It's great to see that speculative realism is unafraid of dealing with literature, among other -sensuous- objects. For example Ben Woodward's piece, "Thinking against Nature" from Speculations. It seems that, indeed, there is a fascination with human imaginative capacities as opposed to any (feeble) attempts to negate them. Lovecraft rightfully appears to be the representative of this horrific reality. I would add Borges to the list. There has been a lot of work done comparing the two authors, yet I think that relating Borges to speculative realism (a term avoided when discussing B.) would be invigorating.
First, as I mentioned in a previous post, Morton's discussion of the books of a library not necessarily relating to the wholeness of the library. That is to say, some books are always lost. We want to be surprised by what is there. I love browsing the Wilson library at U of MN in order to be taken of guard by my encounters. Borges is obsessed with ideas like this. And so is his inventor, Macedonio...
Second, Borges actually writes on Lovecraft (hence the comparative work between B & L). In the epilogue to El libro de arena, he writes:
El destino que, según es fama, es inescrutable, no me dejó en paz hasta que perpetré un cuento postumo de Lovecraft, escritor que siempre he juzgado un parodista involuntario de Poe. Acabé por ceder; el lamentable fruto se titula There Are More Things.
Destiny, it seems, is fundamentally unknowable. But the "lamentable title" points to some interesting (ecological) possibilities posed in these questions:
¿Cómo sería el habitante? ¿Qué podía buscar en este planeta, no
menos atroz para él que él para nosotros? ¿Desde qué secretas regiones
de la astronomía o del tiempo, desde qué antiguo y ahora incalculable
crepúsculo, habría alcanzado este arrabal sudamericano y
esta precisa noche?
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