On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 11:09:30PM -0700, Merlin Graves <merlin at quickfinger.com> wrote: > > > > You gave him LOVECRAFT and you are complaining that he's too > > > > young for CS Lewis and Vlad??!?!?!?!!! > Lovecraft's not bad for that age group- I went on a Lovecraft binge when I > was about that age and read everything the man ever published (everything > I could find, anywho) No sex, not too terribly graphic (compared to a lot > of the horror out these days), little if any foul language. Good kid fodder, > if my somewhat fragile memory is holding up. Only danger I see if the kid > might do what I did- chase down and try to read the Necronomicon <sp?> I think this is a truly classic example of the modern parenting fallacy -- that is, that sex, foul language, and gore are the arbiters of childworthiness. I concede that Lovecraft did not write much that was focused on those problematic topics. Yet, he DID write about horrifying, supernatural beasts and terrible, scary consequences of man's dealings with those beasts. He wrote about powers gained from pacts with the inhuman, the hopelessness of humanity before an unstoppable force far greater than they could even comprehend. He wrote about the gruesome (if not gorey) consequences of scientific experimentation, and the darkness of the human soul to which we are all occasional victims. Is he a great writer? Hell yes. Is he suitable, or even comprehensible, to an 11 year old? Maybe some, but certainly not most. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt