BORN DOWN IN A DEAD MAN'S TOWN.

Kitty Valentine would also like to emphasize her pointy monster teeth and her sharp murder claws and the fact that she occasionally RUNS ON ALL FOURS, KAREN.

Warmth      ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||      86% Intellect      |||||||||||||||||||||      66% Emotional Stability      |||||||||||||||||||||      66% Aggressiveness      |||||||||||||||      42% Liveliness      |||||||||      26% Dutifulness      |||||||||||||||      46% Social Assertiveness      |||||||||||||||||||||      62% Sensitivity      ||||||||||||||||||||||||      74% Paranoia      |||||||||||||||     50% Abstractness      |||||||||||||||||||||      66% Introversion      ||||||||||||||||||      58% Anxiety      |||||||||||||||||||||      70% Openmindedness      |||||||||||||||||||||      66% Independence      |||||||||||||||      50% Perfectionism      ||||||||||||||||||      58% Tension      |||||||||||||||      50%

the majority of essays collected in the book are, i’d say, interesting or worthwhile reads. especially fun to read are the Brutal Takedowns of derleth and other pretenders to the HPL throne--never, for example, have i read a more thrilling assessment of massachusetts geography than in robert d. marten’s “arkham country: in rescue of the lost searchers,” an article specifically written to academically suplex a wannabe lovecraft country geographer. there are, as in any collection of works, disappointments--jason c. eckhardt’s “cthulhu’s scald: lovecraft and the nordic tradition” felt a bit, how you say... Weaksauce to me, especially since it’s one of the very few essays in the book that attempts to argue for a coherent lovecraft mythos (in this case, one that parallels nordic mythology). considering how unbelievably slight the actual presence of such beings as cthulhu, etc. is in lovecraft’s authentic works, i’m not sure how you could argue that Octopus Man is a deliberately crafted parallel to odin.

the book also has a generally blind eye to... pretty much every single one of HPL’s faults. if you’re familiar with any other work involving s.t. joshi’s scholarship then U Know How It Is. i have to say it got pretty tiring to read fawning lines about lovecraft’s genius without a single word about how heavily his conception of the world, as put forth in his work, relied on racism and xenophobia. similarly there isn’t an ounce of critique about his highly questionable treatment of gender--not even a single one of those fake asides scholars will use to briefly acknowledge and then brush away problematic elements in their material so they don’t have to deal with it. in none of the essays! there are 22 of them! plus an introduction!

part of it may be the homogeneity of the material. it may just be the (i would imagine) small size of the scholarly lovecraft community, but there are several authors with multiple essays included--i count 5 by robert m. price (almost 1/4th of the total essays in the book!), 3 by will murray, and other repeats. if you choose writers that aren’t interested in criticizing their chosen material on the lines of gender or race, and then collect multiple of their works in one volume, well. not a single anti-racist critique will be had. And No One Was Shocked.

review book i got for christmas because apparently now im your local source for Howard Poward Criticism i just decided

post compelling excerpts from said book

fuck around

be gay

drink some water

What she wishes to say is I hate being like this. What she wishes to say is I must be punished for the things I’ve done. What she wishes to say is You may hate it, but I deserve it. I just wish there was a way to make it stop. There is not. She must suffer for what she’s done. For what she has been. She must always suffer for these things, because they are the things that MAKE HER WHO SHE HAS BEEN. It makes no difference whether or not she has chosen this.

Kitty loves with such horrible ease, but the word itself is terrible and she will not use it. To be loved by her is to be damned, she knows this. She opens her mouth to consider words.

“Am an aminal,” She says, quite calmly, and fingertips, gloved and soft, brush just beneath a chin, “Gotta be punished f’r what I do same way y’discipline’uh dog.”

As though she, herself, would ever do such a thing.

(She would not.)

“Ain’t im-por-tant,” Her voice is soft when she traces along a jaw, “dun’t even hurt.”

          This feels like the worst. Of all the things Karen has seen and heard, she can finally say that she knows--this is the worst of them all.

          “Oh, Kitty,” she says. “Oh, no.” She blinks and the tears hovering on her lashes spill over. “No, that’s not true.” She reaches for her gloved hand and squeezes it between her own, tighter than she would if she could stop herself, searching Kitty’s gaze, looking into those black-seeming eyes, black-seeming but not: they’re forest eyes, eyes like moss, like deep, rich, algal ponds which shimmer dark and green and alive. It doesn’t seem impossible to Karen--more than that, it seems more possible than anything, more true than anything--that like those black pools, which veil their real color, Kitty might be veiled, too--might be hidden enough to fool you--even to fool herself: on the outside, terrible, violent... An animal. But on the inside? Karen knows she’s a person. She knows Kitty deserves so much more.