Poe vs Lovecraft

Watching the very eerie trailer for "Cthulu" the other day made me want to read Lovecraft. I've never read his work before, although I had a feeling I would really enjoy it. So I picked up "The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Stories," and I've been going through those. Lovecraft came after Poe and Beirce, so his works are influenced by both authors.

The main thing I feel from Lovecraft's work is his technical expertise with the short story. Like an expert saucier, he knows exactly what words and more importantly, thier flavors, to use to achieve a definate mood. The way his stories jump around from more macabre to demonic to abstract, it seems as though he enjoys wearing different hats while he writes. Lovecraft imagines himself to be a madman when writing about deranged scientists, while Poe was a madman. That's the wonderful thing about Poe, when you read his work, you see the world through his eyes as bleak and nihilistic, and the truly dark things in life are what is found within. Lovecraft portrays a world which hides true evil at its core, where unmentionable darkness lurks within the walls.

Its that kind of suspense which makes Lovecraft really fun for me- its like he's peeling back the corners of the world and hinting at a parallel reality of dark mechanisms and powerful alien forces at play. Lovecraft writes about the monster under the bed, Poe writes about the monster under the covers. Lovecraft also loves his craft, he's a book man's book man. His characters come across and puzzle over other stories; his books are filled with other books, some real and others figments of his imagination. Poe's stories gain authenticity and depth from his own tragically warped mind, while Lovecraft goes in the opposite direction, inventing books and legends to support his stories.