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A review by bookishtory2665
Great Tales of Horror by H.P. Lovecraft
2.0
I'm not sure what to write in this review and that's the honest truth. In Lovecraft's fiction, various cults worshipped Cthulhu but out here in the real world, there have been cases of small cults forming based on the mythos. Books have been written in support of the idea that it wasn't just a literary device and one individual actually wrote his own Cult of Cthulhu Bible (and yes, its available for sale on the Internet).
The author, H. P. Lovecraft never earned a living from his fiction and his life was … unusual. Worth reading about if you have the time.
Okay, enough stalling. Here's what I thought.
Lovecraft is wordy and there are terms that had me searching the Internet for a definition. For me, there were two big problems. One, these stories suffered under the weight of the author's style of writing. He writes about the past and makes it abundantly clear that the protagonist has already survived the events recounted. Nothing is left to the imagination and everyone is uniformly horrified, left with a nervous condition or an outright nervous breakdown and its only afterward that you find out about the events. Maybe for some that works but for me, it tended to water down the tension. Make it all less enjoyable. The second thing that bothered me was the author's apparent bias against certain groups of people.
So, some of the stories had interesting plot lines but ultimately, I found this book a chore to finish and for the first time ever, I was actually counting the pages until it would be over.
The author, H. P. Lovecraft never earned a living from his fiction and his life was … unusual. Worth reading about if you have the time.
Okay, enough stalling. Here's what I thought.
Lovecraft is wordy and there are terms that had me searching the Internet for a definition. For me, there were two big problems. One, these stories suffered under the weight of the author's style of writing. He writes about the past and makes it abundantly clear that the protagonist has already survived the events recounted. Nothing is left to the imagination and everyone is uniformly horrified, left with a nervous condition or an outright nervous breakdown and its only afterward that you find out about the events. Maybe for some that works but for me, it tended to water down the tension. Make it all less enjoyable. The second thing that bothered me was the author's apparent bias against certain groups of people.
So, some of the stories had interesting plot lines but ultimately, I found this book a chore to finish and for the first time ever, I was actually counting the pages until it would be over.