Loved this! It’s funny, you note the influence of Lovecraft here, which is correct, yet Vandermeer has frequently said that he doesn’t care for Lovecraft, and doesn’t consider his work influential on his own. I do think that Lovecraft espouses a kind of nihilism that Vandermeer; as you note, Vandermeer takes genuine joy & awe in the natural world, which Lovecraft never would.
Oh yeah. They are very different writers and I know JVD doesn’t like him very much, but there’s a ton of Lovecraft in Annihilation, in particular, even if it may come to him filtered through others.
Loved this! It’s funny, you note the influence of Lovecraft here, which is correct, yet Vandermeer has frequently said that he doesn’t care for Lovecraft, and doesn’t consider his work influential on his own. I do think that Lovecraft espouses a kind of nihilism that Vandermeer; as you note, Vandermeer takes genuine joy & awe in the natural world, which Lovecraft never would.
Oh yeah. They are very different writers and I know JVD doesn’t like him very much, but there’s a ton of Lovecraft in Annihilation, in particular, even if it may come to him filtered through others.