The Call of Cthulhu [short story]
by H. P. Lovecraft
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Written in 1926 and first published in the magazine Weird Tales two years later, The Call of Cthulu is almost certainly H.P. Lovecraft's best known short story. Drawing inspiration from Alfred Tennyson's sonnet 'The Kraken' as well as one of Lovecraft's own dreams, the story sees a police officer from New Orleans ask the American Archaeological society for help identifying an idol carved in a mysterious green-black stone that was seized in a raid on a supposed voodoo cult. However, learning show more about the cult of Cthulu might not be the best of ideas...This version of H.P. Lovecraft's classic tale has received minor edits to ensure suitability for a modern audience. show lessTags
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Hoo boy. Lovecraft was a big old ball of crap, of course, and lo, his writing matches his personality. Cripes almighty, was this bad. The story is silly (not in a good way), and the language is so flowery and overwrought. It reads like someone gave a goth high school kid a thesaurus, told them every noun is better with at least one adjective and verbs are useless without two adverbs, and send them on their way with a creative writing assignment. (My apologies to goth kiddos everywhere - you deserve better than this association, you adorable weirdos.) Reading this has only confirmed my loathing for all things Lovecraft. Call of Cthulhu? More like call of trash can.
NB: I read this in the original English alongside a Latin translation show more written by a friend who wanted me to edit it for him, and as much as I dislike the original, I can easily say that he did a fantastic job translating it. show less
NB: I read this in the original English alongside a Latin translation show more written by a friend who wanted me to edit it for him, and as much as I dislike the original, I can easily say that he did a fantastic job translating it. show less
”I shall never sleep calmly again when I think of the horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars which dream beneath the sea, known and favoured by a nightmare cult ready and eager to loose them upon the world whenever another earthquake shall heave their monstrous stone city again to the sun and air.”
Mercy. I feel very divided about this one. Those ceaselessly lurking horrors are well nigh irresistible, but the nightmare cult is a bit problematic. Part of me imagines that this story would be So Much better if one only removed the awful racism and xenophobia, but I'm not sure it could be done. Lovecraft's loathing and suspicion of the “other” – those who show more are non-European – seems pretty central. A key driving force. The guy even hates Eskimos, for goodness sake! Who hates Eskimos (Inuits)? (In fairness, his hating was astonishingly wide in scope – he also seems to have disliked Christianity. And women. Easier than making a list of his prejudices is making a “list” of the sort of people he approved of. A very short list – pasty white, slender men of northern European descent. Hmmm.) Obnoxious racism, etc. aside, though, Lovecraft's evocation of vast, patient evil is so spectacularly, deliciously baroque that one may feel inclined to tolerate the muck in order to luxuriate (wallow) in his crazy visions.
There's not a tremendous lot of plot here. A guy learns that there is a monstrous, powerful evil biding its time beneath the sea, served (not very effectively, it seems) by an ancient, world-wide cult of fiendish minions. What makes the story such fun are Lovecraft's wildly over-the-top descriptions of mad voodoo orgies in the swamps of Louisiana, sinister cabals haunting seaports, primordial monsters rising from the ocean depths, etc. Yummy stuff!
”The aperture was black with a darkness almost material. That tenebrousness was indeed a positive quality; for it obscured such parts of the inner walls as ought to have been revealed, and actually burst forth like smoke from its aeon-long imprisonment, visibly darkening the sun as it slunk away into the shrunken and gibbous sky on flapping membraneous wings. The odour rising from the newly opened depths was intolerable, and at length the quick-eared Hawkins thought he heart a nasty, slopping sound down there. Everyone listened, and everyone was listening still when it lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway into the tainted outside air of the poison city of madness...
The Thing cannot be described – there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled. God!”
Happy sigh. The anti-Hemingway. show less
For all I've heard of The Call of Cthulhu, I expected more.
