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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
Strong second half, first half is very info dumpy.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Listened to the audiobook and now I'm totally hooked on Lovecraft.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
‘Where does madness leave off and reality begin?’
The eeriness of a small seaside town becomes a tale of cosmic horror in H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. The only book of Lovecraft’s distributed during his lifetime, Innsmouth figures into Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos and offers a frightening deep dive into humans caught in the sinister plans of a mysterious species with aims of conquest. Chosen by my book club for our November read as none of us had ever read him before, this is a quick and rather fun book. It does get off to a rocky start, but once the plot kicks in this dives into some truly creepy territory (and, alas, fairly xenophobic and problematic territory as well). There is also a deep fear present of hereditary fate, something Lovecraft himself felt in his own family history. The Shadow over Innsmouth looks at the fragility of humankind amidst the cosmos, ideas of madness versus reality, our growing reliance on technology and explores issues of fate in a story that will have you looking to the sea with trepidation.
‘The mere telling helps me to restore confidence in my own faculties; to reassure myself that I was not simply the first to succumb to a contagious nightmare hallucination.’
If nothing else, I am glad I have finally read a Lovecraft story, which has been an aspect I really enjoy about being in a book club because it shakes up my reading list with choices by friend’s who I respect. Personally I hadn’t much interest in Lovecraft due to his name being most known for him having been…well, pretty damn racist, which unfortunately is evident in this story itself. While ole H.P. certainly didn’t put the Love in Lovecraft, we have to recognize that he was an influential American writer that still can turn sales to this day (unfortunately for him this wasn’t the case in his lifetime. Moral of the story is don’t be a racist dick). Lovecraft developed the literary theory of cosmicism, which is that ‘there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence,’ something you see quite plainly in Innsmouth. Cosmic horror often shows how quickly the human race could vanish, such as how the Deep Ones that lurk off the coast could overcome humanity someday. Lovecraft, who drew influences from authors like [a:Edgar Allan Poe|4624490|Edgar Allan Poe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1454522972p2/4624490.jpg], was also a major influence for [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg]. ‘[Lovecraft] opened the way for me,’ King has said, ‘it is his shadow, so long and gaunt, and his eyes, so dark and puritanical, which overlie almost all of the important horror fiction that has come since.’ I noticed a similarity in the mood setting of the town here with King’s ’Salem’s Lot, and King’s ‘sequel’ short story to the novel, Jerusalem’s Lot published in [b:Night Shift|10628|Night Shift|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1660820449l/10628._SY75_.jpg|2454497], actually contains references implying there is a Cthulhu Mythos connection. While King's novel [b:It|830502|It|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334416842l/830502._SY75_.jpg|150259] is, according to him, inspired by the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, Pennywise as an alien coming to prey on humans while lurking in the deep feels very akin to Lovecraft's mythos and ideas of cosmicism.
On the topic of mood setting, I have to admit the beginning of this was a slog. Lovecraft establishes a creepy vibe to the town and its citizens who distrust outsiders, focusing on the ‘Innsmouth look’ of ‘bulging, unblinking, watery eyes,’ greyish skin, a unique walk and a strange attraction to the sea. While effective, the prose is a bit rough and Lovecraft will never use just one adjective when a pair or triple is available, making it feel a bit overwritten. A bookclub friend—shoutout to Carl—mentioned the style does give a whole “ancient text” vibe to the endeavour, which I will concede does add to the overall horror vibes Lovecraft is honing in on. Add a mysterious epidemic that killed half the population and all the churches being replaced by the Esoteric Order of Dagon and you’ve got palpable unease for days. Also shoutout to Greg whole collected some of the best word matchups because he really goes off with ‘bestial Babel’ and I love how the phrase ‘raucous clamor’ trips off the tongue sounding exactly like the noise it describes.
There is an acute loneliness felt in the town, while it is described as small it seems sprawling as well, and the difficulty grasping the scope makes it all the more menacing. While everyone is excited for technological advances such as the train, Innsmouth is more disconnected because of it as it does not run near enough to them. This probes at a fear of technology as something menacing and scientific advances that can override our societal norms or, like the Deep Ones, eventually rise up to rule us.
