS Burroughs of course a maestro of that, but a bit extreme for most consumers, even consumers “a gauche”). I do not think it is “leftist” as in proletarian-positive; more authentically anarchist, somewhat amoral, on occasion nihilist. Nabakov also does that, but I think he was too fond of Proustian belle-lettrism to be a real surrealist writer. Pynchon has a surrealist aspect but a bit comic-book like: or it’s a different flavor of surrealism; I enjoyed Crying of Lot 49 and Vineland but there is a certain crackerbarrel quality along with the dizzying imagery, the entropy and technophilia, and cartoony zaniness. But Pynchon’s was a good kid, methinks, and his programme quite different than the leftist moralism of a Long Sunday and Co (led by crypto-cleric CR and Reverend Jodi).
Comment by Perezoso — May 16, 2007 @ 4:38 pm
“Through the Gates of the Silver Key” is online here - http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Through_the_Gates_of_the_Silver_Key/full - and at a host of other sides as well.
And - of course, Lovecraft’s prose is subversive, but then - wouldn’t you expect something like it in a Gothic author, anyway? I find it interesting to think of his prose fiction as subversive of notions and concepts like “state”, “community”, “commonwealth”, and so on - even at the best of wills, he was not what I would call a political being, except in that rhetorical, overblown manner he cultivates in his countless letters to his small elite weird circle - and these also make him, among other things, a fascist, an occasional admirer of Hitler, a more frequent admirer of Roosevelt, a racist, and so on. If anything, he was writing subversively against realism, in a weird realist manner, if you will, crunches away at realist epistemologies, while also establishing a stand against metaphysics: everything is real, palpable, very material (and note how very bodily-physical practically all his alien monsters are), and when the narrators/characters realize that, they go insane, and we with them. So, he’s not so much subverting the material world and its signifiers, but rather our perception of it.
And, coincidentally, I also think, Quine and Davidson would do everyone some good. The k-punk posse (k-punk Mark Fisher organized the London event) are a bright bunch really, and it’s nearly driving me into faints to see Lovecraft finally, finally start to receive some academic attention.
Comment by Daniel J. Gall — May 18, 2007 @ 10:46 pm
hi Daniel,
Thanks for your comment and I’ll check out your blog when I get more time. Though I have to say, I’m more inclined to flee from (or be reduced to a quivering drooling wreck in the face of) the shoggoth than I am to hug it. To each their own, I suppose.
I don’t know if I’m convinced of the subversiveness of Lovecraft, though I’d be happy to be so convinced. Even without subversiveness, though, he’s just so enjoyable to read! Thanks for the link to Through The Gate. I just finished this short collection called _The Shuttered Room_, all stuff set in the Dunwich/Innsmouth/Arkham area and really great. I’m planning to reread more of him and read stories I haven’t read, and will be posting occasionally about it. (Though I’m not a very sophisticated reader of literature. My response amounts mostly to liked it/didn’t like it.)
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — May 24, 2007 @ 4:52 pm