Reviews

The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft

cute_monkey_girl's review against another edition

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5.0

2023 review: Listened to this via audiobook for the 1st time (shout out to The Exploring Series on Spotify), and it gave me something to look forward to during my daily commutes. I definitely want to listen to this one again or sit down and read this horror story in one go rather than experience this tale in parts.

dameguillotine's review against another edition

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2.0

Creo que definitivamente Lovecraft no es para mí, y no sé si en algún momento lo será. No sé qué tiene pero me resulta soporífero. No tengo otra palabra; literalmente cuando trato de leer historias suyas se me cierran los ojos.

A ver, lo más objetivamente que puedo, El Horror de Dunwich está bien. Es una historia interesante, y bien contada, en donde el inesperado héroe es un viejo académico, en donde inesperadamente el que parecía protagonista muere hacia la mitad, en donde el inesperado Horror es su hermano mellizo más monstruoso, y en donde inesperadamente hay una exquisita referencia a la UBA. Ya se volvió un chiste corriente lo de que todos los horrores lovecraftianos sean indescriptibles, y es verdad que así elige describir también a este (qué ironía) pero también nos da una descripción concreta y es, en verdad, bastante horrible, así que lo aplaudo.
No sé, quizás es porque no sentí que la historia tuviese nada particularmente novedoso o interesante. Me gustó el setting de ruralidad brujeril, la referencia a Salem, etc. Mucho más que eso no puedo sacar. Creo que la mitología cósmica que construye es de seguro muy interesante, y esta idea de Yog-Sothoth como "la llave y la puerta" me intriga, pero me gustaría más estudiarla que experimentar más literatura lovecraftiana al respecto.

ahdler's review against another edition

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4.0

El ambiente que se respira en Dunwich es increíble, un libro completo.

james2529's review against another edition

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4.0

Easily the best Lovecraft I've read, although that is a low bar.

Brilliant monster descriptions and a genuine sense of dread that builds.

The perspective jumps around quite spasmodically and Lovecraft doesn't seem to know what you are supposed to think about the characters.

A better writer could have made this a truly brilliant story.

qalminator's review against another edition

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3.0

Well-crafted tale, with the usual Lovecraft caveats (rural people degenerate, apparently, until they no longer count as human, even if they don't mate with elder gods). I read this after reading an alternate version casting Armitage as a villain. The original interpretation has the happier ending, notably.

Oddly I found myself wondering if this story was in any way foundational to Pete's Dragon. I mean, giant invisible creature stomping through town, wreaking havoc? Tone it down a notch or 20 to a kid's companion, and you get Pete's Dragon. Instead of masses of tentacles and eyes and mouths, you get "head of a camel", "neck of a crocodile", "both a fish and a mammal".

So... does that make Pete Wilbur? And it's his adopted family that are the, er, problematic beings? I'm probably analyzing this too much.

thequeenreads's review against another edition

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3.0

Okay this one was more fantasy to me.

czarot's review against another edition

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3.0

This was okay, but can't help but laugh at that scene where the townsfolk did the incantation (reminded me oddly of anime scenes trying to save the day with the power of friendship) lol.

magratajostiernos's review against another edition

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3.0

Una novela corta con un inicio impresionante, me gustó muchísimo cómo nos va presentando ese pueblo "maldito" rodeado de brujería y seres extraños. Es cierto que según vamos avanzando para mi decae bastante, pero el estilo del autor me encanta, mezcla un rollo periodístico y "de investigación" con un lenguaje muy cuidado y plagado de detalles.
Lo mejor sin duda es la atmósfera pavorosa que consigue mantener durante toda la historia.

vigneswara_prabhu's review against another edition

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3.0

Rating 3 out of 5| Grade C+; When your baby daddy is way, way out of town

The Dunwich Horror is not one of those stories which doesn't gets better on rereading.

The Patriarch of the Whateley family, who dabbled in the occult, wants to herald the arrival of an old god onto our plain. And in doing so, tear down everything man has built and replace it with a new world order, where he and his family would be the nobility.

For this purpose, he used the age old trick that all dark magicians have been using since time immemorial. To have his daughter sacrificed to serve as the surrogate for an unholy conception of its heralds.

Wilber Whateley is born premature & deformed, and none in town known of his birth father. What they know is that the boy seems more beast than man, and is growing at an unnatural pace. At 12 years old, he is already a grown man in body & mind. And after the passing of Whateley Senior, it is his calling to bring forth apocalypse on earth.

For this purpose he seeks the Necronomicon, located at the Miskatonic University; two main stays of the Lovecraftian world. If he succeeds in his dark ritual, the Old gods will walk this plane once more, spelling the doom of all life as we know it.

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moosereads1's review

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mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

While I love Lovecraft, I just couldn’t deal with the pacing of this story; how does such a short story manage to feel so long? The concept is fascinating and I’d love to know more about the creature, but the creature is only actively described and discussed in the last handful of pages. I wanted to love it, but it fell a bit short.