How is it possible that the feverish works of a writer who died in poverty and obscurity more than 80 years ago still matter?

And yet they do matter, and to a growing number of fans and admirers. Here are three recent takes on Lovecraft’s continuing popularity, all from vastly different points of view, though they agree Howard Phillips Lovecraft has something to say to modern audiences.

Cosmic Horror: A Study of the Unknowable, by B.K. Bass

Many modern authors have found inspiration in Lovecraft’s fiction. B.K. Bass, who writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror, acknowledges Lovecraft as a “primary influence.” What distinguishes Lovecraft’s “Cosmic Horror” from other genres, says Bass, is

that it plucks at the strings connected to two fears that arguably every person shares: fear of the unknown and fear of insignificance. Lovecraft himself may have said it best when he said that “it is hard to create a convincing picture of shattered natural law or cosmic alienage…without laying stress on the emotion of fear.”

The Emotional Rise of Cosmic Horror, by Mary Beth McAndrews

After giving due recognition to Lovecraft’s profound role in crafting and defining Cosmic Horror, Mary Beth McAndrews explores the best cinematic homages to the Cosmic Horror tradition. Her comments about Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s 2017 film The Endless perfectly capture the existential possibilities of the genre. (Here’s my review of The Endless.) McAndrews argues the genre is not nihilistic, but instead opens our eyes to a world where we forge our own meaning and love in an unfeeling and severe universe.

Well put. I would add that like Albert Camus’ absurdist fiction, Lovecraft’s works proclaim that the terrors and uncertainties of this world require us to discover and hold tight to whatever ties and aspirations that give our lives meaning. As Lovecraft himself once wrote, “All one can logically do is to jog placidly and cynically on, according to the artificial standards and traditions with which heredity and environment have endowed him. He will get most satisfaction in the end by keeping faithful to these things.”

Toward a Theory of the New Weird, by Elvia Wilk

The enduring truth and vitality of an art form is reflected in how successive generations adapt it to their own experiences and worldviews. Elvia Wilk says this of Lovecraft’s all-too-relevant insights:

That discomforting implication of the limits of the human mind and the potential dissolution of the category Humanity makes Lovecraft’s fiction seem like a precursor to the contemporary awareness of the Anthropocene age. In an era defined by the planetary catastrophe of anthropogenic climate change, discussions of Lovecraft have come into prominence in philosophy, literature, and the arts. The horror of the archaic sea creature coming back to claim its due is a narrative (too) easy to map onto our current moment.

After all, it was Lovecraft who warned that the sciences, rather than ushering in Utopia, would open up “terrifying vistas of reality” upon us. Judging by our current predicament, I’d say he had a point.