Lovecraft has his own strange mythology and style of storytelling. It is a bit droll and tedious but pays huge dividends in creepy atmosphere. Great stuff for the Poe fan, but skip it if you enjoy the more sensational and less cerebral horror fiction. ( )

54. Lovecraft, H.P. "The Call of Cthulhu." 31 pages. 5.18.09.

"...all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."

I have received numerous recommendations over the years for the work of horror legend H.P. Lovecraft, and have often been met with surprise when I admit that I had never read his work. While I am a horror and gothic enthusiast I always felt apprehensive about Lovecraft's work - after all, how could he possibly compare to such greats as Edgar Allen Poe and Sheridan LeFanu?

Despite having the Tales of H.P. Lovecraft (edited by Joyce Carol Oates) sitting on my shelf, I decided to download Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" on my Kindle2 after seeing it mentioned in a group on LibraryThing. ( I apologize now, because I cannot for the life of me remember who brought it up recently, but it inspired me to give Lovecraft a try once and for all).

I am pleased to say that I was not disappointed. "The Call of Cthulhu" is a delightfully dark and twisted tale that has the ability to draw readers in from its first mysterious pages. The tale is presented from the point of view of a secondary source (the nephew and executor of a deceased professor) stumbling upon the research and first-person accounts regarding an ancient and malevolent entity by the name of "Cthulhu." As cult members practice dark arts in order to revive this creature from its watery depths, the narrator realizes with horror that it has already been done, and instills in readers a kind of apprehension that such a thing can be innocently done again, much to the detriment of all living creatures.

Lovecraft's style is at once elegant and non evasive, so his language adds to the understanding and delight of the reader as opposed to detracting from the story with superfluous prose. The evolution from nineteenth-century gothic literature is evident, which helps to ground the short story in a strong literary history, while allowing it to evolve into what audiences now call "horror." ( )

HP Lovecraft is a fantastic writer. His tales have a wonderful Gothic feel to them. Whether it is the sci-fi wonder of Call of Cthulu or the classic horror of Arthur Germyn. He is the worthy heir to Poe. If that was it, then I would recommend Lovecraft to all, he is everything I love, dark, creepy, and intelligent. But unfortunately he is also a virulent racist. His hatred of all non Anglo people is palpable. Take one such story at a time and you can shrug it off, but when you read several in a row, it just drives home that it is not a part of the story, it's just Lovecraft's hatred shining through. Lovecraft is without a doubt one of the preeminent horror writers of all time. But his racism makes it quite difficult to celebrate or appreciate that. ( )

The Great Lovecraft: Being a long-time Lovecraft fanatic, I am pleased to see that Penquin chose to publish a two volume collection of his works.

Lovecraft's writing is not for those who ingest King, Grisham, Patterson, Dan Brown or other formulaic storytellers. These stories are for those who don't shy away from a good gothic thriller, Dostoevsky, Bram Stoker, Poe or other writers who had lived in a different era from our own. If you need to read 'modern writing', Lovecraft is not for you.

Lovecraft's stories tend to be written in the first person, with the narrator, typically alone, happening upon some sort of forbidden esoteric knowledge or unknown malevolent evil. Because of this, there are relatively few 'confrontations' in his stories. When you read a Lovecraft story you are entering the mind of an intelligent, often times lonely, protagonist who finds himself in a terrifying situation, helpless, alone, scared to death and knowing that if he survives, his mind will never recover.

There are very few female characters, no sex, limited violence and not an overwhelming amount of action sequences. But lots of action and violence are not needed. Lovecraft has true talent and an amazingly far-reaching imagination that allows him to take you into a vivid world full of mysteries, supernatural occurences and unnameable horrors like no writer before or since. In fact, he often uses the words 'thing' and 'unnameable' because the creatures and horrors that he creates are so far beyond the scope of what the human mind can acknowledge that there is simply no other way to describe them. His creatures should have never existed and human beings should never be witness to them or even be aware of their existence.

Deeply psychological and thoroughly paranoid not to mention flat-out 'weird', Lovecraft is a writer like no other. He has created an entire mythology beginning with the creation of the Universe and conjures up lifeforms and gods who existed on earth, and elsewhere, long before human beings ever came into existence. In fact, in Lovecraft's world, human beings are insignificant creatures who are to the Universe what harmless microscopic bacteria are to the earth. This is troubling for some readers and it is certainly troubling to the protagonists who are unfortunate enough to discover the Truth.

Everyone should try Lovecraft and give his unique style of writing a chance. Do not expect outrageous action sequences and gratuitous violence or sex, but expect to be taken to a world where anything, even the most unthinkable horrors are not just possible but commonplace, and learn how a person reacts and copes when he becomes aware of Things that he feels never should have existed and of the knowledge that these Things act as though it is the human beings that never should have existed.

