![]() ![]() ![]() …both the greatest and most problematic work of its brilliant author. None was more intriguing to these eyes than William Hope Hodgson’s THE NIGHT LAND, a 1912 novel that Lovecraft praised as “one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written…there is a sense of cosmic alienage, breathless mystery, and terrified expectancy that is unrivalled in the whole range of literature.” Yet Lovecraft also ascribed a number of shortcomings to the text, including “painful verboseness, repetitiousness (and) artificial and nauseously sticky romantic sentimentality.” Having familiarized myself with THE NIGHT LAND, I can state with certainty that both verdicts are accurate: the novel is indeed a masterpiece, yet it’s also irredeemably flawed, being both the greatest and most problematic work of its brilliant author. Lovecraft’s SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE (1927) came as quite a revelation, with its tantalizing descriptions of countless intriguing-sounding novels and stories with which I was unfamiliar. Years ago, as a beginner to genre fiction, H.P. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |