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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Lovecraft's tales are chillingly brilliant. I did find myself getting occasionally bogged down by overindulgent descriptions, but in hindsight they don't take away from the tales, rather add to them, as they are required for the stories he is telling. The original cosmic horror at its finest, finished just in time to start playing the new Call of Cthulhu video game, they've got me right in the mood and I'm definitely going to be exploring more of Lovecraft's haunting prose.
I’ve been enjoying a lot of modern Lovecraftian fiction lately, and after my experience with Agents of Dreamland tripped me up I decided it was time I read some of the original material.
I had heard that Lovecraft was dry and dull. I had heard that Lovecraft was racist and sexist and horrible. My recent experiences with classic scifi and fantasy have led me to realise that the elements that modern pop culture latches on to are not necessarily indicative of the tone or content of their original source material.
I was expecting to dutifully read as much of this as I needed to and then put it down and move on with my life.
Guys, I did not expect to like this collection as much as I did.
This collection brings together a series of short pieces and novellas, arranged chronologically from earliest to latest, linking to the Cthulhu mythos.
Highlights for me were: “Nyarlathotep” (a strong contender for my favourite Lovecraftian figure so far), “The Rats in the Walls”, “He”, and “The Colour Out of Space”. I’m also glad I’m familiar now with “The Call of Cthulhu”, “The Whisperer in Darkness”, and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”.
I was stoked to find out how much of the pop culture, modern awareness of Lovecraft are straight up presented in his work. I’ve been burned through things like Dracula and Frankenstein where elements of the story have been overemphasised over time and obscured the real feel of the original, often leaving me disappointed. Not the case here.
I also didn’t mind elements of Lovecraft’s prose and turns of phrase. I can see why some readers find it frustrating and at times there is a lot of seemingly unnecessary description and the pacing is not modern. But among that there’s some good, weird, poetic stuff!
An extra bonus for this edition and doing it in ebook I was able to take full advantage of the footnotes which really helped to support and provide context to the material I was reading. Most of the time I didn’t care about whether the street or building being referred to was real or not, but I found getting insights into the wider mythos and tips like “this might be the first time Lovecraft introduced a Shoggoth” in “He” really helpful.
Let’s deal with the elephant in the room and, honestly, the reason this isn’t a five-star for me. The material is often horribly and overtly racist. Lovecraft seems to have been scared of everyone that wasn’t like him – immigrants, women, people of colour, rural people generally. There isn’t a woman to be seen anywhere – they just don’t seem to exist in this world. His protagonists are always from his class and worldview and anything else is cast in a negative light or doesn’t exist. It’s not comfortable for a modern reader, nor should it be.
I can see why the most recent related works are deliberately carving space in this world for… basically everyone else. Not only has Lovecraft left these areas wide open for someone else to fill and therefore made them an easy target for current writers wanting to contribute to the canon, it’s also needed to create some balance and depth to the world. Lovecraft’s depiction of his ideas is so frustratingly narrow that the ideas and world he created aren’t able to be fully explored by relying solely on his works.
Having found this not as intimidating a task as I had expected, however, I’m going to go and read through his back catalogue and then probably start heading towards modernity through the key contributing authors and related material.
I had heard that Lovecraft was dry and dull. I had heard that Lovecraft was racist and sexist and horrible. My recent experiences with classic scifi and fantasy have led me to realise that the elements that modern pop culture latches on to are not necessarily indicative of the tone or content of their original source material.
I was expecting to dutifully read as much of this as I needed to and then put it down and move on with my life.
Guys, I did not expect to like this collection as much as I did.
This collection brings together a series of short pieces and novellas, arranged chronologically from earliest to latest, linking to the Cthulhu mythos.
Highlights for me were: “Nyarlathotep” (a strong contender for my favourite Lovecraftian figure so far), “The Rats in the Walls”, “He”, and “The Colour Out of Space”. I’m also glad I’m familiar now with “The Call of Cthulhu”, “The Whisperer in Darkness”, and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”.
