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Mike (the Paladin)'s Reviews > The House on the Borderland
The House on the Borderland
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I am a great "fan" of H.P. Lovecraft...yet in most cases when I read books or works from authors that are credited as influences on him, I'm not that taken. The same is true here.
The young men arrive in the village where they aren't exactly welcomed...and eventually find themselves in the sinister house in the sinister place reading the sinister manuscript. Apparently the writer had at some point suffered a very bad experience with pork... The book does manage to build a certain amount of darkness and despair into the atmosphere, but in the end it left me cold and I skimmed my way through it.
I don't know, possibly I'm a bit jaded...still, it's not horrible (wait a minute...given the type of book this is it might have been striving to be "horrible" in one sense, do you think?)...anyway, I've read worse. I'll go 2 stars instead of 1.
The young men arrive in the village where they aren't exactly welcomed...and eventually find themselves in the sinister house in the sinister place reading the sinister manuscript. Apparently the writer had at some point suffered a very bad experience with pork... The book does manage to build a certain amount of darkness and despair into the atmosphere, but in the end it left me cold and I skimmed my way through it.
I don't know, possibly I'm a bit jaded...still, it's not horrible (wait a minute...given the type of book this is it might have been striving to be "horrible" in one sense, do you think?)...anyway, I've read worse. I'll go 2 stars instead of 1.
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Simon
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rated it 4 stars
Jun 22, 2010 12:46AM
You're definitely jaded Mike!
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I'm beginning to think so..... :)
I agree with Mike in one respect, that I'm not very taken with many of Lovecraft's influences including this one. However, from what I've read of WHH's works, this is one of his better ones.
I still have this on my to read list purely because Lovecraft and a few others have praised it, but somehow I have the feeling i'll probably agree with you on this one. Especially since I've skimmed a few pages of it.
I'm a Lovecraft fan (found him back in the '70s I believe as I was looking for early fantasy and horror writers). That's why I searched this out. A lot of people like it. I "wasn't so taken with". :)
Not from me...I'd be lying. For me the book was almost a 1 star read. The "extra" star is the nod to the fact that I realize the writing was probably "good" in the objective sense and that I know others really like the book. I have to rate books the way the experience is for me or I don't relate my experience. What if you tend to agree or disagree with me on most books? If you generally disagree...here you know you'd probably like the book....
:)
I corrected something I saw in the review. I originally reviewed this in 2010.
I gave this one a three and could see where HPL gained inspiration. Some good creepy factors and the HG Wells time warp was a cool affectation considering when it was written.
Just read my first Lovecraft this week, so I'm no expert, but he seems easy to copy, but hard to emulate (if you get my meaning)
He's been copied and emulated a lot. When I read people saying that they've read "the kind of thing" Lovecraft writes elsewhere it sort of cracks me up as he was so new when he wrote. He sort of has an entire school of horror fiction that grew out of his writing, especially the "Cthulhu mythos" stories.
This novel is more inspired than anything from Lovecraft. A truly unique work, that stands tall in the canon of weird fiction.
Humm, well to each their own. Tastes differ.
When you say a "bad experience with pork", I feel that I should assume you don't mean food poisoning. 🤨
Your comment about people saying that they've read "the kind of thing" Lovecraft writes reminds me of when the Lord of the Rings movies came out. People said it was good, but the ranger, the hobbits, the elves, and dwarves were so "typical". That it followed a formula that shows up in so many other fantasy books with the races of the same name, the journey to find treasure, the evil wizard, and dragon, etc, etc... All you can do is slap your forehead and try to be civil as your explain Tolkien invented these things. He is copying no one, everyone else has copied him! Not only that he went as far as to make the other languages learnable in a way you can speak Elvish (for example) as any other language.
Tolkien invented fantasy as we know it today.
Sorry a rant showed up in my brain and ended up on your page. Feel free to delete if you think it's inappropriate. This happens to me more frequently these days; the ranting, not the deleting, so far.
I think it has to do with many things going on in my life right now. Maybe I feel that I need to bee seen or that my (hopefully well) argued or articulated writing matters to someone.
...cool.:)
