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Summary: Everything you ever wanted to know about the Necronomicon...
Review: And alot of stuff you'd have never thought of, or cared about... Well, its probably long over due, but someone (actually two someones) have produced what may be both the definitive essay on the Necronomican in all its glorious manifestations and the ultimate proof that Lovecrafties are the among most obsessive fans of anything anywhere. Covers alot of ground, from HPL's inspirations to the necronomicon(s) that you can find at Waldens(!), plus lot of material on the serious occult side including some good stuff about one of my favorites, Kenneth Grant. ( If you want to know what is like to hunt down the real Necronomicon just try and get ahold of Grant's Typhonian Trilogy volumes - at least before they were reprinted). And of course Simon's necronomicon takes a beating (is it really news to anyone that it ain't THE Necronimocon?) The best part, though, is the huge movie review section where the authors list every single move that might somehow feature, mention or is some way hint at the Necronomicon in its plot. Definitely worthwhile and the best work on the subject I've read to date.
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Summary: Great Book on the Necronomicon Myth
Review: As I said, the definitive work on the subject. Excellent use of scholarly sources, such as the works of Dan Clore....
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Summary: WELL worth reading, if you're interested in all things HPL!
Review: As you can probably tell from the ratings, this book impresses those of us who have actually READ it (as the single reviewer giving it the low rating obviously has not . . . not even the dust cover or back of cover comments, apparently)!Harms and Gonce have performed a scolarly study of the legendary tome of dreaded lore known as the Necronomicon. In their research, they examine the facts, the legends, and the history . . . and they place it firmly right where it belongs: a creation that originally sprang from the mind of fantasy/horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft. This book examines many facets of the "Necronomicon legend:" * How Lovecraft came up with the idea and what might have inspired him; * The popularization of Lovecraft's fiction and the subsequent arising of a popular opinion that he had been quoting an actual ancient codex; * The production of the many modern faux versions of the Necronomicon, some firmly tongue-in-cheek and others carefully-reworded versions of extant ancient occult texts (none of which were originally titled "Necronomicon"), in response to the popularity of the title; * The inclusion of references to the Necronomicon in films and television episodes in addition to written fiction. The material presented is well-researched and factual, accompanied by proper citations where appropriate, and presented in some detail. In fact, it might well be presented in TOO much detail if the reader happens to be new to the "Necronomicon debate!" The amount of detail presented on both the literary origins and presentations of the Necronomicon, and the connections of the tome to modern Magick, will likely be far too in-depth for anyone interested solely in one and not the other! But if you are someone with a true scholarly interest in the subject, you will find this book a wonderful thing! I consider it a "must-have" volume for anyone who is deeply interested in the "Cthulhu Mythos" born from H.P. Lovecraft's fiction, and equally so for anyone who has developed a similar interest in the legend of the Necronomicon as an occult studies issue. Just a bit of warning, however: be prepared to have some things that you might have heard as "Facts" get firmly proven otherwise . . . !
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Summary: Impressive and First Rate
Review: Everything anyone could possibly want to know about the history and background of "The" Necronomicon. Every library should have a copy of this excellently researched and nicely written book. Clear, concise, well reasoned -- and unfortunately all too rare to get a hold of.The last section itemizing theNecronomicon in film and television is amusingly done and valuable in and of itself.Most of all, the authors' careful, informed, level-headed approach to the entire cultural phenomena thathas developed out of Lovecraft's fictional grimoiredeserves praise. Obviously a labor of love.
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Summary: If you love Lovecraft, you should own this book.
Review: I don't feel like being verbose today, I just wanted to say that I truly loved this book. At times it was a little difficult to muddle through, but it is well researched and well loved by the two authors. How do I know? It is top notch quality, a kind of book that can only result from months of obsessive work.
Buy it, I loved it.
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Summary: Great Book on the Necronomicon Myth
Review: I think the reviewer from San Diego may not have read the same book I read. The one I read was well-researched, well written, and stocked with interesting facts. The entire point of the book, in fact, is that the Necronomicon is a myth - but it's an interesting myth, which came from Lovecraft and developed a life of it's own. A great read, well worth the money, and highly recommended.
