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A review by kurtwombat
Lovecraft by Hans Rodionoff
4.0
I have often thought about reading H. P. Lovecraft. Not knowing if I would be repulsed or intrigued, I have yet to cross the line. Recently, however, some facsimile of him appeared before my eyes. Late last Halloween evening I was looking for something to read before sleeping. Too lazy to rustle up my glasses, I grabbed this book blindly off the shelf. I wrinkled my brow at the chance and fell into bed reading. I was immediately drawn in. Origin stories always intrigue—the origin of madness even more so. Lovecraft as a person appears to have run the gamut from unseemly to unsavory to unforgivable. This story offers how he sympathetically might have reached that place—and where the worlds he “created” might have sprung from. Childhood trauma germinates into adult horror obliterating the life he might have had. The story kind of slithers along—events happen or may not happen—Lovecraft ages but may not mature. Is anything real. The story is well paced and inventive and smothers when you almost catch your breath. The art work has a nice contrast. The presentation of Lovecraft manages an almost endearing caricature that is then set upon by the wildly imaginative art of Lovecraft’s worst fears. The art managing to be both indistinct and ominous, billowing as if the laws of this world don’t apply—instead answering to the demands of another. It all ends in devastation. A nice late night ride. I picked the book randomly but in the middle of reading, I remembered someone earlier in the day asked me out of nowhere if I had heard of Providence. It was odd then…stranger later when I began reading about possibly it's most famous scion.