The Mall of Cthulhu: A short review, and a lot of Death of the Author.
This is an amusing book. It is interesting for me primarily from a sociological point of view. This isn't to say it's not an interesting and gripping book; it's just that I'm strange like that.
The persistence of Lovecraft's Mythos-related works speaks to their strength as narratives, and the strength of their themes. The Mythos speaks of mankind as a temporary, fragile thing, doomed not because powers of the universe are inimical to us, but because we, as we are, are incapable of understanding the true nature of the universe and remaining as we are. These themes, and at their root the fear of the unknown, are powerful and resonant. But their actual implementation? This did not stand up so well to the test of time.
Take, for instance, the unfortunate issue of racism in Lovecraft's fiction. In Lovecraft's stories, humanity is meant pretty much exclusively to refer to white Europeans, and no others; it is stated explicitly that blacks and Arabs dabble in the Mythos, and mixed-race individuals are considered to be as horrible as any lesser Mythos race. This is nodded at in John Dies At The End, and called out explicitly in The Mall of Cthulhu. Both books use the same deeply ironic inversion; instead of associating the taint of the Other with mixed-race individuals, both books use white supremacists as violent brutish thugs who nevertheless maintain a strange and terrible understanding of that which lurks in the dark corners of the cosmos.
As a dramatic device, this substitution is effective. However, the need for the substitution does reveal a very interesting exegesis of Lovecraft's collected works. Lovecraft's protagonists are confronted with the ineffable aspects of the Mythos, and are frequently driven insane. But it is not so often that they look upon the tentacled face of Cthulhu and go mad. Rather, it is far more often the case that they learn some dark secret about the nature of things, and that their minds cannot take the strain.
However, it should be remembered that these protagonists are, with very rare exception, the same racist fucktards modern Mythos fiction calls upon to serve in the "scary violent crazy dudes" roles. It is interesting to ponder how one of Lovecraft's protagonists would react to being transported to modern America.
He would see that the President of the United States should, by his lights, be off conducting unspeakable rites (possibly involving imperiled white women) somewhere, and not, e.g., running the country.
He would see how we have harnessed the primal force that lies dormant in the center of all things, and how we have used it (briefly) as a weapon of war, but now mostly use it to heat steam to turn turbines to move magnets to shift electrons to power our iPods.
He would see that we are not the evolutionary cast-offs of the Shoggoths, but instead are the cast-offs of no one at all, ascending from coarse matter into our current selves through basic abiogenesis and evolution, and that not only are we not the favored of the Creator, neither is anyone else, and that most of us are fine with that.
He would hear terms like "galactic supercluster" bandied about. He would rail about the dangers of looking too closely into the nature of things, and someone (probably Anonymous) would link him to the teachings of our own cult leaders, in convenient video form.
Without the theme-preserving substitutions most modern Mythos stories are forced to use, we see a most delicious truth preserved in Lovecraft's writings. We see that the horrors Lovecraft predicted have come to pass. We see that we have cast aside his notions of right and wrong, and that we do shout and revel and live, and that the world truly does revel in ecstasy and freedom. We, who stare into the night sky and do not shudder, but yearn, have won. The ideas of insularity, of racial purity, of relentless paranoia of all that is strange and different, are, as predicted, fading and losing ground, and will one day be lost entirely.
Truly, the horror of the Mythos depends entirely on, at the end of the day, how many metaphorical tentacles you can live with yourself having.
The persistence of Lovecraft's Mythos-related works speaks to their strength as narratives, and the strength of their themes. The Mythos speaks of mankind as a temporary, fragile thing, doomed not because powers of the universe are inimical to us, but because we, as we are, are incapable of understanding the true nature of the universe and remaining as we are. These themes, and at their root the fear of the unknown, are powerful and resonant. But their actual implementation? This did not stand up so well to the test of time.
Take, for instance, the unfortunate issue of racism in Lovecraft's fiction. In Lovecraft's stories, humanity is meant pretty much exclusively to refer to white Europeans, and no others; it is stated explicitly that blacks and Arabs dabble in the Mythos, and mixed-race individuals are considered to be as horrible as any lesser Mythos race. This is nodded at in John Dies At The End, and called out explicitly in The Mall of Cthulhu. Both books use the same deeply ironic inversion; instead of associating the taint of the Other with mixed-race individuals, both books use white supremacists as violent brutish thugs who nevertheless maintain a strange and terrible understanding of that which lurks in the dark corners of the cosmos.
As a dramatic device, this substitution is effective. However, the need for the substitution does reveal a very interesting exegesis of Lovecraft's collected works. Lovecraft's protagonists are confronted with the ineffable aspects of the Mythos, and are frequently driven insane. But it is not so often that they look upon the tentacled face of Cthulhu and go mad. Rather, it is far more often the case that they learn some dark secret about the nature of things, and that their minds cannot take the strain.
However, it should be remembered that these protagonists are, with very rare exception, the same racist fucktards modern Mythos fiction calls upon to serve in the "scary violent crazy dudes" roles. It is interesting to ponder how one of Lovecraft's protagonists would react to being transported to modern America.
He would see that the President of the United States should, by his lights, be off conducting unspeakable rites (possibly involving imperiled white women) somewhere, and not, e.g., running the country.
He would see how we have harnessed the primal force that lies dormant in the center of all things, and how we have used it (briefly) as a weapon of war, but now mostly use it to heat steam to turn turbines to move magnets to shift electrons to power our iPods.
He would see that we are not the evolutionary cast-offs of the Shoggoths, but instead are the cast-offs of no one at all, ascending from coarse matter into our current selves through basic abiogenesis and evolution, and that not only are we not the favored of the Creator, neither is anyone else, and that most of us are fine with that.
He would hear terms like "galactic supercluster" bandied about. He would rail about the dangers of looking too closely into the nature of things, and someone (probably Anonymous) would link him to the teachings of our own cult leaders, in convenient video form.
Without the theme-preserving substitutions most modern Mythos stories are forced to use, we see a most delicious truth preserved in Lovecraft's writings. We see that the horrors Lovecraft predicted have come to pass. We see that we have cast aside his notions of right and wrong, and that we do shout and revel and live, and that the world truly does revel in ecstasy and freedom. We, who stare into the night sky and do not shudder, but yearn, have won. The ideas of insularity, of racial purity, of relentless paranoia of all that is strange and different, are, as predicted, fading and losing ground, and will one day be lost entirely.
Truly, the horror of the Mythos depends entirely on, at the end of the day, how many metaphorical tentacles you can live with yourself having.