Basically, you have three short stories about perhaps the best known of the Old Ones. Truly ancient cults. Even Cthulhu himself rising. But it's all just a little underwhelming, especially when read back to back with The Festival and The Colour out of Space.
One interesting aspect is that the the descriptions are actually relatively solid (for Lovecraft):
He's usually much more vague that that... which I think is actually the better route. For all one wants to be able to show more imagine what one is reading about, sometimes the impossibility thereof is what makes all the difference.
On top of that, The Call of Cthulhu is really the first work with definite traces of the time in which Lovecraft wrote. I'd heard about the casual racism, but it was still a bit surprising and off putting to come across it.
All together, it was worth reading just for the context, but not my favorite of Lovecraft's works. show less
Basically, you have three short stories about perhaps the best known of the Old Ones. Truly ancient cults. Even Cthulhu himself rising. But it's all just a little underwhelming, especially when read back to back with The Festival and The Colour out of Space.
One interesting aspect is that the the descriptions are actually relatively solid (for Lovecraft):
A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.
He's usually much more vague that that... which I think is actually the better route. For all one wants to be able to show more imagine what one is reading about, sometimes the impossibility thereof is what makes all the difference.
On top of that, The Call of Cthulhu is really the first work with definite traces of the time in which Lovecraft wrote. I'd heard about the casual racism, but it was still a bit surprising and off putting to come across it.
All together, it was worth reading just for the context, but not my favorite of Lovecraft's works. show less
Lovecraft and his works need no introduction, however, there are a couple things I would like to mention about this story.
It is commonly known that Lovecraft was quite racist, however, in this story, it goes beyond just using racial slurs. The plot is driven by the "lesser races" as Lovecraft describes, being the people who worship Cthulhu. People in India, the Inuit people, and people living in the swamps Louisiana are all mentioned, and it does not help the story, especially when there are white men also falling victim to Cthulhu's visions and mind tricks.
It also has a terrible ending in my opinion. It is not on as grand a scale as I would like to have seen and does not do enough with the concept of the indescribable horror that show more Cthulhu is.
Still, a fun short read, and I will be looking into more Lovecraft, or Lovecraft adjacent stuff in the future. show less
It is commonly known that Lovecraft was quite racist, however, in this story, it goes beyond just using racial slurs. The plot is driven by the "lesser races" as Lovecraft describes, being the people who worship Cthulhu. People in India, the Inuit people, and people living in the swamps Louisiana are all mentioned, and it does not help the story, especially when there are white men also falling victim to Cthulhu's visions and mind tricks.
It also has a terrible ending in my opinion. It is not on as grand a scale as I would like to have seen and does not do enough with the concept of the indescribable horror that show more Cthulhu is.
Still, a fun short read, and I will be looking into more Lovecraft, or Lovecraft adjacent stuff in the future. show less
Reviewing Lovecraft is a bitch.
On one hand, you have here one of the seminal stories in his works, and one that has inspired countless authors, from the unknown, all the way to Robert E. Howard and Stephen King.
On the other hand, you have a story that really isn't even a story. There's no dialogue, everything's happened in the past, and the narrator hasn't even come across Cthulhu himself.
How the hell do you rank that?
Basically, for me, I have to look at a couple of things. The first is, did I ultimately enjoy the story? The first half was a bit too much of an information dump, but the second half was a lot of fun. Did it capture my imagination? Hell yes.
So, despite its many shortcomings, I have to say, this is definitely one of show more Lovecraft's better stories. show less
On one hand, you have here one of the seminal stories in his works, and one that has inspired countless authors, from the unknown, all the way to Robert E. Howard and Stephen King.
On the other hand, you have a story that really isn't even a story. There's no dialogue, everything's happened in the past, and the narrator hasn't even come across Cthulhu himself.
How the hell do you rank that?
Basically, for me, I have to look at a couple of things. The first is, did I ultimately enjoy the story? The first half was a bit too much of an information dump, but the second half was a lot of fun. Did it capture my imagination? Hell yes.
