Getting into Lovecraft

I think you're getting your Lovecraftian races and metaphors mixed.

The Old Ones are Chthulu and his ilk, descendants and servants of the Outer Gods. The Elder Things were the weird plant-animal hybrids that lived in the Antarctic and created the Shoggoths (and they're... oddly enough, the most likely metaphor for white people as the narrator actually empathises with them. Especially over the revolt of their slave race, the Shoggoths).

The people from Innismouth are hybrids between ordinary humans and the never really specified Deep Ones and are generally taken as being driven by a combination of Lovecraft's fear of seafood and miscegenation.

You know, the funniest thing about the works of Lovecraft is that they're based around the fear of the unknown (TM), yet his mythos are so well-known that even a complete layman is likely to know how they generally go.

So, I just started getting into Lovecraft stories and I finished Dagon. My next read will be The Rats in the Walls.

Before I continue, which one is the "Lovecraft Thread", this one or the more recent "Lovecraftian Horror" thread above?

Either works, but this thread is exclusively about Lovecraft's writing.

Cool, this will do then. Anyhow, as I posted in that thread, I'm surprised how it's a lot more comprehensible than I expected from his reputation. Much shorter than expected too.

Edited by dRoy on Nov 20th 2019 at 10:04:20 PM

I recommend these books if you like Cthulhu Mythos fiction written by modern authors.

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2019/08/neo-cthulhu-mythos-book-recommendations.html

Out of all of Lovecraft's creations, I'd say the scariest are the Flying Polyps. These things even scare the shit out of other elder races like the Great Race of Yith.