The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion
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The Whisperer in Darkness
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November 2019 Group Read 2/2 The Whisperer in Darkness
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message 51:
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Gregg
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Nov 10, 2019 04:25PM
By the way, have you seen "Arrival"? It attempts this issue through the cinematic experience.
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Ed wrote: "Gregg wrote: "Remember the book uses the English spelling of colour ..."He insists on the word "shew", too. Drives me nuts. I checked Google n-grams and "shew" was rare even in Lovecraft's day.
..."
Lovecraft doesn't write in the style of the early 20th or late 19th century which is his milieu. He prefers the 17th and 18th centuries which is the origin of most of his stories. "Berkeley Square" is his favorite movie:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkele...
And I believe it is pronounce Barkeley due to the Great Vowel Shift. Does anyone know whether the great scientist has the same pronunciation???Bloody Brits, "two peoples separated by a common language..."
Oleksandr wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "Done. I got a kick out of the references to Einsteinian science like 'beyond the curve of space-time' or whatever, "He also has ether that fills the cosmos and his (and actually hi..."
Lovecraft's definitive work on Einsteinian physics is in "The Dreams in the Witch House" as per Fritz Leiber. His essay on the subject is found in this book:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This story has been made for better or worst into a horror flick by Stuart Gordon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._L...
And a Swedish-American rock opera....
Mod
The reveal at the end wasn't very surprising. It was almost surprising that the narrator didn't figure it out in advance. But, to be fair, if I'd been there and it was back in the old days I wouldn't have guessed it either. But I would have known something fishy was going on and I would not have stayed in that house.
Much of this story is in letters. But I didn't see much variation in style between the main text and the letters, or between letters written by different people. HPL just doesn't have that gift to write in different people's styles.
I do like some of what HPL was doing in his stories in general. The way he incorporated real science as well as other fictional characters from other peoples stories, and encouraged people to refer to his characters and stories, is pretty nice. That creates an interesting web of confusion about what is real or not real, which is fun in fiction. (Not so much fun in current newspapers, but that's another story.)
Lovecraft was a lonely man who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. It is a nice city that I recommend visiting. Nice university campus ground and a nice sandwich place. His social life was centered around letters he exchanged with other people. A lot of his stories are about isolated men who talk about the letters they exchanged with people. Lovecraft wrote about what he knew. It reminds me of the internet and the social contacts people have with it, but in a much slower version.
Mod
Interesting point.
I just noticed that this thread is called "A Whisperer in Darkness", while the book is called "The Whisperer in Darkness". I don't see any edition using "A ...", though according to the goodreads record, the original title was "Whisperer in the Dark". Can anyone confirm that original title?
As far as the "A" in the thread title, that would be me messing up. Easily fixed....
Mod
Marc-André wrote: "Lovecraft was a lonely man who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. It is a nice city that I recommend visiting. Nice university campus ground and a nice sandwich place. His social life was centered ..."Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ssssssslllllllloooooooooooooowwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........
Gregg wrote:"Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ssssssslllllllloooooooooooooowwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........"What?
Life was much slower before internet. Letters vs. emails, for example. Re' your message 58. Yeah, I think all of us are old enough to appreciate the newer faster technology. Our kids otoh, as they try to imagine the scary stuff in Whisperer being discussed at the pace of the postal service, would find it nearly impossible and ever so frustrating.
Cheryl wrote: "Life was much slower before internet. Letters vs. emails, for example. Re' your message 58. Yeah, I think all of us are old enough to appreciate the newer faster technology. Our kids otoh, as the..."
Imagine playing chess by mail as opposed to the modern online multiplayer computer gaming.
Gosh yes... I remember people talking about doing that... for chess it would be fine, but I think it's great that there are things like Words with Friends or whatever available for people now. Not to mention the big role-playing games and Minecraft etc.
