I haven’t been through S.T. Joshi’s work on HPL’s life in a while, so I decided to undertake his massive tome, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life. Joshi’s work stands as the definitive effort to fully integrate and set the record straight on many points of HPL’s many facets. He comes off as a little of an apologist for some HPL’s greater errors on matters such as class and race, but he at least effectively deals with these issues and extensively works though HPL’s New York odyssey. What brings Joshi’s biography into its own is his exhaustive work to correlate HPL’s life with his philosophy and the influences on HPL’s work. It’s a facinating read at nearly 700 pages and is by far the most effective biography I’ve read of HPL to date.

Just saw the latest DVD from Lurker Films, Pickman’s Model. This disk presents with not one by three versions of the story! The featured presentation is from Chilean Director Ricardo Harrington and gives us a modern, if somewhat distinctively Latin interpretation of the story. It is a rich, primal version of the story, loaded with mood and animal fear. On the other end of the spectrum, we have an Austinite Cathy Welch’s version, shot in black and white and while modernized to the 1980’s, attempts to remain more faithful to the original Lovecraft story, though is marred by unexceptional acting on part of titler character. To round out the offerings is Giovanni Furore’s Italian version of the story with rich sets, professional photography and lighting, and decent acting. Bonuses include Geoffrey Clark’s animated version of In the Vault and Djie Han Thung’s surreal Between the Stars.