The secrets of this town are slowly revealed and the narrator, who had previously felt himself better than the locals, finds a personal connection that could mean inescapable doom. The hereditary connections fears draw from Lovecraft’s own life as both his parents were institutionalized (his father when Lovecraft was only 3 years old), and as a child he suffered from extreme nightmares as well as frequent illness. There is a sense of inevitable, horrible fate rumbling forward in this book, a horror we can see but can only embrace as it gets closer. The narrator, in fact, goes from fearful to accepting by the end. And, honestly, the ending to this tale of cosmic woe slaps. It really does go out on a high note.
However, on the topic of genetics, Lovecraft has some troubling beliefs that are represented in this book. Reading as an allegory, the idea of an alien race coming to conquer and breed out the population is the root of replacement theory of white supremacist rhetoric, something that was accused of basically any non-white group immigrating to the US and is grossly still prevalent today. Lovecraft despised anyone who was not Anglo-Saxon (and disparages anyone who is not in his fictions), praised Hitler (there are debates over if he did withdraw from support, and he did have a Jewish wife, though only because he said she was ‘well assimilated’), and held a strong classism belief that Anglo-Saxon intellectual elites should rule all populations. So…not awesome. Though from this world-view, you can get a sense how his fiction is laden in fear of the unknown with narrators who perceive the world around them as threatening.
‘One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changed—as those who take to the water change—and told me she had never died.’
Problematic issues aside, the story is quite fun and the Deep Ones are interesting. There is, of course, the issue that the military decimated an entire town on the word of a person with a history of mental illness claiming sea monsters have corrupted everyone, but just go with it. It is cool as well to see all the fictional towns Lovecraft would revisit throughout his tales, and it was interesting to realize that Arkham Asylum from the Batman universe takes its name from Lovecraft’s Arkham. All in all, I’m glad I read this. It is a bit like [a:Philip K. Dick|4764|Philip K. Dick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1633698608p2/4764.jpg] for me where the story and ideas override the relatively clunky writing, but once the train of plot kicks into high gear, wow does this get creepy and intense. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is an eerie, worthwhile read and makes for a great introduction into the world of Lovecraft.
3/5
The eeriness of a small seaside town becomes a tale of cosmic horror in H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. The only book of Lovecraft’s distributed during his lifetime, Innsmouth figures into Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos and offers a frightening deep dive into humans caught in the sinister plans of a mysterious species with aims of conquest. Chosen by my book club for our November read as none of us had ever read him before, this is a quick and rather fun book. It does get off to a rocky start, but once the plot kicks in this dives into some truly creepy territory (and, alas, fairly xenophobic and problematic territory as well). There is also a deep fear present of hereditary fate, something Lovecraft himself felt in his own family history. The Shadow over Innsmouth looks at the fragility of humankind amidst the cosmos, ideas of madness versus reality, our growing reliance on technology and explores issues of fate in a story that will have you looking to the sea with trepidation.
‘The mere telling helps me to restore confidence in my own faculties; to reassure myself that I was not simply the first to succumb to a contagious nightmare hallucination.’
If nothing else, I am glad I have finally read a Lovecraft story, which has been an aspect I really enjoy about being in a book club because it shakes up my reading list with choices by friend’s who I respect. Personally I hadn’t much interest in Lovecraft due to his name being most known for him having been…well, pretty damn racist, which unfortunately is evident in this story itself. While ole H.P. certainly didn’t put the Love in Lovecraft, we have to recognize that he was an influential American writer that still can turn sales to this day (unfortunately for him this wasn’t the case in his lifetime. Moral of the story is don’t be a racist dick). Lovecraft developed the literary theory of cosmicism, which is that ‘there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence,’ something you see quite plainly in Innsmouth. Cosmic horror often shows how quickly the human race could vanish, such as how the Deep Ones that lurk off the coast could overcome humanity someday. Lovecraft, who drew influences from authors like [a:Edgar Allan Poe|4624490|Edgar Allan Poe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1454522972p2/4624490.jpg], was also a major influence for [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg]. ‘[Lovecraft] opened the way for me,’ King has said, ‘it is his shadow, so long and gaunt, and his eyes, so dark and puritanical, which overlie almost all of the important horror fiction that has come since.’ I noticed a similarity in the mood setting of the town here with King’s ’Salem’s Lot, and King’s ‘sequel’ short story to the novel, Jerusalem’s Lot published in [b:Night Shift|10628|Night Shift|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1660820449l/10628._SY75_.jpg|2454497], actually contains references implying there is a Cthulhu Mythos connection. While King's novel [b:It|830502|It|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334416842l/830502._SY75_.jpg|150259] is, according to him, inspired by the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, Pennywise as an alien coming to prey on humans while lurking in the deep feels very akin to Lovecraft's mythos and ideas of cosmicism.
