(urth) The outsider (Lovecraft)

[Daniel Otto Jack Petersen]

I'm glad you brought this up.  I've always thought the most interesting
thing about Wolfe's divine Outsider as compared to Lovecraft's Outsider is
that both are monsters of sorts:  non-canonical, subterranean, tenebrous,
subversive.  It's part of the devious theological genius of Wolfe that he
casts his 'true God' as an outcast, a creature of the night as it were, a
monster.  I think part of Wolfe's theological impulse is to see the
Christian deity anew in a Chestertonian 'upside down' sort of way and this
very obscure (but valid, I think) connection to Lovecraft's Outsider is one
of the ways he achieves that *'mooreeffoc'
<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mooreeffoc>* epiphany.

-DOJP


On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 6:02 PM, Fred Kiesche <godelescherbach at gmail.com>
wrote:

> HPL walked the streets of Paris with Poe. In a dream.
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 12:55 PM, António Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Yes, of course. My choice of words is due to the fact hat 1) I don't get
>> this Wolfean linguistic ring from the rest of HPL and 2) tho I agree many
>> of the piece's elements are quite inspired by Poe, I don't think it would
>> have been written by Poe. Can't quite say why. I can see Poe writing 'The
>> Music of Erich Zann', or any of the stories that revolve around corpses,
>> but for some reason not this one.
>>
>>
>> On 30 June 2014 16:47, Fred Kiesche <godelescherbach at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> If it's Wolfean, then Wolfe is Lovecraftian and--more to the
>>> core--Poesian, as this was definitely one of Eich-Pee-El's pieces most
>>> inspired by E.A. Poe.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 11:43 AM, António Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>  Hi.
>>>> For some reason, I'd never read this short piece. Now I'm trying to
>>>> fill the blanks in some authors, I've come across it:
>>>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsider_(short_story)
>>>> http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/o.aspx
>>>>
>>>> And you know what? The language rings very Wolfean. At first sight,
>>>> it's a lame gothic tale. And there's really nothing hidden below that. But
>>>> it can also be a lot of things if you want to read them into it.
>>>> What I find interesting is that not only it could have been written by
>>>> Severian, up to the last word, some imagery is very evocative. And then the
>>>> words themselves. I'd have a very hard time believing the corpses that
>>>> *strewed* Severian's battlefield came from anywhere else, even if the image
>>>> is different, but what got me wondering was if, with such gleaning going
>>>> on, the name 'Outsider' has got some connection with this story too. Yes,
>>>> at first sight there's no relationship to be found.
>>>> I couldn't find any discussion of this story in connection to Wolfe -
>>>> after all, why should there be?. Do you know of any? All I could find were
>>>> analyses of 'An Evil Guest', which I have yet to read.
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> F.P. Kiesche III
>>>
>>> Husband, Father, Good Cook. Reader. Keeper of abandoned dogs. Catholic
>>> Liberal Conservative Militarist. Does not fit into a neat box or category.
>>> "Ah Mr. Gibbon, another damned, fat, square book. Always, scribble,
>>> scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on being presented with
>>> Volume 2 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.) Blogging at Bernal
>>> Alpha. On Twitter as @FredKiesche
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> F.P. Kiesche III
>
> Husband, Father, Good Cook. Reader. Keeper of abandoned dogs. Catholic
> Liberal Conservative Militarist. Does not fit into a neat box or category.
> "Ah Mr. Gibbon, another damned, fat, square book. Always, scribble,
> scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on being presented with
> Volume 2 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.) Blogging at Bernal
> Alpha. On Twitter as @FredKiesche
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
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>



-- 
Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
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