H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)
Photo c.1934 from the Archives of
Brown University / Associated Press
There are several good reasons to love master of weird fiction H. P. Lovecraft, many of which are presented by Michel Houellebecq in his highly recommended study entitled Against the World, Against Life (2006).
Primarily, however, it's because of passages such as the following, written in a letter to a friend, in which Lovecraft amusingly sets out his case against religion:
"So far I have seen nothing which could possibly give me the notion that cosmic force is the manifestation of a mind and will like my own infinitely magnified; a potent and purposeful consciousness which deals individually and directly with the miserable denizens of a wretched little flyspeck ... and which singles this putrid excrescence out as the one spot where to send an onlie-begotten Son, whose mission is to redeem those accursed fly-speck inhabiting lice which we call human beings ... It is all so very childish. I cannot help taking exception to a philosophy that would force this rubbish down my throat. 'What have I against religion?' That is what I have against it!"
- H. P. Lovecraft, A Letter on Religion, written to Maurice W. Moe (1918).
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