A review by risky_oak
The Classic Horror Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
THE oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
H.P. Lovecraft Introduction from 'Supernatural Horror in Literature'
Lovecraft was the subject of the first book by the leading contemporary French Novelist [a:Michel Houellebecq|32878|Michel Houellebecq|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1405511632p2/32878.jpg]. [...] The novels of [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg] are unthinkable without Lovecraft as are the films of the Alien series [...] Particularly the Swiss artist H. R. Giger's designs for the [first] film [in the Alien series]. [In the same vein] is [a:Guillermo del Toro|167605|Guillermo del Toro|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1244751075p2/167605.jpg]'s fantasy cinema. [...] All this is not bad for a [reclusive] man of fragile health who only circulated his stories to close friends in handwritten form, or published them in tiny networks of amateur journals.
[a:Roger Luckhurst|39598|Roger Luckhurst|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] Introduction of this book.
My first contact with Lovecraft was in 2013 when a Facebook friend sent me a pdf format of Lovecraft's complete fiction, but since I loathe reading in an electronic form I haven't read it, not even a paragraph. In 2014 when I was in Manchester, UK a flatmate gave me her [b:The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories|33490|The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories|H.P. Lovecraft|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1397406382s/33490.jpg|6750943] but the elaborate descriptions and elaborate use of adjectives and adverbs by Lovecraft made me abandoned (dnf) the book. Now 3 years later I seized him for good.
Note:
I read 83% of this book in 2016, so it makes it a 2016 book and I put it in 2016 reading challenge since I want to start 2017 with a new book.
THE TALES
▶ 1 The Horror at Red Hook
Lovecraft himself said that "The Horror at Red Hook" "[was] rather long and rambling, and I don't think it is very good.
I agree with him.
❇ ❇ ❇
▶ 2 The Call of Cthulhu
Most emblematic and well known story by Lovecraft. So I was expecting something longer than the 29 pages I read. And it felt like a journalistic piece of writing; a bit fragmented, with good elements of horror. It didn't move me though, the characters and narrative felt a bit flat and dry despite the slimy oozing atmosphere it had. Next time maybe
❇ ❇ ❇
▶ 3 The Colour out of Space
Finally a decent horror story. A meteorite falls nearby a farm and in a year everything is infested: vegetation, animals and the family that owns the farm. Madness, Disappearances, Disfigurements, Emissions of an alien vapour in indescribable colour.
What I was looking for in a collection of horror stories by H.P. Lovecraft.
❇ ❇ ❇ ❇,4
▶ 4 The Dunwich Horror
Something is (pretty) rotten in the state of Dunwich. Something not of this world. Something abominable and dangerous. A child the result of an albino woman and an unknown [possibly] non-human father.
All these and more surround this story that feels like a B-horror movie but certainly the story is not B rated.
❇ ❇ ❇ ❇
▶ 5 The Whisperer in Darkness
I felt a few shivers while reading this story especially during the last 30 pages. Extraterrestrial or to be more precise extracosmic beings are present in this story.
Our narrator has a correspondence with a Vermont folklorist who believes non-human evil creatures pester him at his farmhouse. Then out of the blue he invites the narrator to visit him as if nothing happened. I felt that something was wrong; & it was.
❇ ❇ ❇ ❇
▶ 6 At the Mountains of Madness
Longest story so far (103p.) Even though it was a really interesting story and had many references to Poe and other authors, even though it reminded me of Indiana Jones, Alien vs Predator, Dan Brown's, Deception Point, and other Science Fiction/Horror stories it had elements I don't really enjoy in a story. Elaborate descriptions; that slow down the pace of the story. Architectural descriptions that go on and on and description of how a beast or person looks and what he wears. . . Oh bother!
❇ ❇ ❇,5
▶ 7 The Dreams in the Witch-House
Probably the best story so far.
A university student rents an attic in an old house that's rumoured to be cursed since a witch that disappeared during the Salem trials was once living there. Nightmares are becoming one with reality. In his dreams he repeatedly encounters the witch, a negro (Lovecraft can't avoid racism) & a rat that has a human face (Brown Jenkin).
❇ ❇ ❇ ❇,5
▶ 8 The Shadow over Innsmouth
A scary story indeed. I felt goosebumps towards the end, see keyholes and abandoned hotel. The ending wasn't very bright for the narrator or for the reader. It depends on how you see it.
❇ ❇ ❇ ❇,5
▶ 9 The Shadow Out of Time
A VERY interesting story, BUT at the end it was all:
That horror which I saw. I'll tell you in a moment. The horror oh! the horror it's coming. The horror was there, I saw it you know what it was? A horror. . . No answers, a lot of confusion, felt a bit turn of the screw-ish so its initial enjoyment evaporated like a f
❇ ❇ ❇
Even though I find Lovecraft a repulsive racist and his race and eugenics views inexcusable even for his times, he was indeed a great storyteller and I will certainly look for more stories by him.