I was stoked to find out how much of the pop culture, modern awareness of Lovecraft are straight up presented in his work. I’ve been burned through things like Dracula and Frankenstein where elements of the story have been overemphasised over time and obscured the real feel of the original, often leaving me disappointed. Not the case here.
I also didn’t mind elements of Lovecraft’s prose and turns of phrase. I can see why some readers find it frustrating and at times there is a lot of seemingly unnecessary description and the pacing is not modern. But among that there’s some good, weird, poetic stuff!
An extra bonus for this edition and doing it in ebook I was able to take full advantage of the footnotes which really helped to support and provide context to the material I was reading. Most of the time I didn’t care about whether the street or building being referred to was real or not, but I found getting insights into the wider mythos and tips like “this might be the first time Lovecraft introduced a Shoggoth” in “He” really helpful.
Let’s deal with the elephant in the room and, honestly, the reason this isn’t a five-star for me. The material is often horribly and overtly racist. Lovecraft seems to have been scared of everyone that wasn’t like him – immigrants, women, people of colour, rural people generally. There isn’t a woman to be seen anywhere – they just don’t seem to exist in this world. His protagonists are always from his class and worldview and anything else is cast in a negative light or doesn’t exist. It’s not comfortable for a modern reader, nor should it be.
I can see why the most recent related works are deliberately carving space in this world for… basically everyone else. Not only has Lovecraft left these areas wide open for someone else to fill and therefore made them an easy target for current writers wanting to contribute to the canon, it’s also needed to create some balance and depth to the world. Lovecraft’s depiction of his ideas is so frustratingly narrow that the ideas and world he created aren’t able to be fully explored by relying solely on his works.
Having found this not as intimidating a task as I had expected, however, I’m going to go and read through his back catalogue and then probably start heading towards modernity through the key contributing authors and related material.
I might be a bit obsessed with Lovecraft. I first read him as a teen, late at night after lights out. His works were among the few sci-fi I read when I was younger, as it was a genre I didn’t get into until recent years. I sleep next to a Cthulhu wall tapestry, and he watches me each night while I sleep. Lovecraft has a unique way of telling stories.
I enjoyed some of the annotations that furthered parts of each story, but others felt unnecessary to me. And perhaps with fewer unnecessary annotations, they could have made the text larger and easier to read. The graphics were iffy, but it’s a black and white book on low-quality paper, so I understand there are limitations. But some of them were washed out, and I feel it does a disservice to the stories. Book quality aside, I like the stories they put in this collection, as The Rats in the Walls is one of my favs.
I enjoyed some of the annotations that furthered parts of each story, but others felt unnecessary to me. And perhaps with fewer unnecessary annotations, they could have made the text larger and easier to read. The graphics were iffy, but it’s a black and white book on low-quality paper, so I understand there are limitations. But some of them were washed out, and I feel it does a disservice to the stories. Book quality aside, I like the stories they put in this collection, as The Rats in the Walls is one of my favs.
I both really appreciate and respect Lovecraft and find him a bit hard to get through. All his stuff is just so…dense. But so well-done. It is not easy for me to keep focus and yet I really enjoy all the stories in the end. It’s a conundrum. But I do think he is certainly the Master of Horror. There are common themes throughout all these stories starting with the structure. It is almost without fail told from the perspective of an educated male who is reflecting on some terrible event that he either experienced personally or knows of that other people aren’t going to believe (and he knows it). Females are nearly nonexistent (which I’m perfectly fine with – just want to point it out). There is often a terrible heritage in the background (in terms of ape people of Africa or frog people of Innsmouth). New England features almost exclusively. And what Lovecraft does best is hint of the awfulness. It’s like even the narrators don’t want to believe it. But it’s like Hitchcock learned a lesson from him – the fear is in the anticipation. There are signs of terrible things – disappearing animals, mysterious footprints, people acting strange, whispers and rumors. The bad doesn’t hit until the end. And the narrator often does not realize how bad things are until almost too late.
