Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’

[Coa]

Much better article and response to that newyorker drone :
Is Flavorwire

[Druidic]

Regarding the New Yorker review: There should always be room for a dissenting voice. The way the final two episodes unfold will tell us if she’s right or has been simply taken in by her own assumptions of the show’s predictability. As Mads wrote, one could easily have predicted what drove the two detectives apart from early on, but I tended to give TD the benefit of the doubt. I just hoped it wasn’t heading for well-mapped territory. In this instance, I was wrong. I’m hoping the conclusion will deliver but my faith has been shaken.

As for judging works of art by political standards, it happens all the time. I find it deeply regrettable. In the 50’s and 60’s Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook” was regarded quite highly. It appeared in several anthologies and was praised for its unflinching portrait of New York’s dark side. Now Joshi (among others) faults the story as utterly dreadful, Herbert West style dreadful, and sounds just a touch hysterical in the process. Political Correctness has become the yardstick by which today’s critics, when in doubt, gauge the worth of works. The racism is regrettable but as Fritz Leiber pointed out the horror story, unlike science fiction, has a xenophobic little heart; and, given the time when the story was written plus Lovecraft’s disastrous New York exile, the racial element was probably unavoidable. (Doesn’t HPL say somewhere in the story “the dregs of all races” or something like that? I’ll have to check since that would presumably include the white race as well). The story itself has some extremely impressive atmosphere and many fine moments, not the least being a brilliant opening description of an agoraphobic attack.
But back to TD. Two more episodes to go and we’ll see if our faith has been misplaced…or rewarded.

[Speaking Mute]

Quote Originally Posted by MadsPLP

Quote Originally Posted by Speaking Mute I love the show, but it began in familiar territory and will most likely end there. The last episode lagged a bit due to some housecleaning with the story line, but I think Ramonski gave a good a reason for why this is so. From reading elsewhere, it seems like the main complaint is Maggi and Cohle's awkward tryst - I thought it was a nice way to deflate Cohle a bit - he was turning a bit too much into a stoic superman for my taste. I'm only at episode 4, but I thought that anyone would have seen that coming since episode 1?

Predictability seems to be the complaint. My feeling is that the story so far has done enough to incriminate Tuttle that it will be logically problematic if he wasn't somehow involved in the murders - but a lot of people have already written the show off it ends up there because it's too predictable to have Evangelical right-wingers outed as sadistic perverts (this amuses to me no end). One of the best commentaries I've read on the show - which, unfortunately, I can't remember where I read or who it was written by - pointed out that the story's predictability was an integral part of its theme: things turn out bad again and again for the same reasons, people and circumstances do not change, and nothing can be done about it. This interpretation draws the Eternal Recurrence aspect in quite nicely, and renders the show a genuine work of cosmic horror, Yellow King or not.

[Speaking Mute]

I wish I could find said review - it was a nice salvo against Emily Nussbaum, among others.

Nussbaum wrote a hack review so far as I'm concerned. Taken by itself it's innocuous enough, but it's part of a larger trend to shout racism/misogyny at just about any facet of popular culture that gets praised for sophistication. Compare the review to similar complaints raised about Game of Thrones or Lorde's "Royals", and note Malone's point regards Nussbaum's inconsistent standards. I believe the issue is that cultural critics no longer feel comfortable appealing to any sort of broader aesthetics to judge artwork, yet they know their job security is fairly bleak if they're just spouting their own opinions - so they have to bash art on moral/ethical grounds if it rubs them the wrong way.

I've said this before, but I'm personally fed up with the Lovecraft Racism/Misogyny angle as well. Xenophobia shows up in Lovecraft's work - The Horror at Red Hook being the worse offender by far - but its more silly than offensive by modern standards and irrelevant to any current racial issues. Goofy stereotypes about hot-blooded Spaniards, superstitious Italians, and nasty French Canadians aren't swelling the US prison population or filling graves in Florida. We've genuinely become "color blind" enough to European Ethnicity that we needn't constantly censure Lovecraft lest he lead the impressionable youth astray.

