{"id":665,"date":"2010-08-07T02:08:44","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T23:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tentaclii.wordpress.com\/?p=665"},"modified":"2010-08-07T02:08:44","modified_gmt":"2010-08-06T23:08:44","slug":"vacation-necronomicon-school-assignment-eleven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2010\/08\/07\/vacation-necronomicon-school-assignment-eleven\/","title":{"rendered":"Vacation Necronomicon School \u2013 assignment\u00a0eleven"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/vns.codenamesarah.com\/\">Vacation Necronomicon School<\/a>, summer 2010 reading assignment for 6th August 2010: &#8220;Recommending Lovecraft&#8221;.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Your assignment for today is [ to] explain which story you would recommend to someone unfamiliar with Lovecraft&#8217;s [ literary ] work.  Which story seems most accessible to the new reader? Which do you think makes a good introduction, and why?  Explain in 200 words or less.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>TASK ELEVEN<\/strong>: 6th August 2010.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Cats of Ulthar&#8221;: written 15th June 1920.<\/p>\n<p>I would probably recommend the short story &#8220;The Cats of Ulthar&#8221;, for a newcomer to Lovecraft and to &#8220;weird horror&#8221;.  This perfectly-formed early tale is in Lovecraft&#8217;s dream-cycle, and was one of his personal favourites.  And can one <em>possibly<\/em> be a Lovecraft reader if one dislikes or detests cats?  Affinity for the Felidae is surely the litmus-test Lovecraft himself would have applied to his readers &mdash; had <em>Weird Tales<\/em> ever been printed on a sort of &#8220;psychic paper&#8221; or somesuch. The story&#8217;s geography has a faint Tolkien flavour, and the medieval swamp-gothic atmosphere is somewhat akin to the fantasy RPG videogame <em>The Witcher<\/em> (PC, 2008).  These are surely factors which might encourage a new reader coming to Lovecraft from a diet of quality fantasy media.  The story is also short, the language is clear, and the ending is memorable.  And did I mention it features cats?  Lots of cats.  The mountain-sized unspeakable mountains of slime and wings, and the tentacle-tangles of eldritch language, can all come later on in a reader&#8217;s encounter with Lovecraft.  Bring on the kitties!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vacation Necronomicon School, summer 2010 reading assignment for 6th August 2010: &#8220;Recommending Lovecraft&#8221;. &#8220;Your assignment for today is [ to] &hellip;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2010\/08\/07\/vacation-necronomicon-school-assignment-eleven\/\">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":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summer-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665","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=665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}