On the topic of mood setting, I have to admit the beginning of this was a slog. Lovecraft establishes a creepy vibe to the town and its citizens who distrust outsiders, focusing on the ‘Innsmouth look’ of ‘bulging, unblinking, watery eyes,’ greyish skin, a unique walk and a strange attraction to the sea. While effective, the prose is a bit rough and Lovecraft will never use just one adjective when a pair or triple is available, making it feel a bit overwritten. A bookclub friend—shoutout to Carl—mentioned the style does give a whole “ancient text” vibe to the endeavour, which I will concede does add to the overall horror vibes Lovecraft is honing in on. Add a mysterious epidemic that killed half the population and all the churches being replaced by the Esoteric Order of Dagon and you’ve got palpable unease for days. Also shoutout to Greg whole collected some of the best word matchups because he really goes off with ‘bestial Babel’ and I love how the phrase ‘raucous clamor’ trips off the tongue sounding exactly like the noise it describes.
‘Certainly, the terror of a deserted house swells in geometrical rather than arithmetical progression as houses multiply to form a city of stark desolation. The sight of such endless avenues of fishy-eyed vacancy and death, and the thought of such linked infinities of black, brooding compartments given over to cob-webs and memories and the conqueror worm, start up vestigial fears and aversions that not even the stoutest philosophy can disperse.’
There is an acute loneliness felt in the town, while it is described as small it seems sprawling as well, and the difficulty grasping the scope makes it all the more menacing. While everyone is excited for technological advances such as the train, Innsmouth is more disconnected because of it as it does not run near enough to them. This probes at a fear of technology as something menacing and scientific advances that can override our societal norms or, like the Deep Ones, eventually rise up to rule us.
The secrets of this town are slowly revealed and the narrator, who had previously felt himself better than the locals, finds a personal connection that could mean inescapable doom. The hereditary connections fears draw from Lovecraft’s own life as both his parents were institutionalized (his father when Lovecraft was only 3 years old), and as a child he suffered from extreme nightmares as well as frequent illness. There is a sense of inevitable, horrible fate rumbling forward in this book, a horror we can see but can only embrace as it gets closer. The narrator, in fact, goes from fearful to accepting by the end. And, honestly, the ending to this tale of cosmic woe slaps. It really does go out on a high note.
However, on the topic of genetics, Lovecraft has some troubling beliefs that are represented in this book. Reading as an allegory, the idea of an alien race coming to conquer and breed out the population is the root of replacement theory of white supremacist rhetoric, something that was accused of basically any non-white group immigrating to the US and is grossly still prevalent today. Lovecraft despised anyone who was not Anglo-Saxon (and disparages anyone who is not in his fictions), praised Hitler (there are debates over if he did withdraw from support, and he did have a Jewish wife, though only because he said she was ‘well assimilated’), and held a strong classism belief that Anglo-Saxon intellectual elites should rule all populations. So…not awesome. Though from this world-view, you can get a sense how his fiction is laden in fear of the unknown with narrators who perceive the world around them as threatening.
‘One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changed—as those who take to the water change—and told me she had never died.’
Problematic issues aside, the story is quite fun and the Deep Ones are interesting. There is, of course, the issue that the military decimated an entire town on the word of a person with a history of mental illness claiming sea monsters have corrupted everyone, but just go with it. It is cool as well to see all the fictional towns Lovecraft would revisit throughout his tales, and it was interesting to realize that Arkham Asylum from the Batman universe takes its name from Lovecraft’s Arkham. All in all, I’m glad I read this. It is a bit like [a:Philip K. Dick|4764|Philip K. Dick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1633698608p2/4764.jpg] for me where the story and ideas override the relatively clunky writing, but once the train of plot kicks into high gear, wow does this get creepy and intense. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is an eerie, worthwhile read and makes for a great introduction into the world of Lovecraft.
3/5
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Another rock solid Lovecraft. As always I love the creepiness of this one.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No