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Metatextual Wonder

You know you want to go look already

Here’s a snippet of Lovecraft and Alice talking to convince you:

“But this monster is merely the mask of what’s worse —
“The faceless monstrosity of the cold universe!
“The meaninglessness of our bleak situation
“The smallness of Man amidst dark obfuscation!”

“What you say,” ventured Alice, “may be true, in its way,
“Though with ‘nonsense’ for ‘meaninglessness’, if I may
“And for ‘bleak’, I’d put ‘curious’, for it seems so to me
“That the world’s full of wonders, not monstrosity.

It’s fun, and the metatext is lovely. Also, a twist ending!

Tags: benevolent surrealism,lovecraft,poem,things to read

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 11:14 pm and is filed under One-and-done. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Metatextual Wonder”

John L. Taylor Says:
October 8th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
1

This is brilliant– thanks for sharing! You share excellent diversions (Codex Seraphinianus, Russell and Lovecraft on existential horror, Carroll and Lovecraft Mash-up, stick figure crpyto).

I am compelled to respond in kind:

*Cthulhu Chick Tract
*The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
*The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project
*Carl Sagan – ‘A Glorious Dawn’ ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

I hope that you find some of this interesting, or amusing.
John L. Taylor Says:
October 8th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
2

I almost forgot– check out Logicomix if you haven’t already:

Covering a span of sixty years, the graphic novel Logicomix was inspired by the epic story of the quest for the Foundations of Mathematics.

This was a heroic intellectual adventure most of whose protagonists paid the price of knowledge with extreme personal suffering and even insanity. The book tells its tale in an engaging way, at the same time complex and accessible. It grounds the philosophical struggles on the undercurrent of personal emotional turmoil, as well as the momentous historical events and ideological battles which gave rise to them.

The role of narrator is given to the most eloquent and spirited of the story’s protagonists, the great logician, philosopher and pacifist Bertrand Russell. It is through his eyes that the plights of such great thinkers as Frege, Hilbert, Poincaré, Wittgenstein and Gödel come to life, and through his own passionate involvement in the quest that the various narrative strands come together.
Mr. McLaren Says:
October 8th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
3

Hey, thanks for the compliments, and for sharing the links. Two I had seen before, and liked, and the other two are new to me and very interesting.

Logicomix I pre-ordered at my local comic shop–I think I’ll be picking it up next Wednesday. As a big Russell fan, I’m definitely interested.