So, despite its many shortcomings, I have to say, this is definitely one of show more Lovecraft's better stories. show less
This was a nice mix of H.P. Lovecraft stories I'd read and ones I was less familiar with. My favorite in the collection is "The Colour Out of Space," which is a fantastically chilling science fiction story that by all rights should have been an episode of "The Twilight Zone."
A couple of warnings about this book: Firstly, if you're unfamiliar with H.P. Lovecraft, you may want to jump around in the collection some. The stories are arranged in the order they were written, so a lot of the earlier stories are much weaker than those that come later in the collection. The other warning is that while H.P. Lovecraft is justifiably considered a master of the weird fiction genre and should definitely be read, he was also quite racist. I don't know show more if he was more racist than his peers during the time these stories were written (1920's and 30's, mostly), but he seems to have been more than a little phobic of miscegenation and that comes out in many of his stories. I still think the stories are worth reading, but it seems disingenuous to discuss Lovecraft without acknowledging his faults. show less
A couple of warnings about this book: Firstly, if you're unfamiliar with H.P. Lovecraft, you may want to jump around in the collection some. The stories are arranged in the order they were written, so a lot of the earlier stories are much weaker than those that come later in the collection. The other warning is that while H.P. Lovecraft is justifiably considered a master of the weird fiction genre and should definitely be read, he was also quite racist. I don't know show more if he was more racist than his peers during the time these stories were written (1920's and 30's, mostly), but he seems to have been more than a little phobic of miscegenation and that comes out in many of his stories. I still think the stories are worth reading, but it seems disingenuous to discuss Lovecraft without acknowledging his faults. show less
To all those tentacled: I just opened a box of weird. From theosophy, to oozing pillars among desolation; from accountings, to absence. Still processing; that was a lot, for so few pages. Which way is up?
"What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise."
"What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise."
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Howard Phillips Lovecraft, 1890 - 1937 H. P. Lovecraft was born on August 20, 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island. His mother was Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft and his father was Winfield Scott Lovecraft, a traveling salesman for Gorham & Co. Silversmtihs. Lovecraft was reciting poetry at the age of two and when he was three years old, his father show more suffered a mental breakdown and was admitted to Butler Hospital. He spent five years there before dying on July 19, 1898 of paresis, a form of neurosyphillis. During those five years, Lovecraft was told that his father was paralyzed and in a coma, which was not the case. His mother, two aunts and grandfather were now bringing up Lovecraft. He suffered from frequent illnesses as a boy, many of which were psychological. He began writing between the ages of six and seven and, at about the age of eight, he discovered science. He began to produce the hectographed journals, "The Scientific Gazette" (1899-1907) and "The Rhode Island Journal of Astronomy" (1903-07). His first appearance in print happened, in 1906, when he wrote a letter on an astronomical matter to The Providence Sunday Journal. A short time later, he began writing a monthly astronomy column for The Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner - a rural paper. He also wrote columns for The Providence Tribune (1906-08), The Providence Evening News (1914-18), The Asheville (N.C.) Gazette-News (1915). In 1904, his grandfather died and the family suffered severe financial difficulties, which forced him and his mother to move out of their Victorian home. Devastated by this, he apparently contemplated suicide. In 1908, before graduating from high school, he suffered a nervous breakdown. He didn't receive a diploma and failed to get into Brown University, both of which caused him great shame. Lovecraft was not heard from for five years, re-emerging because of a letter he wrote in protest to Fred Jackson's love story in The Argosy. His letter was published in 1913 and caused great controversy, which was noted by Edward F. Daas, President of the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA). Daas invited Lovecraft to join the UAPA, which he did in early 1914. He eventually became President and Official Editor of the UAPA and served briefly as