I have only read some short stories by Lovecraft and never liked his style much. I decided to try this because it was considered part of the "evolution of SF". I didn't enjoy it very much but I can see where the SF elements were, for 1930, new and interesting. There hadn't been much actual SF written up to then other then the two pioneers, Wells and Verne. What I didn't like was the way the story presented advanced alien beings as part of the horror mythology from our past. The whole mishmash never really gelled for me. Guess I'm not a fan of Lovecraftian science fiction horror.
Yeah, it's kinda like 'the pyramids were built by aliens' or goblins are actually immigrants from Mars... not so appealing. Maybe better to keep the elements separate in extended works (though as punchline in flash fiction, a revelation that ties a myth to an SF trope could be fun).
Marc-André wrote: "Gregg wrote:"Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ssssssslllllllloooooooooooooowwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........"What?"
I was referring to your statement that letters would have been slower. Cheryl caught it. Now imagine if I had made that joke back in the letter days. It would have taken a month to clarify...
I once asked my father who was born in 1919, what it was like in the old days. He said, "You didn't know what was going on and it was so slow finding out." FDR's fireside chats were a quantum leap forward. Interestingly, Irving Fisher, the great economist, miscalled the 1929 Stock Market Crash for this reason. He felt new technologies like radio broadcasting had created a New Economy that had established a higher plateau for the stock market. You might remember that same phrase floating around before the dot com crash...
Gregg wrote: "Irving Fisher, the great economist, miscalled the 1929 Stock Market Crash for this reason. He felt new technologies like radio broadcasting had created a New Economy that had established a higher plateau for the stock market."And more interestingly, he maybe was correct. The crash of 1929 initiated the depression, but what really caused it was money tightening by the central bank, so that it went from Wall street to Main street. It was quite persuadable shown by Milton Friedman and the lesson learnt helped to prevent a depression in 2007-9
It was a good story. Not scary, at least not for 2019, but it was amusing.
Mod
The panel includes Matt Ruff, author of Lovecraft Country (which I like, and soon to be an HBO show), and Joyce Carol Oates, author of billions of stories.
(I have not listened to it.)
Oleksandr wrote: "Gregg wrote: "Irving Fisher, the great economist, miscalled the 1929 Stock Market Crash for this reason. He felt new technologies like radio broadcasting had created a New Economy that had establis..."If Fisher hadn't been discredited by the crash he might have stop this policy of the Fed. He had previously explained how the Fed should have reacted but instead they acted like conventional bankers. He went on to explain debt deflation theory and redeem himself as an modern economist way before Friedman's work. Although Friedman's and his co-writer's work is a very good history of the Fed, the underlining theory was not anything new.
Sorry I didn't catch this earlier, but economics, esp. that relating to events that occurred after this book was written, are off topic in this thread about one of Lovecraft's books. You are welcome to continue the discussion elsewhere, perhaps in Daily Chit Chat or in a new thread in Non-Fiction?
Mod
Yeah, don't make me blow my whistle!
I don't think this conversation risked going much further about economics anyway.
Actually, the conversation was about the slowness of communication by snail mail. That then drifted into technology which was tied to Fisher's promotion of the New Economy of the 20s. All the subjects covered were specifically about the era of Lovecraft's writing.This milieu drove the concept of HPL as a science fiction writer and after '29 his pessimist outlook and the poverty of pulp writing. As the postmodernists would say "Nothing exist in a vacuum"...
Ok. I opine that it would help to note the relevance in the post, then. Thanks!
Gregg wrote: "But we were wandering for sure...."Lovecraft will do that ti you.
The Evolution of Science Fiction
Books mentioned in this topic
Lovecraft Country (other topics)The Color Out of Space (other topics)
The Whisperer In Darkness (other topics)
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life (other topics)
The Epigenetics Revolution (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Joyce Carol Oates (other topics)Milton Friedman (other topics)
Alexander Belyaev (other topics)
Robert W. Chambers (other topics)
H.P. Lovecraft (other topics)
