The irony is that, at least regarding his letter-writing, Lovecraft was very talkative indeed the only reason we laymen even know about Lovecraft is because he formed several connections that proved valuable for preserving his work after his death. You may notice for instance, especially in his later stories, that Lovecraft hates writing dialogue and will do anything to get around having to write basic human conversation. But Lovecraft, IN MY OPINION, can also be pretty boring and full of himself, never mind his other limitations. Lovecraft, when he’s really up my alley, is pretty good: “The Rats in the Walls,” “Cool Air,” and “The Shadow Out of Time” are all bangers for me, with that last one especially standing out for its marrying of cosmic wonder with an equally strong dose of cosmic anxiety. Lovecraft, even though I’ve read a good portion of his work at this point and have liked some of it. But all these precautions came late in the day, so that Gilman had some terrible hints from the dreaded Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred, the fragmentary Book of Eibon, and the suppressed Unaussprechlicken Kulten of von Junzt to correlate with his abstract formulae on the properties of space and the linkage of dimensions known and unknown.(Cover by Margaret Brundage. Moreover, they had stopped him from consulting the dubious old books on forbidden secrets that were kept under lock and key in a vault at the university library. The professors at Miskatonic had urged him to slacken up, and had voluntarily cut down his course at several points. Something in the air of the hoary town worked obscurely on his imagination. Gilman came from Haverhill, but it was only after he had entered college in Arkham that he began to connect his mathematics with the fantastic legends of elder magic. Non-Euclidean calculus and quantum physics are enough to stretch any brain, and when one mixes them with folklore, and tries to trace a strange background of multi-dimensional reality behind the ghoulish hints of the Gothic tales and the wild whispers of the chimney-corner, one can hardly expect to be wholly free from mental tension. Possibly Gilman ought not to have studied so hard.
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