A review by veleda_k
The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft by H.P. Lovecraft
3.0
I'm judging this book on two levels: the writing and annotations. As for the writing, Lovecraft is Lovecraft. His ideas are brilliant, though I think his writing is less so. He does have some excellent phrases, but his prose creates new shades of purple.
The annotations are a mixed bag. Some are interesting and informative, while others are unnecessary or worse. I was rather disgusted when Joshi claimed that "nigger" was an inoffensive word in Lovecraft's time. (Commonplace is not the same as inoffensive.) It doesn't help that Joshi derides the other writers who have contributed to the Cthulhu Mythos as a "legion of hacks" writing "half-baked imitations." Seeing that I believe that Lovecraft's ideas were better than his writing, I'm quite glad that other writers have played in the HPL sandbox.
Worth reading, all in all, but I don't feel that I gained any remarkable new insight.
The annotations are a mixed bag. Some are interesting and informative, while others are unnecessary or worse. I was rather disgusted when Joshi claimed that "nigger" was an inoffensive word in Lovecraft's time. (Commonplace is not the same as inoffensive.) It doesn't help that Joshi derides the other writers who have contributed to the Cthulhu Mythos as a "legion of hacks" writing "half-baked imitations." Seeing that I believe that Lovecraft's ideas were better than his writing, I'm quite glad that other writers have played in the HPL sandbox.
Worth reading, all in all, but I don't feel that I gained any remarkable new insight.