h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When I was an adolescent I read everything Lovecraft wrote. I especially enjoyed his novellas--prolonging the gory Lovecraft experience into an rainy-day afternoon of horror. A few years ago I went back and re-read his works. Oh my God, what crap. His writing style is so incredibly over-the-top its laughable. If it had the slightest element of humor it would be wonderfully campy, like the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It just goes to show one should never take oneself too seriously.

Can't say i agree with all that. It's subjective of course, but perhaps you are not reading all of his works (short stories included). Not all of them are intended to scare, many are simply journeys of some fashion. Because you are not scared (since you are older now than you were it is not extraordinary) doesn't bear on his works, just that perhaps you are looking for the wrong things in his novels. Once again it is subjective, so (almost) all views are valid.

His writing shouldn't be criticised so much. Lovecraft did not receive a great education, he more or less educated himself by reading as much as he could. The language is reflective of authors from the Victorian period, so yes the language does not fit in with today's speech but the stories and the mythology behind them were so well put together.