[Druidic]

I'm afraid you misunderstood me, Speaking Mute. The Horror at Red Hook is one of my favorite Lovecraft stories; and I've always been irritated by critics like Joshi who disregard it so contemptuously...

[Speaking Mute]

I'm not sure how the portion about Lovecraft came across as a disagreement; that wasn't the intention.

[teguififthzeal]

I don't think most viewers realize the actual extent of the bleakness (by "most viewers", I don't mean the people on this thread). The Sopranos (though the Shield in my opinion was much more bleak and more of a predecessor to "True Detective") always hinted at a "Big Nothing", but David Chase put an anodyne on it in one way or another. This series does not. It is the culmination of everything the darker HBO series have hinted at and been afraid to actually come and say.

[Druidic]

After making some unflattering remarks regarding the TV show, “The Following”, I found myself reflecting that these days are a little special for lovers of traditional horror fiction; and the Special comes in two time honored flavors: Good and Bad.

On one hand, we have True Detective giving shout outs to Lovecraft, Ligotti, Chambers and Barron; and on the other, we have the hopelessly dreadful “The Following” blaspheming the memory of Edgar Poe by the absurdity of a serial killer college professor, obsessed by Edgar’s works, and leading a cult dedicated to nasty Poe-esque murders. (The cult seems to have more people than the whole state of Rhode Island).

Two detective shows, as far apart in quality as it can get, but both centering on some of the greatest iconic figures of supernatural literature.

Man, that’s a weird tale for you.

As for me, I’m trying to pitch something new and fresh to the suits:
See this body builder (who is really a psycho killer) is in a car crash and due to resultant brain damage believes he’s Robert E. Howard and this big guy starts a gory new career of evil with a broadsword. Only one man can stop him: This black drug-addled horror writer who suffers Multiple Personality Disorder and believes he’s really H. P. Lovecraft…

[MadsPLP]

Quote Originally Posted by Speaking Mute

Quote Originally Posted by MadsPLP Quote Originally Posted by Speaking Mute I love the show, but it began in familiar territory and will most likely end there. The last episode lagged a bit due to some housecleaning with the story line, but I think Ramonski gave a good a reason for why this is so. From reading elsewhere, it seems like the main complaint is Maggi and Cohle's awkward tryst - I thought it was a nice way to deflate Cohle a bit - he was turning a bit too much into a stoic superman for my taste. I'm only at episode 4, but I thought that anyone would have seen that coming since episode 1? Predictability seems to be the complaint. My feeling is that the story so far has done enough to incriminate Tuttle that it will be logically problematic if he wasn't somehow involved in the murders - but a lot of people have already written the show off it ends up there because it's too predictable to have Evangelical right-wingers outed as sadistic perverts (this amuses to me no end). One of the best commentaries I've read on the show - which, unfortunately, I can't remember where I read or who it was written by - pointed out that the story's predictability was an integral part of its theme: things turn out bad again and again for the same reasons, people and circumstances do not change, and nothing can be done about it. This interpretation draws the Eternal Recurrence aspect in quite nicely, and renders the show a genuine work of cosmic horror, Yellow King or not.

Just to clarify (though I don't think that was what you meant, Speaking Mute), I wasn't criticising the show (especially when I'm still at episode 4). In general, I think predictability can be aesthetically satisfying in certain ways, when it is convincingly transformed into inevitability, which I think is the overall case in case of True Detective (and in many other ways); watching the inevitable and ritualistic unfold is, after all, one of the many elements present at the core of the horror narrative (in the broadest possible sense).

[Murony_Pyre]

Quote Originally Posted by Druidic

As for me, I’m trying to pitch something new and fresh to the suits: See this body builder (who is really a psycho killer) is in a car crash and due to resultant brain damage believes he’s Robert E. Howard and this big guy starts a gory new career of evil with a broadsword. Only one man can stop him: This black drug-addled horror writer who suffers Multiple Personality Disorder and believes he’s really H. P. Lovecraft…

...But then it becomes an odd couple buddy film.

You made me fall on the floor holding my sides.

I just watched the first episode of TD and one word: "Sticks".