DrTestani

I can be very focused in what I do and how I experience the world. Someone once said I am so intense, I’m like a laser beam. When I listen to music, nothing else in the world exists in that moment for me.
When I first listened to John Cage, I had an immediate “I don’t like it” reaction. Then I read some of his written work and believe I developed an understanding of what he may be trying to convey; as this article superbly did.
I brought a cd player outside and listened to one of his pieces (I believe it was ‘Cartridge Music’) with the volume at a moderate level. As I listened, I consciously “added” the ambient sounds around me as part of the John Cage piece. My world expanded, as it was no longer “Me + Music”, but “Me + All Sound”. A new way to listen to music. A new way to experience the world. John Cage expanded my choices on how to be.

I agree with your assessment, in that if the change contributes significantly to the story, then it is worth making the change. Otherwise, in my opinion, altering archetypal symbols seems artificial and fabricated. Not sure if my point is clear, but it almost seems like a well established figure becomes stamped into our psyche and changing it ‘willy nilly’ creates some cognitive dissonance. Therefore making a change should be done with care and well thought out reasoning.

Excellent review. In my humble opinion, what stands out about Lovecraft’s works is that he focuses his efforts on describing the narrator’s (and thus often the reader’s) physiological and emotional experience, while often neglecting descriptors of the “monster”. I believe this is a significant variable that maximizes the medium of literature and makes his work virtually untranslatable to other mediums, particularly movies which most have been pale approximations of his stories.