Donald R. Burleson

Donald Burleson writes a very distinctive sort of Lovecraft criticism. He takes a post-structuralist approach (with nods to Derrida and de Man), and reads all of the stories as allegories about the indeterminacy of language and the subversion of conceptual categories. In Lovecraft: Disturbing the Universe he studies a representative assortment of thirteen stories, arranging them chronologically. On the whole, I found this a very satisfying exercise.

Some of my favorite analyses were those show more for "The Statement of Randolph Carter," "The Music of Erich Zann," and "The Color Out of Space," the last two of which ranked among HPL's favorites of his own stories. "The Cats of Ulthar" got a full treatment from Burleson, but I was left with the feeling that he had still only scratched the surface, even despite his droll final remark regarding feline lawlessness (48).

I would have liked it better if the attention to Indo-European roots made up a slightly lower proportion of the total text. I don't think that Burleson's method on this count is worthless, but after a few chapters, it starts to seem almost mechanical, in the way that he analyzes the story titles and key place and character names for their Indo-European roots and then takes the polyvalence of those roots as traces of textual strain and self-contradiction. Fortunately, there are many other facets to these studies.

The jacket copy proposes that the book is concerned with "establishing Lovecraft as an important figure in American literature," but Burleson's preface immediately acknowledges prior serious literary criticism regarding Lovecraft's work, and the focus throughout this study is on the texts, not the author. When Burleson discusses "The Outsider," he does not compare the protagonist to the author, but to the reader. He deprecates his own chronological arrangement of the analyzed stories as an arbitrary convenience (15-6), and never suggests a progression or development among them.

Burleson's work here is an excellent antidote to reductionist readings of Lovecraft, whether psychological, philosophical, ideological, or genealogical. Neither Lovecraft's unusual personal character, his atheism and "cosmicism," his racism, nor his inspirations from other writers can be credited with the quality that Burleson ultimately codes as unreadability, a self-deepening mystery that rewards those willing to explore the stories and their shadows, a transgressive concealment that is rooted in the very nature of language. show less

Consistent with the general plan of the series of Lovecraftian "Cycle Books" in which this book occurs, sage editor Robert M. Price here collects precursors and successors together with "The Call of Cthulhu" itself, and offers some entertaining commentary.

The forerunners are an especially interesting set, including one reproduced in Price's introduction that doesn't get its own entry in the table of contents for the volume: Tennyson's poem "The Kraken." Dunsany's "A Shop in Go-by Street" is show more included as the story mentioning sleeping gods that was probably a proximate inspiration for Lovecraft in writing "The Call of Cthulhu." And I was very interested in the M.R. James story "Count Magnus," less for it's influence on HPL than on Thelemic adept Jack Parsons, who seems to have found in it the germ of his idea of the Black Pilgrimage.

"The Call of Cthulhu" itself needs no review from me. If you haven't read it, you're missing a story that helped to develop the genre as surely as Frankenstein or Dracula did. I am even tempted to credit it further, and suggest that it's perspective is as symptomatic of the 20th century West as was Pico della Mirandola's "Oration on the Dignity of Man" of Quattrocento Italy.

Predictably, the more recent materials are somewhat more varied in quality. Several of them were enjoyable reads flawed by weak endings. My two favorites were "Recrudescence," in which Leonard Carpenter pits a paleontologist against petrochemical companies and eco-cultists, and Steven Paulsen's "In the Light of the Lamp," which brings a young stoner couple to no good end. show less

Attention Mythos fans! Do NOT miss this one! Each story in this book is very well done, and some of them will get your adrenaline flowing late into the night. At least it did for me. The ambience for reading this book was perfect: high winds, rain throughout the day and night, a fire blazing in my living room....who could ask for more!

Here's the lineup of the stories in the book:

"A Shop in Go-By Street" by Lord Dunsany: An example of the fantasy fiction of one of Lovecraft's favorite show more authors & inspirations.
"Count Magnus" by M. R. James: Another early and scary example of HPL's inspiratios
"The Call of Cthulhu" by H. P. Lovecraft: The original 3-part story; the one that got me hooked on HPL. This one also introduces Inspector Legrasse
"The Black Island," by August Derleth: Very good story that takes the reader to R'lyeh
"Some Notes Concerning a Green Box" by Alan Dean Foster: Good mythos-type story in more modern setting
"Patiently Waiting" by C. J. Henderson: To be honest, I skipped this one, because I have his Tales of Inspector Legrasse that contains this one
"The Sign of Kutullu" by David C. Smith: Another cult is located archaeologically, this one with Sumerian roots
"Recrudescence" by Leonard Carpenter: In a present-day setting, Cthulhu supporters on the coast of California
"Rude Awakening" by Will Murray: A team of NOAA scientists are experimenting with a sonic device under the waters; warned by various agencies, groups and people from all over the world, they do not listen....
"The Eye of Hlu-Hlu," by Donald R. Burleson: One of the creepier stories in the book; A young archaeologist uncovers a gateway to the nether regions on his property in the woods
"Black Fire" by Will Murray: Meet Cthulhu's dad in the Arctic; very unlike any of the other Cthulhu-based stories but very well done.
"In the Light of the Lamp" by Steven Paulsen: Two young dopers pop into a junk store and buy a lamp with some tragic consequences
"Zombies from R'lyeh" by Pierre Comtois: The lure of the South Seas is going to get someone in a LOT of trouble here! Probably my least favorite, but still good.

Be sure to read the introductions to each story; sit back, relax and enjoy the book. show less