Something to aspire to

Every great passion, be it love or hate, will in the end generate an authentic work. One may deplore it, but one must recognise it: Lovecraft was more on the side of hate, of hate and fear. The universe, which intellectually he perceived as being indifferent, became hostile aesthetically. His own existence, which might have been nothing but the sum of banal disappointments, turned into a surgical operation, and an inverted celebration.

The work of his mature years remains faithful to the physical prostration of his youth, transfiguring it. This is the profound secret of Lovecraft's genius, and the pure source of his poetry: he succeeded in transforming his aversion to life into an effective hostility.

To offer an alternative to life in all its forms constitutes a permanent opposition, a permanent recourse to life – this is the poet's highest mission on this earth. Howard Phillips Lovecraft fulfilled this mission.

– Michel Houellebecq, H.P. Lovecraft: Against the world, against life