It is not an original thesis, but most now believe that Nyarlathotep (in part) was scripted around the genius and eccentricity of Tesla. Working for and combatting the major players in electricity of his day, Tesla was part technically awesome, and part crackpot.
"It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless crowds to see Nyarlathotep ... and shadowed on the screen .. I saw the world battling blackness ... the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end ... and when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest about "imposture" and "static electricity", Nyarlathotep drove us all out ..."
I reiterate my {Chrispy's!} position that Lovecraft always plays the scientist-adventurer in his fiction. I have searched and can find nothing that shows a lecture or film at Brown University or anywhere else that HPL might have met Tesla. In any event, that is not the point. He had many newspaper articles that he could have used as fertile fodder.
Tesla certainly knew electricity, and had a reputation for drama. He believed in death rays, martians, and apocalypse. Lovecraft has several notablke runins with folks ignorant of pure, cold logic and science. He mocked a group of folks on the street who thought that Venus was an airplane (and wrote a letter to the editor to tell everyone else) and a few times ridiculed Percival Lowell's idea of martians and their canals. (Though early on he believed in water on Mars too).
Much More.
No comments:
Post a Comment