In a letter to Henry Kuttner, Lovecraft adds a special note to his interpretation of the Weird Tale.
[1] "The best & most potent horror is the subtlest - - what is vaguley hinted but never told. ... Atmosphere is the one supreme desideratum of the weird tale."
- and later in another letter -
[2] "To my mind the most effective method is to suggest certain things through unmistakable eveidences & let the reader do his own imagining. ... I don't agree on the importance of plot ... the best weird tales are those in which the narrator ... remains (as in actual dreams) largely passive ...".
1 H. P. Lovecraft: Letters to Henry Kuttner, Necronomicon, 1990. March 12, 1936.
2 op. cit. April 16, 1936
I totally agree, Chris. I have to admit I don't believe I've ever read anything by Lovecraft and so, I rarely glance at this blog. But I've gotten curious since there are so many Lovecraft references and articles floating around THL so I stopped in to poke around.
ReplyDeleteI seldom "tell" the violence in my horror stories -- I tend to describe the results and let the reader imagine the rest. I think our own minds create far scarier images than can be described.
I'm glad you did, Clara. Keep telling those modern parables of horror and keep your candle lit.
ReplyDelete