the call of cthulhu and other weird tales

'The Dunwich Horror' comes a very close second, due to the clever portrayal and story arc of Wilbur Whateley, which struck me as slightly more original.

If you want to dip your toe into Lovecraft's universe and can get that tale as a sole volume, then for the love of Yog-Sothoth, do so. My absolute favourite, which I relished reading, was 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' - a truly intriguing mystery and exciting adventure story, with an ending that made me exclaim 'Oh, you poor doomed sod!' out loud, much to the confusion of the workplace canteen. Now, before the Lovecraft fans see the rating, break my door down, carry me off and sacrifice me to the Elder Ones, I will gladly concede that some of the stories in here are completely worthy of a 5-star rating on their own. That factor made it a tough, slow read in places. The novelty wears off after the first couple of stories, and you can guess what's coming from the get-go. The plots generally involve a New England male getting involved in, or learning about, some creepy hi-jinks, dismissing said hi-jinks as superstitious nonsense, relentlessly pursuing the weirdness, and dark mysterious forces consequently biting him in the buttocks. Now, I don't know if this is due to Lovecraft's particular style, or the fault of the editors who put these particular stories together, but I found this collection very formulaic - even, dare I say it, repetitive. Having never got around to his work before, I decided the 2020 Reading Challenge was the perfect opportunity to do so, and I chose this collection of twelve short stories as my first foray into his literary canon. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.ĭuring my university years and beyond, the one author that friends kept insisting I should read was Lovecraft. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.Īlthough Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

The call of cthulhu and other weird tales