Best stories in this are probably:
“The Statement of Randolph Carter” (Carter is being questioned by the police about the disappearance of his friend, after they both go to explore a tomb and only he makes it out alive)
“Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” (one of the omniscient narrator stories, about how Arthur discovered the truth about his Jermyn ancestors and killed himself because of it)
“Herbert West – Reanimator” (series of vignettes about the friend/minion of a wannabe-Dr. Frankenstein and his increasingly horrific crimes in the name of immortality – until his creatures come back to destroy him)
“Cool Air” (not great, but a pretty good tale of a man who had been reanimated but needed to stay cool in order to survive)
“The Call of Cthulu” (one of his classic Old Ones stories, where mad cults and mad dreams portend the rising up of horrid aliens)
“The Colour Out of Space” (possibly the creepiest and best story – of a meteor that brings an awful alien being that sucks the color and life out of everything around it and ends up in the madness and massacre of an entire family)
“The Whisperer in Darkness” (another favorite; the story of aliens in the Vermont Hills and the scholar who begins a correspondence with someone who knows the truth of the aliens)
“The Shadow Over Innsmouth” (a creepy alien-riddled town in New England)
There were no actually horrible stories, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of “Celephais” (dream description), “Nyarlathotep” or “He”.
Best stories in this are probably:
“The Statement of Randolph Carter” (Carter is being questioned by the police about the disappearance of his friend, after they both go to explore a tomb and only he makes it out alive)
“Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” (one of the omniscient narrator stories, about how Arthur discovered the truth about his Jermyn ancestors and killed himself because of it
Spoiler
although I don’t see what’s wrong about being from an advanced ape civilization – it’s kind of like figuring out your great-great-grandmother was a Neanderthal; at least he’s not part evil alien!“Herbert West – Reanimator” (series of vignettes about the friend/minion of a wannabe-Dr. Frankenstein and his increasingly horrific crimes in the name of immortality – until his creatures come back to destroy him)
“Cool Air” (not great, but a pretty good tale of a man who had been reanimated but needed to stay cool in order to survive)
“The Call of Cthulu” (one of his classic Old Ones stories, where mad cults and mad dreams portend the rising up of horrid aliens)
“The Colour Out of Space” (possibly the creepiest and best story – of a meteor that brings an awful alien being that sucks the color and life out of everything around it and ends up in the madness and massacre of an entire family)
“The Whisperer in Darkness” (another favorite; the story of aliens in the Vermont Hills and the scholar who begins a correspondence with someone who knows the truth of the aliens
Spoiler
unfortunately the narrator is so dumb he thinks that the letter inviting him to visit and saying the aliens aren’t so bad isn’t suspicious at all even though the previous letter warned of dire things and said the aliens were going to kill him and the narrator knew the aliens were intercepting the mail – I would have been okay if he had been killed for his stupidity“The Shadow Over Innsmouth” (a creepy alien-riddled town in New England)
There were no actually horrible stories, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of “Celephais” (dream description), “Nyarlathotep” or “He”.
This is a very difficult book to rate and review. The stories are excellent - providing creepy atmospheres & spine-tingling horror. However, and it’s a big however, if I’d known how racist Lovecraft was before I started reading the book then I wouldn’t have read it. Sometimes you can make exceptions for the time period or separate the art from the artist. Yet, in this case, Lovecraft was a viciously racist man who actively praised Hitler and his stories are full of racist tropes and unforgivable statements. Whilst doing some background reading, I came across a quiz entitled ‘who said this - Lovecraft or Hitler?’, which tells you a lot about who Lovecraft was.
I would love it if someone rewrote the creepy tales with the racism removed - because the horror is truly horrifying and Lovecraft’s influence is apparent in so many authors’ work today. But the racism is very present in this book, and it’s nauseating.
I would love it if someone rewrote the creepy tales with the racism removed - because the horror is truly horrifying and Lovecraft’s influence is apparent in so many authors’ work today. But the racism is very present in this book, and it’s nauseating.
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
After reading 14 of the 19 stories, half of the book in page count, I decided to stop there and DNF this short story collection. H.P. Lovecraft's stories are definitely not for me. Most are a long narrative bore about a white, middle-aged man discovering something weird and traumatic (
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.