another Chandler/Lovecraft contrast

As Joshi rightly observes, characterization is the “weakest” aspect of Lovecraft’s fiction. I put “weakest” in scare quotes only because I think Lovecraft’s stories would be ruined by detailed psychological portraits of his narrators. Houllebecq is right to say that the function of Lovecraft’s characters is merely to observe in disbelief the horrors unfolding around them. Hence any quiet, nervously fragile academic will work as well as the next in any Lovecraft story. I’m not sure that Poe’s characters are any better in this respect.

By contrast, Chandler’s writing is almost nothing but its central character– detective Philip Marlowe. Whenever I pull a volume of Chandler off the shelf for another reread, it’s because I feel like spending time with Marlowe.

Since there’s already that “Scream for Jeeves” parody combining Lovecraft with Wodehouse, maybe just for fun I’ll try a short parody of Philip Marlowe investigating a gambling house in Bay City and uncovering unspeakable cosmic horrors.

Yeah, that’ll be my hobby for the next few months. A 20-page Chandler/Lovecraft story. If it works out well I’ll post it here somewhere. Maybe “Farewell, My Eldritch Lovely” or something along those lines.