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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3551 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 16, 2022

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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My memory is that it’s presented from an outsider’s POV, a donkey or a mule, and so he describes the culture of the colorful Hobbitish equines around him with a measure of accuracy and disdain.

Funny, I was also told to read adaptations & pastiches instead of Lovecraft himself when I posted this six years ago on /r/rational.

Excellent!

And yeah I'm not surprised that it's a common sentiment. This is a bit of a convoluted explanation but bear with me - it reminds me of a throwaway gag in the excellent Shadows over Loathing game where the game describes a character as 'phlegmatic', prompting something like 'ew, gross' as a response. And if you pick that response, the game tells you that phlegmatic as a description of a person means they are stoic and calm, not drenched in mucous or something like that. And when the game tells you that you can respond with 'Well just say that then' and the game retells the description of the character using calm instead of phlegmatic. I imagine his books are annoying to people who don't have large vocabularies, but even if you do you are basically thinking "You could have cut that sentence in half if you just used normal words, just talk normally you dink" at least once every two pages. I'm pretty sure Lovecraft's writing style is inseparable from his ability to build stories, but it can be very off-putting for new readers, and it's his stories that hook most people, not his writing.

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