(urth) The outsider (Lovecraft)

Daniel Otto Jack Petersen danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com
Mon Jun 30 11:39:53 PDT 2014


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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> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>



-- 
Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
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