I guess I missed my prime-Lovecraft years. I should have read him as an adolescent, back when I read and loved Poe. Reading him as an adult, I was was too often annoyed by his writing style to really enjoy the stories. This from someone who usually enjoys the wordier styles of the 19th and early 20th centuries. But I felt that Lovecraft's approach to creating an atmosphere of horror was usually to pile on a surfeit of foul, loathsome, hideous, grotesque, nauseous, and detestable adjectives. That said, I found his mythology fascinating; and I did enjoy uncovering it little by little as I made my way through the stories. ( )

The first couple of stories were pretty interesting, but after a while the stories tend to get repetitive and predictable with nearly identical plots and themes. Nonetheless, it was worth it just to read the original story of the Cthulhu Mythos. ( )

http://tristram.squarespace.com/home/... ( )

A good collection and good annotations and introduction. ( )

I struggled with this one - in fact, no other book has taken me longer to read. I first took a look at it in 2005, and slowly worked my way through the first half dozen stories. Then, sadly, I shelved it as a project I couldn't finish. I didn't take to Lovecraft's style of writing at all. I found it to be too idiosyncratic and somehow distant, and definitely too pensive. I can understand the cult that's grown up around his work, and I did get a real kick out of reading "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," but I think this is where my horror adventure ends. ( )

http://eloisebythebookpiles.blogspot.... ( )

If you want an introduction to H.P. Lovecraft, here it is. (At least I think it is, not that I'm an expert or anything, being the first time I've ever read Lovecraft.) Eighteen stories of the weird, strange, supernatural, and paranormal from throughout his career. It's interesting to see the many threads connecting the stories and how he works and reworks many of their aspects. I found the introduction and notes extremely helpful, although occasionally frivolous. Not to be read all at once, I'm afraid, but I'm glad I took the time to wade through it.

Stories include: Dagon; The Statement of Randolph Carter; Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family; Celephaïs; Nyarlathotep; The Picture in the House; The Outsider; Herbert West--Reanimator; The Hound; The Rats in the Walls; The Festival; He; Cool Air; The Call of Cthulhu; The Colour Out of Space; The Whisperer in Darkness; The Shadow Over Innsmouth; The Haunter of the Dark.

Experiments in Reading ( )

http://iamrazorwing.livejournal.com/1... ( )

A collection of Lovecraft's stories, many of which were published in Weird Tales during his lifetime. This edition has an extensive section of explanatory notes for each story at the end of the book, which I found both interesting and useful in explaining some of the more obscure parts of the text.

Lovecraft has a very distinctive and fairly misanthropic style, forgoing the usual horror themes of ghosts and so on, choosing instead in his stories to place mankind at the mercy of a malevolent universe and chaotic gods from beyond time and space. Personally I find his stories are less likely to elicit an immediate sense of of shock or fear about what happens in the story itself, but rather his work leaves you with a lingering, yet very real sense of dread about the world around you. Few horror writers I've come across can match Lovecraft's ability to make the horror contained in the pages of their work come alive and remain with you once you've closed the book and put it down.

The language he employs is certainly dated, but this if anything serves to create more of a sense of an atmosphere, even if at times that atmosphere is slightly choked with superfluous adjectives. At times this grates, but on the whole it detracts little from the story being told.

Of the three Penguin Classics collections of Lovecraft's work, I would say this is the best. I think two of Lovecraft's best stories are in this edition; namely The Call Of The Cthulhu (unsurprisingly) and The Colour Out Of Space. Genuinely chilling stuff. ( )

Some of the stories in this book are very disturbing, while others are kinda cheesy or predictable. The endnotes are a great resource in any case. ( )

What I like about Lovecraft’s short stories is the way he created a whole mythology that not only links them together but pulls in strands from the stories of other horror writers of the era. A little Internet investigation will confirm this – whole dissertations have been written about it and The Necronomicon, that hideous and blasphemous text, supposedly written by the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred, but in reality a fiction and construct of Lovecraft’s imagination. I read somewhere that he used to edit and improve the stories of other writers, giving him further opportunity to extend the web of his fiction until one almost begins to wonder where imagination begins.

These stories have become modern classics, although sometimes they feel overlong and dated in their formality. There are passages of marvellous writing and glimpses into the mind of the writer himself: somehow one feels the presence of Lovecraft in all his narrators, so it’s almost as though one knows the author (although some darkish mystery remains) by the end of the book.

I’m not sure how these stories would compare to the modern equivalent because I haven’t read any to speak of; all I can say is that the horror in Lovecraft’s work doesn’t rely on gore or explicit violence and there’s no sex. It’s more the creeping fear of the unseen, the presence in the darkness, that builds gradually to alien and unspeakable happenings, some of which seem almost to tap into primeval memories. Clever stuff! ( )

This collection includes some of the best short stories written by H.P. Lovecraft. The stories themselves have been recollated and proofed against the original sources and are the definitive texts. Good introduction to Lovecraft for novices. ( )