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Summary: The Necronomicon debunker's bible
Review: I've been rereading and enjoying Lovecraft, man and boy, for fifty years now. I haven't been a full-blown fan, but I've absorbed several volumes of discussion and criticism. In depth of detail, documentation, readability and balance, this one is head and shoulders above anything else I've seen. Once I track down Daniel Harms' Encyclopedia Cthuliana, I'll be able to toss my old Lin Carter. Hey, it was about to start flaking and putrescing anyway. I snapped up the Simon version of the Necronomicon the month Avon released it in 1980. I won't bore you with the tale here, but so many unsettling synchronicities attended the purchase that I didn't have the nerve to read through it for over a year. So my mind has definitely been open to taking it seriously. At the same time, I was familiar enough with HPL's descriptions of the mad Arab's book to know it didn't match up, and was at least partly hoax. What a pleasure to find that nearly a third of this book discusses Simon's opus, exploring it from just about every angle. I found the authors' conclusions completely convincing. Harms is a Lovecraft scholar; he gets almost a third of the book to discuss the history of the Necronomicon as an artifact of the fiction written by HPL and his circle. Even if you are one of those fans who share Howard's complete confidence that the only things that ever really go bump in the night are turns of bad plumbing, this part of the book alone justifies its space on your shelf. There's a bit of biography, a look into the evidence on sources, and a masterfully clear timeline of how, story by story, the notion of the Necronomicon was fleshed out. Harms sticks to business, discussing the Cthulhu mythos only to the extent that it bears directly on some detail about the book. (The one thing I missed seeing here was a catalogue of all the other non-existent companion titles dreamed up by Bloch and Smith and Derleth and the crew.) A reasonably complete list of published titles purporting to be the Necronomicon, with summaries and evaluations, is here too. Then Mr. Gonce picks up the story from the perspective of the impact of the idea of the Necronomicon on the occult subculture. Of the many supposed "Necronomicons" on offer, only a few claim to include usable spells and rituals. And of these, only the Simon volume is sufficiently explicit and complete to have enticed any significant number of readers to try the contents out. The results have been, as Warren Zevon might have put it, not that pretty at all. So the core of the book devotes itself to untangling the origins of the Simon version, explaining why it is a hoax, and looking at the phenomenon of the many cults, most of them very tiny, that have sprung up around that hoax. Its grimoire is a pastiche from many incompatible cultures and some invokings invented out of whole cloth. As a practicing pagan, Gonce believes many of these individual spells "work", but the incoherence of the whole system means they don't work very well, and amateurs will get into magickal trouble because the book doesn't indicate how to banish what is invoked. For practicing skeptics in his readership, he provides sobering examples of manipulative cults and even murders, which show that you don't need to believe in magick to know that in the hands of alienated teens the Simon edition is bad juju. All this is rounded off with a hilarious roll call of films and TV shows that have played off the Necronomicon meme. Many of the film reviews are several pages long, with plot synopses probably more entertaining than the movies themselves. And then each is scored for fidelity to Lovecraft. If you have only one book about Lovecraft in your library, other than a biography, this is probably the one you want. If your circle of friends includes dabblers (or adepts) in magick, it definitely is.
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Summary: The Truth Explained
Review: I've read, studied and been interested in the Necronomicon since I first saw it in films like The Evil Dead and a hanful of H.P. Lovecraft film adaptions as a teenager, eventually getting both the Simon Necronomicon and the Necronomicon Spellbook. At the time I purchased this book I was pretty sure it was a hoax, as the author explains kind of early on. The Necronomicon has its uses both as Lovecraft's literary device, a prop in an entertaining B movie, and as an interesting occult grimoire. This book has everything on the Necronomicon anyone would want to know. Also some stuff on Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey. The hoax is explained in all its infamy. The Necronomicon and maybe this book are must reads for those seriously interested in the occult. Be warned, though- this is some disturbing stuff. For 18 and over only.
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Summary: Impressive and First Rate
Review: This book is truly a masterwork of research and scholarly endeavor! A fascinating journey into the origins and mythology of the most famous book of forbidden knowledge in modern literature! Uh, Dan, do I get paid now?
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Summary: Should be required reading for the gullible!
Review: This group of essays put the facts in the proper light. Instead of trying to prove that something simply does not exist, the writers outline their arguments very cohesively, stating that what does exist is not the real deal. The Necronomicon is a recent invention not a aeons-old grimoire. This book should be shelved next to all of the various copies to help the foolish and gullible. The Necronomicon may have some merit, but it is not exactly what everyone wants it to be.
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