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Loading... The Mind Parasites (original 1967; edition 1973)by Colin Wilson
Work InformationThe Mind Parasites by Colin Wilson (1967)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. My reaction to reading this book in 2005. “Preface” -- Wilson recounts his history with Lovecraft. His first encounter was entirely provoked by the similar title of a Lovecraft collection The Outsider and Others with his own first work, the non-fiction The Outsider. Wilson initially found Lovecraft a sick, pessimistic recluse who weakly turned away from the world he was alienated from, taking vengeance on it in “gloomy fantasy”. (While he doesn’t come right out and say it, this seems to back up S. T. Joshi’s contention that Wilson found Lovecraft -- a pessimistic (he would have said indifferent) materialist a polar opposite in temperament and reacted accordingly.) Wilson proceeded to put forth this view in his The Strength to Dream “in which Lovecraft figures largely.” Later, he came to see Lovecraft as one of those rare, obsessed outsiders doomed by circumstances of economics, not to be able to give free reign to his powers unlike more famous outsiders like Shelley, Keats, and Byron. He speculates that a financially independent Lovecraft would have given free rein to his curiosity and produced less horror and more fantasy like “The Shadow Out of Time” or “The Call of Cthulhu”. A richer Lovecraft would have had more time and energy, probably would have produced more fiction, and, if it was well received by those he respected, he would have continued to write it. However, I don’t buy that he would not have had more physical horror elements like necrophilia (only present in a Lovecraft-Eddy collaboration) and cannibalism. Wilson compares Lovecraft to de Sade and notorious serial killers who concoct horrific fantasies because they are bored. I don’t think that’s the case with Lovecraft. He was interested in a lot of things and rarely seemed bored. He was genuinely interested in horror and the imaginative escape from the physical limits of reality that fantasy accorded. Wilson talks about some of the thematic issues he hopes to address in the novel, its inspirations (including the film Forbidden Planet), and immodestly calls a scene in the book a tour de force. The Mind Parasites -- This is my first full exposure to Colin Wilson. Perhaps his more famous sociological and psychological works are worthwhile, but I was unimpressed with this rather dull novel. It fails as a Lovecraft pastiche. Granted, that probably was not its intent even though it uses the Lovecraftian devices of telling the story through documents and even a narrator to whom bad things might have happened as well as making explicit references to Lovecraft's deity Tsathogg. This was an excellent book examining the premise that since the 1800's/1900's there has been some form of energy being stifling mankind's creative energies through physical/material diversions. It goes through a lot of philosophy but the story, although fictional, it seems to make perfect sense. It's almost like some form of trans-dimensional entity sits on the tenuous thread that attaches our underlying joint consciousness. What I found very interesting was the way Wilson used the HP Lovecraft Cthulu mythology, I thought that was a really nice touch. The book was great, well written with excellent verbal imagery and interesting throughout. I didn't come close to finishing this book, which is rare for me. It reads like the ramblings of a someone with a cliched case of paranoid schizophrenia who knows that SOMETHING IS GOING ON, and the smugness of his special knowledge/place in the world started to wear on me pretty quick. I wonder if Colin Wilson had an early version of the DSM in front of him while writing this.
The novel was published earlier in 1967 by Arthur Barker (London), but with a different introduction. It was then reprinted by Oneiric Press (Berkeley,CA) from 1972–75, initially by Michael Besher (aka Misha PanZobop; Paris, France) and Chellis Glendinning 1972, First Edition 1972. then by Besher and his brother Alexander Besher. The story is about Professor Gilbert Austin's conflict with the Tsathogguans, invisible mind parasites that menace the most brilliant people on earth. Het verslag van een ontdekkingstocht in de nog niet geëxploreerde gebieden van de menselijke geest. Plaats en tijd: een archeologische opgraving in Turkije zo rond het Jaar 2000. Professor Gilbert Austin is ervan overtuigd dat 'iets' de mens belet tot volledige ontplooiing van zijn geestelijke potentie te komen; krachten in de mens zelf aanwezig, onttrekken hun praktische macht aan de oerbron van de menselijke geest. Samen met een kleine groep ingewijden gaat de professor de strijd aan met de onzichtbare parasieten van de geest.
Wilson has blended H.P. Lovecraft's dark vision with his own revolutionary philosophy and unique narrative powers to produce a stunning, high-tension story of vaulting imagination. A professor makes a horrifying discovery while excavating a sinister archeological site. For over 200 years, mind parasites have been lurking in the deepest layers of human consciousness, feeding on human life force and steadily gaining a foothold on the planet. Now they threaten humanity's extinction.They can be fought with one weapon only: the mind, pushed to--and beyond--its limits. Pushed so far that humans can read each other's thoughts, that the moon can be shifted from its orbit by thought alone. Pushed so that man can at last join battle with the loathsome parasites on equal terms. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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but i started to get bored in the second half with all the mind powers. I would have prefered it remaining about chasing the conspiracy of the mind parasites and chasing the threads of it ( )