Comments on: JGB vs HPL

By: maaqf

maaqf — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:22:41 +0000

‘The Illuminated Man’ can be found in J. G. Ballard: The Complete Short Stories(Flamingo, 2001) as well as the earlier anthology The Terminal Beach (Penguin, (1964) reprinted 1974).

As a devoted student of both Ballard and Lovecraft I find the attempt to draw links and parallels between them fascinating. Certainly, Lovecraft’s notion of ‘cosmic horror’ can be observed in the writings of later authors such as Ballard. Central to the Lovecraftian worldview was the rejection of the significance of humanity on a cosmic scale. The blasphemous notion that the origins of humanity may be no more than a joke or mistake by a more powerful entity is explored in Lovecraft’s ‘At the Mountains of Madness’. Ballard has explored related notions in some of his stories.

By: Ross Balcom

Ross Balcom — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 05:48:50 +0000

By the way, “numenous” is correctly spelled “numinous.”

By: Ross Balcom

Ross Balcom — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 05:45:23 +0000

I’ve read “The Illuminated Man” (in fact, I have the issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction—May 1964—in which it originally appeared). Ballard expanded on the story’s concept in his novel THE CRYSTAL WORLD. Does “The Illuminated Man” appear in any of Ballard’s short story collections? If so, which collection? I’ve only seen it in that issue of F&SF.

By: Andy Best

Andy Best — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 07:17:48 +0000

Have followed the HPL stuff with interest. I came to his books as a teen through the RPG of his universe “Call of Cthulhu”.

However, a brief period of research into his life, views and other works explain a lot about the stories. To look as his texts purely from their visual imagery and narrative as you find them – in relation to other sci-fi – is highly misleading.

Check it out.