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d_aulnoyWhen all of my stuff arrived here from NY (which is a long story in and of itself, as it involved a house in escrow and a moving company mix-up that resulted in my being able to tell them where to deliver my stuff when it was already in transit enough to be reached in Death Valley), it was accompanied by 2 guys: one, a 40-ish, very nice, very traditional, very successful owns-his-own-moving-franchise type who wanted to discuss real-estate prices with me, complete with mustache (not to stereotype, but over the course of dealing with umpteen moving-company-types, I noticed that they were more prone to mustaches than anybody outside of the NYPD), and one this-is-my-summer-job kid.
Well, "kid" is probably kind of harsh: a 20-ish-if-you-stretch young man who reminded me very much of my own first love, who was delighted to hear what I did for a living, and, as a result, to hear what was in all of those very heavy boxes* that he was carrying up the stairs, because, as it turned out, his girlfriend was a huge sf&f fan. After solemnly explaining that she was really the reader of the two, and that he himself was more into math and science, as he loaded yet another handtruck, he reverently exclaimed, "There are worlds in these boxes!"
It was, quite possibly, simultaneously one of the sweetest and most profound things I'd heard in a while. Funny how those two rarely go together, nu?
Kid had a point, though: right now, I'm reading Lisey's Story (god help me, bought during an afternoon visit to the local supermarket - if you ever want to experience suburban dysfunction, go shopping in the afternoon in a big super-store, I dare you). Now, for starters, this doesn't read like a Stephen King novel at all. Possibly a tad around the edges - like a much older and sadder version of Rose Madder - but, on the whole, it's considerably more reminiscent of Lovecraft and all of his disciples than I ever would have dreamed possible, even from the author of "Crouch End" (which always struck me as more of a pastiche/homage/bastard-love-child-pseudo-critical-in-joke than anything else .... sort of like the thing that lived a rung down from "A Study In Emerald"). In fact, more than anything else, it's reminding me of a draft by John Langan I read a year or so ago (which, btw, was incredibly awesome, capturing the same basic visceral myopic terror as the best Lovecraft ... but being set in academia). What's tickling my fancy here is that Lovecraft is all about shared worlds, and the horror therein, where something is almost familiar ... but not in a good way. Just enough to make one cringe and shudder at the subtle wrongness.
Fundamentally, Lovecraftian horror is about ... homesickness. The completely non-Aristotelian horror of non-recognition. And, while I can certainly empathize with that, every time I hit a strip mall or see a deeply tanned woman clad in pastels ... I've still got all my wacky little worlds-in-boxes.
Is it sick that this makes me feel better about missing NY? I may have to contend with the freeways, but Cthulu ...
Well.
I'll always have Cthulu.
*An aside: if you happen to be in the vicinity of NY and moving in the near future, I literally cannot recommend Liffey Van Lines highly enough: they may have screwed up the moving dates a tad, but, by gum, they stuck to the estimate they gave me in their mistaken belief that I owned half of the 4500 lbs of books that I do. And delivered it all in good condition, with a few pithy and thought-provoking lines to boot ....
Well, "kid" is probably kind of harsh: a 20-ish-if-you-stretch young man who reminded me very much of my own first love, who was delighted to hear what I did for a living, and, as a result, to hear what was in all of those very heavy boxes* that he was carrying up the stairs, because, as it turned out, his girlfriend was a huge sf&f fan. After solemnly explaining that she was really the reader of the two, and that he himself was more into math and science, as he loaded yet another handtruck, he reverently exclaimed, "There are worlds in these boxes!"
It was, quite possibly, simultaneously one of the sweetest and most profound things I'd heard in a while. Funny how those two rarely go together, nu?
Kid had a point, though: right now, I'm reading Lisey's Story (god help me, bought during an afternoon visit to the local supermarket - if you ever want to experience suburban dysfunction, go shopping in the afternoon in a big super-store, I dare you). Now, for starters, this doesn't read like a Stephen King novel at all. Possibly a tad around the edges - like a much older and sadder version of Rose Madder - but, on the whole, it's considerably more reminiscent of Lovecraft and all of his disciples than I ever would have dreamed possible, even from the author of "Crouch End" (which always struck me as more of a pastiche/homage/bastard-love-child-pseudo-critical-in-joke than anything else .... sort of like the thing that lived a rung down from "A Study In Emerald"). In fact, more than anything else, it's reminding me of a draft by John Langan I read a year or so ago (which, btw, was incredibly awesome, capturing the same basic visceral myopic terror as the best Lovecraft ... but being set in academia). What's tickling my fancy here is that Lovecraft is all about shared worlds, and the horror therein, where something is almost familiar ... but not in a good way. Just enough to make one cringe and shudder at the subtle wrongness.
Fundamentally, Lovecraftian horror is about ... homesickness. The completely non-Aristotelian horror of non-recognition. And, while I can certainly empathize with that, every time I hit a strip mall or see a deeply tanned woman clad in pastels ... I've still got all my wacky little worlds-in-boxes.
Is it sick that this makes me feel better about missing NY? I may have to contend with the freeways, but Cthulu ...
Well.
I'll always have Cthulu.
*An aside: if you happen to be in the vicinity of NY and moving in the near future, I literally cannot recommend Liffey Van Lines highly enough: they may have screwed up the moving dates a tad, but, by gum, they stuck to the estimate they gave me in their mistaken belief that I owned half of the 4500 lbs of books that I do. And delivered it all in good condition, with a few pithy and thought-provoking lines to boot ....