{"id":47715,"date":"2021-05-13T05:02:58","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T02:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tentaclii.wordpress.com\/?p=47715"},"modified":"2021-05-13T05:02:58","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T02:02:58","slug":"review-a-monster-of-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2021\/05\/13\/review-a-monster-of-voices\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: A Monster Of Voices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Neal Monks has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfcrowsnest.info\/a-monster-of-voices-speaking-for-h-p-lovecraft-by-robert-h-waugh-book-review\/\">a new and long review<\/a> of Robert H. Waugh&#8217;s collection <em>A Monster Of Voices: Speaking for H.P. Lovecraft<\/em>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Initially, he argues, there\u2019s something to be said for Lovecraft as a surrealist, but Waugh observes that his writing style is closer to that of Tolkien. In particular, where [C.S.] Lewis [<em>Narnia<\/em> books] was very precise in his language, favouring short, clear sentences and convincing arguments, Lovecraft, like Tolkien, always has more to say.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes, there is a similarity. Tolkien uses a lapidary method that I call &#8220;Tolkien&#8217;s tantalizing teasing&#8221; where he carefully inlays a sub-story across a half-dozen tantalising slivers (e.g. the story\/journey of Boromir from Osgiliath to Rivendell) often made up of asides, offhand remarks, small fragments of fact. The same is done to gradually build up character back-story without actually giving an info-dump (e.g. Sam and his family). The reader must, if he is a good attentive reader, join the slivers together in memory and then add his own imagination. It&#8217;s a potent method, for the right kind of reader. Lovecraft has a similarly tantalising approach to revealing back-story, which also assumes a closely attentive reader who is not skimming the text or barely able to comprehend what is going on (e.g.: the baffled letter-writers to <em>Weird Tales<\/em> or <em>Astounding<\/em>). While attentive close readers could once be counted on to exist in reasonable numbers, they have today become a relatively rare sub-species when compared to the vast size of the thundering herd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neal Monks has a new and long review of Robert H. Waugh&#8217;s collection A Monster Of Voices: Speaking for H.P. &hellip;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2021\/05\/13\/review-a-monster-of-voices\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scholarly-works"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}