The Call of Cthulhu (Penguin Modern Classics)

published	July 25th 2002 by Penguin Books Ltd
binding	Paperback
isbn	0141187069 (isbn13: 9780141187068)
pages	448
description	An unparalleled selection of fiction from H. P. Lovecraft, master of the American horror tale Long after his death, H. P. Lovecraft continues...more [close] An unparalleled selection of fiction from H. P. Lovecraft, master of the American horror tale Long after his death, H. P. Lovecraft continues to enthrall readers with his gripping tales of madness and cosmic terror, and his effect on modern horror fiction continues to be felt-- Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Clive Barker have acknowledged his influence. His unique contribution to American literature was a melding of Poe's traditional supernaturalism with the emerging genre of science fiction. Originally appearing in pulp magazines like Weird Tales in the 1920s and 1930s, Lovecraft's work is now being regarded as the most important supernatural fiction of the twentieth century. Lovecraft's biographer and preeminent interpreter, S. T. Joshi, has prepared this volume of eighteen stories--from the early classics like "The Outsider" and "Rats in the Wall" to his mature masterworks, "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." The first paperback to include the definitive corrected texts, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories reveals the development of Lovecraft's mesmerizing narrative style, and establishes him as a canonical--and visionary--American writer. "I think it is beyond doubt that H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." --Stephen King [close]
date added	01-10-07 edit book

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Chris rated it:

02/09/08

bookshelves: classics, horror, science-fiction

Read in November, 2006

As I write this, the hour draws later, every minute, every second casting my life further into the black, frozen abyss of the Past and bringing me one more step closer to the illimitable void that is my inevitable death. I can only pray that the sweet oblivion of sleep is able to scour away the memory of the horrors I have endured, of the horrors that I have perpetrated. And if there is a God, and if He is merciful, he will allow me the privilege of perishing before I wake so that I may not see ...more As I write this, the hour draws later, every minute, every second casting my life further into the black, frozen abyss of the Past and bringing me one more step closer to the illimitable void that is my inevitable death. I can only pray that the sweet oblivion of sleep is able to scour away the memory of the horrors I have endured, of the horrors that I have perpetrated. And if there is a God, and if He is merciful, he will allow me the privilege of perishing before I wake so that I may not see those horrors in the cold, unflinching light of day....

So, yeah, I enjoy reading Lovecraft.

Actually, what I realized as I read through these, is that I think I love the idea of Lovecraft more than his actual writings.

Don't get me wrong, the man was a genius. He was a master of not only horror, but of the language of horror, and managed to describe things that he himself admitted were indescribable. He took a simple house in the woods and turned it into an abattoir. He created half the architecture of modern horror, and laid the groundwork for everyone who has been fortunate enough to follow in his footsteps.

Still.... All I could think was this: when Lovecraft was writing, in the 20s and 30s, he must have scared eight kinds of hell out of his readers. But it was a different age back then. People had never seen Alien or In the Mouth of Madness (do you read Sutter Caine? *grin*) or anything like that. The images and the concepts that Lovecraft presented to them were new and fresh and horrible. For a modern reader, however, raised on Industrial Light and Magic and Pixar, it's not all that difficult to imagine the fungus-aliens of The Whisperer in Darkness or the vast underground ossuary of The Rats in the Walls or even the dread Cthulhu itself.

The unimaginable is no longer so, and that is a great disadvantage for modern readers of Lovecraft. I don't think we are able to experience the pants-shitting terror that someone back in the 1930s, living in a little fishing village in New England might have felt when reading The Shadow over Innsmouth for the first time and then having to go out at look at the local fishermen a little more suspiciously.

Hell, I can plot sunken R'lyeh on Google Maps (it's right here, if you're interested).

So yeah, I think I love the idea of Lovecraft. The philosophy behind his stories and his mythos, his brilliant use of words and his ability to see the incipient horror in the simples of things. But he didn't scare me. Pity....less

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The Call of Cthulhu (Penguin Modern Classics)

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