3.7 stars
H.P. Lovecraft Introduction from 'Supernatural Horror in Literature'
Lovecraft was the subject of the first book by the leading contemporary French Novelist [a:Michel Houellebecq|32878|Michel Houellebecq|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1405511632p2/32878.jpg]. [...] The novels of [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg] are unthinkable without Lovecraft as are the films of the Alien series [...] Particularly the Swiss artist H. R. Giger's designs for the [first] film [in the Alien series]. [In the same vein] is [a:Guillermo del Toro|167605|Guillermo del Toro|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1244751075p2/167605.jpg]'s fantasy cinema. [...] All this is not bad for a [reclusive] man of fragile health who only circulated his stories to close friends in handwritten form, or published them in tiny networks of amateur journals.
[a:Roger Luckhurst|39598|Roger Luckhurst|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] Introduction of this book.
My first contact with Lovecraft was in 2013 when a Facebook friend sent me a pdf format of Lovecraft's complete fiction, but since I loathe reading in an electronic form I haven't read it, not even a paragraph. In 2014 when I was in Manchester, UK a flatmate gave me her [b:The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories|33490|The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories|H.P. Lovecraft|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1397406382s/33490.jpg|6750943] but the elaborate descriptions and elaborate use of adjectives and adverbs by Lovecraft made me abandoned (dnf) the book. Now 3 years later I seized him for good.
Note:
I read 83% of this book in 2016, so it makes it a 2016 book and I put it in 2016 reading challenge since I want to start 2017 with a new book.
THE TALES
▶ 1 The Horror at Red Hook
Lovecraft himself said that "The Horror at Red Hook" "[was] rather long and rambling, and I don't think it is very good.
I agree with him.
❇ ❇ ❇
▶ 2 The Call of Cthulhu
Most emblematic and well known story by Lovecraft. So I was expecting something longer than the 29 pages I read. And it felt like a journalistic piece of writing; a bit fragmented, with good elements of horror. It didn't move me though, the characters and narrative felt a bit flat and dry despite the slimy oozing atmosphere it had. Next time maybe
❇ ❇ ❇
▶ 3 The Colour out of Space
Finally a decent horror story. A meteorite falls nearby a farm and in a year everything is infested: vegetation, animals and the family that owns the farm. Madness, Disappearances, Disfigurements, Emissions of an alien vapour in indescribable colour.
What I was looking for in a collection of horror stories by H.P. Lovecraft.
❇ ❇ ❇ ❇,4
▶ 4 The Dunwich Horror
Something is (pretty) rotten in the state of Dunwich. Something not of this world. Something abominable and dangerous. A child the result of an albino woman and an unknown [possibly] non-human father.
All these and more surround this story that feels like a B-horror movie but certainly the story is not B rated.
❇ ❇ ❇ ❇
▶ 5 The Whisperer in Darkness
I felt a few shivers while reading this story especially during the last 30 pages. Extraterrestrial or to be more precise extracosmic beings are present in this story.
Our narrator has a correspondence with a Vermont folklorist who believes non-human evil creatures pester him at his farmhouse. Then out of the blue he invites the narrator to visit him as if nothing happened. I felt that something was wrong; & it was.
❇ ❇ ❇ ❇
▶ 6 At the Mountains of Madness
Longest story so far (103p.) Even though it was a really interesting story and had many references to Poe and other authors, even though it reminded me of Indiana Jones, Alien vs Predator, Dan Brown's, Deception Point, and other Science Fiction/Horror stories it had elements I don't really enjoy in a story. Elaborate descriptions; that slow down the pace of the story. Architectural descriptions that go on and on and description of how a beast or person looks and what he wears. . . Oh bother!
❇ ❇ ❇,5
▶ 7 The Dreams in the Witch-House
Probably the best story so far.
A university student rents an attic in an old house that's rumoured to be cursed since a witch that disappeared during the Salem trials was once living there. Nightmares are becoming one with reality. In his dreams he repeatedly encounters the witch, a negro (Lovecraft can't avoid racism) & a rat that has a human face (Brown Jenkin).
❇ ❇ ❇ ❇,5
▶ 8 The Shadow over Innsmouth
A scary story indeed. I felt goosebumps towards the end, see keyholes and abandoned hotel. The ending wasn't very bright for the narrator or for the reader. It depends on how you see it.
❇ ❇ ❇ ❇,5
▶ 9 The Shadow Out of Time
A VERY interesting story, BUT at the end it was all:
That horror which I saw. I'll tell you in a moment. The horror oh! the horror it's coming. The horror was there, I saw it you know what it was? A horror. . . No answers, a lot of confusion, felt a bit turn of the screw-ish so its initial enjoyment evaporated like a f
❇ ❇ ❇
Even though I find Lovecraft a repulsive racist and his race and eugenics views inexcusable even for his times, he was indeed a great storyteller and I will certainly look for more stories by him.
3.7 stars