Finally, let's dive on things that I truly love.
Lovecraft is one of my favorite authors. Not much for his work, which I understand, it's not always that good, it's deeply racist and sometimes just silly. But the mythos? The mythology he created? That mixture of ancient words, ancient and inhuman gods, sci-fi, pure and abject horror... Oh man. That's pure joy for me.
Talking about Ancient Mysteries, oh boy. I love it. I had read a lot of books on this subject: did a worldwide flood occurred in the past? (Answer: according to a lot of scientists, yes. There's plenty of proof that a comet hit the ice cap around 14.000 years ago and created the Great Flood. No. I don't believe in Noah, but the facts are pretty strong.) Who came to America first? Columbus, Vikings, Greeks or Sumerians? (Hint: all of the above). I love to read this subject. By the way, I'm not a "Ancient Aliens" supporter. I believe in the human race being able to do all of that.
And then, other of my great passions: Conspiracy Theories. Oh boy, how I love it. From the insane and utterly ridiculous (I'm talking to you, Dulce Base believers), to the not that ridiculous and maybe possible (Nazi infiltration on the US? You don't believe? Look for "Operation Paperclip", "Nazi bell" and the ties between IBM, Hugo Boss, Ford and the Nazi Party. Just google it. You would be shocked) to the dark and gritty cover ups that where proven, or close to it (MK Ultra, Operation North Woods, and if you have the stomach, the Franklin Cover up. I'll be back on the later with a book review).
Don't get me as a crazy tin hat conspirator. I have common sense, a great deal of critical thinking and a logical nature. I don't buy shit easily. But that there's a lot of weird stuff happening, all over the world, all the time, oh. I can assure you that.
Don't get me as a crazy tin hat conspirator. I have common sense, a great deal of critical thinking and a logical nature. I don't buy shit easily. But that there's a lot of weird stuff happening, all over the world, all the time, oh. I can assure you that.
This brings me to this book.
(One of the greatest, but not The Greatest Podcasts Ever. That honor lies with the freaks from The Last Podcast on the Left. Love you Ben, Marcus and Henry. Hail Satan!)
BUT, sometimes some great stuff appears. Damn, lots of times.
Like this guy.
The author of this book.
Peter Levenda.
I'll probably review another book from this guy, since some of his non-fiction books interest me. Yeah, I like it ok? The Nine? WTF was that? The Nazi infiltration in South America? I'm from Brazil, where Mengele died. I visited his freakish twin city... It was weird as hell.
But now, let's address this book.
He mixed Lovecraft with Conspiracy theories and Ancient Mysteries. How could I resist??
I found and read this book as soon as I could get my hands on.
And... well, it's complicated.
Let me address the elephant in the room: no. Lovecraft never believed in his work. He created it all. He was an atheist. But damn, some of his stuff is spooky enough, like the correlation of his "Call of Cthulhu" dates and the dates of Crowley in one of his biggest rituals. Maybe it was premeditated by Lovecraft, maybe not. Either way its weird.
So... if you are a great fan of Lovecraft, studied his life, (including his growth as a person and how he changed his racists ideas), you will get angry with some parts of the book. I got really angry in a particular point of the book, that kinda linked Lovecraft with some nazi ideas, which at the time, it was the complete opposite: HPL mellowed a fucking lot in the 1930's. The idea of him being antisemitic is complicated. He was married to a jewish woman (which was a bad bad relationship, totally in his fault), he defended some rabbi on his letters, was great friends with Loveman (who was jewish) and at the same time that he called Hitler a clown, he liked some of his ideas. I know, ok? HPL was a racist, but so what? In his time, most people were. I'm not justifying, just stating the obvious. Lots of people were racist. Are we going to refute all their work? Remember that most medical discovery where made by torture in concentration camps in China and Germany. I don't care if he was a racist. His work is amazing.
And the way Levenda displayed him, wasn't nice. Not nice at all.
In general, I really disliked the portrait of HPL in this book.
And since I listened a lot of interviews with Levenda and know that he is aware of what I said above, it makes me a bit resentful of the author.
Alright. Now that I take it off my chest, let's discuss it.
The book is good. Surprisingly so.
The amount of real information in it is amazing. Yedizis in a real perspective. Fuck, all of the Middle East is well represented. The area is a total mess. People say that Islam is "one nation under Allah" has no idea what the fuck he's talking about. Islam is a mess. There are sects everywhere, be it open and accept full of the messiah, or simply nodding and keeping their old beliefs under the tunic.
Not only that, the analogy of Cthulhu and the Quadhullu, of Islamic belief is an amazing way to connect Mythos with reality.
But... As a Lovecraftian story? No. No way. No feeling of dread, of unspeakable fear, unnamable things.
If I'm to be honest, it's a mix of a low level Indiana Jones mixed with National Treasure and a hint of Lovecraftian Mythos.
I won't even go into the plot. If I did, you could know the ending way before reaching the middle of the book, like I did.
Overall, I really enjoyed the real history mixed into the fiction.
So much that I decided to read his non-fiction books!
Read it. It's very well researched and a insightful way to look at the Middle East conflicts.
See ya in the desert skies
