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Though H. P. Lovecraft is famed mostly for the influential body of short fiction he left behind, he was also one of the most prolific correspondents of his time, the author of more than 100,000 letters. Undiscovered and unpublished until now, The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men is the last letter that Lovecraft wrote, finishing it just days before his death on March 15, 1937. This edition features extensive notes from the editor, Gabriel Blackwell.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From the Back Cover:
"Gabriel Blackwell is a madman. He channels the eldritch paranoia of H.P. Lovecraft so well that this book practically shudders in your fingers. Come to read the 'last letter' of the Master from Providence, Rhode Island but stay for an introduction to Gabriel Blackwell, a master in the making. The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men is literary gamesmanship of the highest order and a damn good companion in the darkest hours of the night."
-Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver
"It's difficult to know if Blackwell is a sharp editor, a stone-faced ventriloquist, someone possessed by the ghost of Lovecraft, or all three. The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men is a startling investigation of the evanescence of the self. It's not so much that it will leave you changed as that it will leave you nameless and wandering."
-Brian Evenson, author of Immobility
"The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men is fiendishly clever, endlessly byzantine, and brilliantly tongue-in-cheek-in-cheek. In this book, Blackwell has essentially invented a new genre, the inverted quest: having started at the Holy Grail, the seeker works his way backward into mental and spiritual derailment. Gabriel Blackwell tips his hat not only to Lovecraft, but also to Thomas Bernhard, Samuel Beckett, David Foster Wallace, and anyone who's ever explored the dark horrors (and humor) in the suffocating inferno of the self's banalities."
-Amber Sparks, author of May We Shed These Human Bodies
"The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men is a literary puzzle-box far more intelligent, transgressive, and compellingly creepy than many who dwell in Lovecraft's shadow could ever have hoped of crafting, and comes as an easy recommendation to those daring to explore cosmic horrors eclipsing startling shapes and simple scares."
-Ross E. Lockhart, editor of The Book of Cthulhu I & II and Tales of Jack the Ripper
Review:
-Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver
"It's difficult to know if Blackwell is a sharp editor, a stone-faced ventriloquist, someone possessed by the ghost of Lovecraft, or all three. The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men is a startling investigation of the evanescence of the self. It's not so much that it will leave you changed as that it will leave you nameless and wandering."
-Brian Evenson, author of Immobility
"The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men is fiendishly clever, endlessly byzantine, and brilliantly tongue-in-cheek-in-cheek. In this book, Blackwell has essentially invented a new genre, the inverted quest: having started at the Holy Grail, the seeker works his way backward into mental and spiritual derailment. Gabriel Blackwell tips his hat not only to Lovecraft, but also to Thomas Bernhard, Samuel Beckett, David Foster Wallace, and anyone who's ever explored the dark horrors (and humor) in the suffocating inferno of the self's banalities."
-Amber Sparks, author of May We Shed These Human Bodies
"The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men is a literary puzzle-box far more intelligent, transgressive, and compellingly creepy than many who dwell in Lovecraft's shadow could ever have hoped of crafting, and comes as an easy recommendation to those daring to explore cosmic horrors eclipsing startling shapes and simple scares."
-Ross E. Lockhart, editor of The Book of Cthulhu I & II and Tales of Jack the Ripper
"What Gary Lutz has been doing at the level of sentences and words, Blackwell is doing at the level of stories, essays, and novels."
-Green Mountains Review
"The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men is an utterly terrifying book. While one might expect the prescribed distance of the meta-textual frame, and the faux-academic conceit of an annotated edition to somehow soften the terror of insanity and the disgusting squalor and physical decay described both in Lovecraft's letter and Blackwell's notes, the novel's structure and tone serve only to heighten the terror and disgust."
-The Fiddleback
"As with the best books that use a dubious editor to call into question every word of a document, in particular Nabokov's Pale Fire, a surreal moment is inevitable for any reader of Natural Dissolution: when you forget whose story you're reading, Blackwell's or Lovecraft's. . . . The book thus infects readers just as Lovecraft's letter does Blackwell, just as Blackwell's ancestor's letter did Lovecraft, calling into question the stability of the written word as a whole."
-Tarpaulin Sky
"[The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men] isn't just a pastiche of Lovecraft . . . Horror gets deconstructed and Lovecraft is retrofitted in a work that is less concerned with categorization than the 'dissolution' of existence. Experience itself becomes suspect as does the scholarship of pain."
-HTMLGIANT
-Green Mountains Review
"The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men is an utterly terrifying book. While one might expect the prescribed distance of the meta-textual frame, and the faux-academic conceit of an annotated edition to somehow soften the terror of insanity and the disgusting squalor and physical decay described both in Lovecraft's letter and Blackwell's notes, the novel's structure and tone serve only to heighten the terror and disgust."
-The Fiddleback
"As with the best books that use a dubious editor to call into question every word of a document, in particular Nabokov's Pale Fire, a surreal moment is inevitable for any reader of Natural Dissolution: when you forget whose story you're reading, Blackwell's or Lovecraft's. . . . The book thus infects readers just as Lovecraft's letter does Blackwell, just as Blackwell's ancestor's letter did Lovecraft, calling into question the stability of the written word as a whole."
-Tarpaulin Sky
"[The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men] isn't just a pastiche of Lovecraft . . . Horror gets deconstructed and Lovecraft is retrofitted in a work that is less concerned with categorization than the 'dissolution' of existence. Experience itself becomes suspect as does the scholarship of pain."
-HTMLGIANT
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherCivil Coping Mechanisms
- Publication date2013
- ISBN 10 1937865142
- ISBN 13 9781937865146
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages194
- Rating
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