Tuesday, June 1, 2010

My Favorite All-Time Lovecraftisms

You know, those, antiquated adjectives or quirky twists of a phrase that are so uniquely H.P. Lovecraft:
- cyclopean cities
- sky-flung monoliths
- unnatural geometry
- tottering houses
- gulfs of time
- incomprehensible realms
- unnamable, unmentionable
- undreamable abysses
- swarthy
- eldritch
- Stygian, Phrygian
- leered mockingly
- loathsome tittering
- bloated corpulence
- unhallowed blasphemies
- immemorial lunacy
- shambling forms
- spectral moonlight
- shapeless things
- "The ___ in/of the____"   story titles

What are some of your favorites?

4 comments:

  1. I loved the list. I read it aloud to my baby girl, in a very ominous voice. She'd squeal or gasp at various intervals throughout. I then began reading up on him afterward and am sad that I'd never heard of him prior to this post. Thanks for an interesting lead to research...and of course 2 minutes of entertainment for my little one.

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  2. My favorite Lovecraft selections are whole sentences, ripped out of the climaxes of his stories. They're so beautifully ridiculous, it's breathtaking.

    Like this one from At The Mountains of Madness:

    "The sky above was a churning and opalescent mass of tenuous ice-vapours, and the cold clutched at our vitals."

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  3. You forgot "space-time continuum". I can't count how many times I found it in his stories.

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  4. Don't forget "damnably suggestive!"

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