President of the rival National Amateur Press Association (NAPA). He published thirteen issues of his own paper, The Conservative (1915-23) and contributed poetry and essays to other journals. He also wrote some fiction which titles include "The Beast in the Cave" (1905), "The Alchemist" (1908), "The Tomb" and "Dagon" (1917). In 1919, Lovecraft's mother was deteriorating, mentally and physically, and was admitted to Butler Hospital. On May 24, 1921, his mother died from a gall bladder operation. While attending an amateur journalism convention in Boston, Lovecraft met his future wife Sonia Haft Greene, a Russian Jew. They were married on March 3, 1924 and Lovecraft moved to her apartment in Brooklyn. Sonia had a shop on Fifth Avenue that went bankrupt. In 1925, Sonia went to Cleveland for a job and Lovecraft moved to a smaller apartment in the Red Hook district of Brooklyn. In 1926, he decided to move back to Providence. Lovecraft had his aunts bar his wife, Sonia, from going to Providence to start a business because he couldn't have the stigma of a tradeswoman wife. They were divorced in 1929. After his return to Providence, he wrote his greatest fiction, which included the titles "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926), "At the Mountains of Madness" (1931), and "The Shadow Out of Time" (1934-35). In 1932, his aunt, Mrs. Clark, died; and he moved in with his other aunt, Mrs. Gamwell, in 1933. Suffering from cancer of the intestine, Lovecraft was admitted to Jane Brown Memorial Hospital and on March 15, 1937 he died. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Is contained in
The Dark Worlds of H. P. Lovecraft, Volume 1: The Dunwich Horror / The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft, Gesammelte Werke: Gebunden in feingeprägter Leinenstruktur auf Naturpapier aus Bayern. Mit Goldprägung (Anaconda Gesammelte Werke 45) (German Edition) by H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft's Tales in the Cthulhu Mythos - A Collection of Short Stories (Fantasy and Horror Classics) by H. P. Lovecraft
Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos: Golden Anniversary Anthology (1990 Edition by Arkham House) by H. P. Lovecraft
Lovecraft Library Volume 2: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Mythos Tales (H.P. Lovecraft) by H. P. Lovecraft
90 Masterpieces You Must Read (Vol.1): Novels, Poetry, Plays, Short Stories, Essays, Psychology & Philosophy by Various
Has the adaptation
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Call of Cthulhu [short story]
- Original publication date
- 1928
- People/Characters
- George Gammell Angell; Henry Anthony Wilcox; Inspector John Raymond Legrasse; William Channing Webb; Old Castro; Joseph D. Galvez (show all 16); Gustaf Johansen; Cthulhu; Francis Wayland Thurston; William Briden; Rodriguez; Hawkins; Donovan; Ångstrom; Guerrera; Parker
- Important places
- Providence, Rhode Island, USA; Oslo, Norway; R'lyeh; Norway; Rhode Island, USA; USA (show all 9); Fleur-de-Lys Building, Thomas Street, Providence, Rhode Island, USA; Pacific Ocean; Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand
- Important events
- Charlevoix–Kamouraska earthquake
- Related movies
- The Call of Cthulhu (2005 | IMDb); Cthulhu (2007 | IMDb)
- First words
- (Found Among the Papers of the Late Francis Wayland Thurston, of
Boston)
"Of such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a
survival… a survival of a hugely remote period when… consciousness
was ma... (show all)nifested, perhaps, in shapes and forms long since withdrawn
before the tide of advancing humanity… forms of which poetry and
legend alone have caught a flying memory and called them gods,
monsters, mythical beings of all sorts and kinds… ."
- Algernon Blackwood
(Found among the papers of the late Francis Wayland Thurston, of Boston). - Quotations
- The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we sho... (show all)uld voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodi... (show all)es had told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died. This was that cult, and the prisoners said it had always existed and always would exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him.
That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind wo... (show all)uld have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.
There are vocal qualities peculiar to men, and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will come - but I must not and cannot think! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no other eye.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no other eye. - Disambiguation notice
- This is the short story, do NOT combine with the various collections it is included in.
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