Anyone watching Lovecraft Country on HBO?

[Ilsa]

I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Scary paranormal genre, but the scariest part is 1950s jim crow America. The music is fantastic.

I haven't read the book.

[Behind the Aegis]

1. My husband and I are watching it.

This last episode, "Holy Ghost", was fucking awesome!

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Yes

I'm not a sci fi type person - but I'm loving the off the wall wacky paranormal stuff.

Music, Costumes, sets, and acting is fantastic.

Sunday night's episode was CRAZY!

[murielm99]

3. No.

I read the book.

[Aristus]

4. I'm thinking about taking a look at it.

I'm a huge Lovecraft fan (not the racism; just everything else).

So I want to know: is it Lovecraftian? Or did they just stick his name on something completely unrelated in order to hoodwink his fans into watching it?

[Ilsa]

7. If feels Lovecraftian to me.

But my experience with Lovecraft is limited to some poems and a short story or two.

[rickyhall]

12. Seems very Lovecraftian to me. I like it.

Years ago I found a box of Lovecraft short story collections with no covers. I never heard of him before but really got into his writings. Too me its much like Poe mixed with Verne. Poe's weird ideas with Verne's imaginative narrative style.

[sweetloukillbot]

5. Loving it.

It's changed a few things in the book (some quite significantly), but it is capturing the spirit of book quite well. The changes in the last episode from the book improved on it. Still not sure about the changes in the second episode though, we'll see.

[yonder]

6. Are they H.P. Lovecraft stories set to the modern day or Lovecraft-like stories?

I wish we had a way to view as his work is on the top of my list for that genre since first discovering his work many years ago.

[Aristus]

8. I woudn't want to see a Lovecraft story set in modern-day America.

He set his stories in the 1920's and 1930's in which he lived. Back then, the eerie, remote, isolated, rotting little towns in which his stories are usually set were much more common than they are today.

[yonder]

11. "....eerie, remote, isolated, rotting little towns", populated by eerie, isolated, rotting people.

I'd argue some places today are still like that or returning to that sort of mindset.

[Aristus]

13. I had just posted that when I remembered a little place where I stayed while doing my hospitalist

rotation in PA School: Montesano, Washington. It's where the student lodging was for people doing a rotation at Grays Harbor County Hospital. Despite being the county seat, it was a strange, spooky little burg. Perpetual overcast, constant drizzle, pervasive smell of mold and mildew, rotting little wooden houses leaning precariously to one side or the other, empty streets, etc.

One got the impression people were staring at you from behind the curtains in their houses. The place could have given Twin Peaks a lesson in eerie.

I was glad to leave that place for good.

It would make the perfect modern-day setting for a Lovecraft story...

[yonder]

15. How was the food?

He sure had a way of setting the stage.

[Aristus]

16. There was a Mexican place and an Italian place. Both passable, nothing more.

I used to eat up and scurry back to the student lodging as quickly as I could. I locked my door and spent the rest of the evenings either studying or hanging out online. Anything to take me away from that pestilential little town for a while...

[Ilsa]

9. There is a book called Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff that is the basis

for the show. Some of it feels like Lovecraft, other times it feels like True Blood. The acting and the music are phenomenal. It's 1950s, but they aren't playing Frankie Laine or Bing Crosby or Rock Around the Clock.

[yonder]

10. Thanks for the info.

[Kind of Blue]

14. I thought HBO's Watchmen did a good job in the mix of horror/racism genre.

But I enjoy the extra bonus of thinking that the violently racist Lovecraft is spinning in his grave.

On the Creation of Ni**ers (1912)
by H. P. Lovecraft

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove’s fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th’Olympian host conceiv’d a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Ni**er.

[Nay]

17. I knew he was a racist, but what a godawful poem!! I am enjoying the show

partially because the black people are the heroes, but the story has been good, too.

[Kind of Blue]

18. Yes, indeed the story has been good and I didn't know it was a book!

A few years ago, Prof. Nnedi Okorafor, a Nigerian-American author and winner of the World Fantasy Award, a prestigious literary prize for fantastical fiction, wrote in her African-futurism blog of her conflict of receiving the WFA trophy modeled after Lovecraft himself, "I knew of Lovecraft’s racial issues, anti-Semitism, etc., but I never knew it was this serious. How strong the sentiment must have been within his soul for him to sit down and write that poem. This wasn’t racism metaphorically or abstractly rearing its ugly head within a piece of fiction, this was specific and focused.

Anyway, a statuette of this racist man’s head is in my home. A statuette of this racist man’s head is one of my greatest honors as a writer. A statuette of this racist man’s head sits beside my Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and my Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award (an award given to the best speculative fiction by a person of color). I’m conflicted.

I too am deeply honored to win the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. It feels so so so right and so so good. The award’s jury was clearly progressive and looking in a new direction. I am the first black person to win the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel since its inception in 1975. Lovecraft is probably rolling in his grave. Or maybe, having become spirit, his mind has cleared of the poisons and now understands the err of his ways. Maybe he is pleased that a book set in and about Africa in the future has won an award crafted in his honor. Yeah, I'll go with that image."http://nnedi.blogspot.com/2011/12/lovecrafts-racism-world-fantasy-award.html

Yes. I'll go with that, too. It's just too delicious knowing Lovecraft basically inventing the disturbing horror genre is used to reveal the very meaning of horror by awesome writers helping to upend racism I Love it!

[JustAnotherGen]

21. Wonderful

I remember that. I was hesitant to watch because of the title - but I kind of LOVE the big old finger it flips at Lovecraft.

[Kind of Blue]

22. Yes, indeed! When I saw the teasers and found Jordan Peele is one of the producers, well, you know.

[femmocrat]

19. Yes! I am really enjoying it.

I’m not a fan of horror movies, but the acting is terrific and the 1950s setting is very compelling. I love the two main characters, Tic and Leti.

[JustAnotherGen]

20. Episode 4

I love the show even more.

The nods to the horrors of colonialism and the violence inflicted on transgender/intersex human beings.

Will say nothing else until tomorrow for folks on the West Coast.

And my inner 11 year old felt like I was searching for one eyed Willy!

[Kind of Blue]

23. Good rundown of The Hidden Black History of Lovecraft Country

I'm sure most if not all of the history is new to you.

In the first four episodes, the protagonists manage to vanquish poltergeists, vampire blobs, zombies, and other assorted supernatural horrors with logic, intelligence and research. But white supremacy is the inescapable, ever-present ghoul that haunts the show. The show’s not-so-subtle subtext is that trauma inflicted by white people is infinitely more dangerous than any metaphysical menace we can imagine.

While the monsters in Lovecraft Country are reportedly based on racist writer H.P. Lovecraft’s science fiction novels, many viewers aren’t aware of how the show references real history to illustrate the horrors of white supremacy (A character named “Bobo” makes cameos in two episodes, a reference to Emmett Till, who would have been a 12-year-old living in Chicago during this time).

https://www.theroot.com/where-white-people-are-scarier-than-monsters-the-hidde-1845000536?utm_source=theroot_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020-09-11