The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

“The Call of Cthulhu” in Black Seas of Infinity or Tales of H.P. Lovecraft: Major Works
by H.P. Lovecraft

“The Call of Cthulhu” is a short story which can be found in the library’s collection in ‘Black Seas of Infinity: The Best of H.P. Lovecraft’ and in ‘Tales of H.P. Lovecraft: Major Works’. This is a review of only this particular short story, not the entire collections.

The Call of Cthulhu is one of many short stories by H.P. Lovecraft, an author of horror or strange fiction. Despite Cthulhu’s fame he only appears in one of Lovecraft’s stories. Many other authors have written additional tales of Cthulhu, and there are still more written about him online, so to discover the real Cthulhu I decided to read the original. It’s really not very long and you can find it in various Lovecraft omnibuses, so if you are curious like I was its not difficult or time consuming to get a copy and read it. Now I had not read any Lovecraft before this and my preconceived notions were that it would be rather terrifying but it wasn’t really; it was more thought provoking than anything else. The narrator is looking back over documents of a psychotherapist and his patient, an artist, who went mad under strange circumstances. There are other documents of people around the world going mad and having strange dreams at the same time. There’s a law enforcement officer with a strange tale of swamp natives going missing, tracking them down and finding a strange cult worshiping a strange statuette of the same figure that had been carved by the artist who went mad. He takes the statute to archaeology conference, no one but one had ever seen it’s like before. In Iceland this time, the same strange cult, with the same statuette and same chants of Cthulhu are also recorded. Finally the tale of a seamen who at the same time of the world wide cases of madness, came ashore a strange island that rose out of the sea and out of a door so large it didn’t look like a door, comes the creature of the statuette. I’ve given a lot of the story away already, but I’ll leave the ending for you to read. I feel like what the story does is provoke thoughts of human insignificance and relative smallness in the grader scale of the universe. I think this is where the fear is meant to come from rather than from Cthulhu’s physical appearance and behavior. In this way it’s more of a psychological horror, so even if you don’t read horror, but like stories that give you something to think about afterwards, you may like this.

[‘Leaf by Niggle’ by J.R.R. Tolkien is another thought provoking short story you may like. It can be found in Poems & Stories, by Tolkien (828 Tol). It has mysteries of it’s own to contemplate, but no horror aspects.]

[ Full text of “The Call of Cthulhu” ] | [ official H.P. Lovecraft Archive web site ]

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations! #ReadersUnite

New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird

New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird
edited by Paula Guran [813.08 Gur]

Inspired by the impact of the groundbreaking horror works of H.P. Lovecraft in the 20th century, this collection of 27 short works is a sampling of what is being referred to as "the new weird". The stories are not necessarily Lovecraftian in style -- although some have strong hints of that -- but they are modern, up-to-date takes on the kinds of themes and ideas that Lovecraft's stories touched upon 100 years ago. The stories in this collection vary in quality, but even at their weakest, they still exude a sense of otherworldieness -- humanity is still a small speck in the greater cosmos, and we appear to be sharing our small planet with fascinating and terrifying creatures beyond our imaginings. I highly recommend this collection, in part, due to the reputations of many of its contributors. The stories are all reprints from other sources, but you'd be hard pressed to find as good a collection featuring such an esteemed variety of contributors, including: Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, Kim Newman, John Shirley and Sarah Monette. If you have even the slightest interest in contemporary horror fiction, you'll want to try this one on for size!. [If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Lovecraft's original stories and novels.] -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library [Subscribe to Scott's monthly booklist newsletter It's All Geek to Me! - on the Books, Movies & More newsletter sign-up page]

[ The New Weird entry on Wikipedia ]
 
Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

New Booktalk Booklist - I Thought With a Shudder...The Works of H.P. Lovecraft

In the month of October -- when many a reader's interests turn to the creepy, spooky, horrific, unexplained or paranormal -- it seems only appropriate to share Gordon A.'s booktalk booklist from his Gere Branch BooksTalk in April 2012.

Gordon's theme was on the overall works of legendary and influential horror writer H.P. Lovecraft -- creator of the Cthulhu Mythos. Most of the Lovecraft novels or short-story collections that are available in the Lincoln City Libraries' collection are listed in Gordon's booktalk content, as well as a checklist of individual Lovecraft stories for you to track down. Check it out!

I Thought With a Shudder...The Works of H.P. Lovecraft