Customer Reviews

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This was the first Lovecraft book I ever read. In keeping with Penguin's tradition of scholarly presentations of literary masterpieces, this volume begins with an essay by Joshi on Lovecraft's life and works. The stories themselves are fairly heavily laden with endnotes, which, while initially distracting, eventually lead the reader to discover richness in Lovecraft's work which would not be evident at first blush. Prominent among the annotations are explanations of geographical places and names which appear in the stories, together with allusions to works by other authors (most prominently Poe and Bierce) which echo Lovecraft's.

This book is highly recommended for anyone wishing a good first glimpse of the masterful mind of Lovecraft.

H.P. Lovecraft is without a doubt one of the best fiction writers of the 20th century. It's no surprise his writing techniques and stories still enthrall people today. The world he creates in his short stories and novels have often been revisted by various modern writers, but nobody has been able to top Lovecraft when it comes to cosmic terrors.

The most famous story in this volume is, of course, "Call of Cthulhu", in which one of the central entities of Lovecraft's stories appears: Great Cthulhu. As with many of Lovecraft's tales, the story focuses on the main character gaining forbidden and unblieveable knowledge of prehuman intellegences that once roamed the Earth. Some came from other dimensions, others from the stars. These "Old Ones" are chronicled in forbidden texts handed down by hideous cults who worship them like gods. The world in which Lovecraft places human beings is not a pleasant one. He basically paints a rather frightening picture; human beings live on a planet surrounded by gulfs of unknown monstrosities and extraterrestrial forces.

By contrast, some of Lovecraft's other tales, such as "Pickman's Model" and "The Hound" have a more basic, creeping fear feel rather than cosmic terror. "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "At the Mountains of Madness" combine both themes, resulting in stories that both intrege and frighten readers. Lovecraft's ability to decribe the emotions of his characters and the world in which they live adds the final gruesome touch. Like Poe, Lovecraft has a nack for portraying the emotions of his characters, and in these stories fear is the emotion that receives the most attention. Another aspect of these stories that I really enjoy is Lovecraft's ability to weave myths into his tales. He ficticously explains everything from Robert Blake's death, the Tuscan Event, witchcraft and ancient mythology as man's racial knowledge of various weird entities they could not understand.

I first read the "Call of Cthulhu" during WW2. The Services distributed "pass-it-along" editions of many classic novels and the "Call" was one. It was so exciting, I kept my copy and took it home. Dog-eared after so may readers, my kids soon found and read it 15 years latter. Now, this yellowed and torn copy has been replaced by this new Penquin edition. Lovecraft's style is odd and sometimes overdone. He never wrote about romance and very little about science fiction. Modern Cthulhu mythos novels, like "The Riddle of Cthulhu", correct all these faults and are cool next books, after the "Call"!

Lovecraft is one of those writers you either love or hate. Some of it is just personal preference. For example, Lovecraft's prose is a baroque and complex. It is generally evocative but at times clumsy, but always suited to the story. If you prefer a more Hemingwayesque style then look elsewhere. If you don't like weird and scary works don't bother. However if you lack these prejudices then you might be interest. Lovecraft does have his faults though, his racism sometimes enters into the story as in "He". Also his fiction can range from the truely [bad] such as "Herbert West-Re-animator" to the astoundingly good such as "The Colour out of Space" and "Shadow over Innsmouth." It is foolish to present his fiction as flawless. However, it is even more foolish to ignore it.

Its interesting reading those who critise HP for being a bit dull. In my most humble opinion, HP LOvecraft is a true horror writer. Horror is not, adopting HP's view of the world, a Freddy Kruger slashing to bits teenagers, or a world over run with zombies- the REAL horror is a wholly uncaring universe, with human efforts and endevours meaning absolutly nothing. The Cthulu mythos , as it is called, all flows from that basic concept- the universe, and the "great old ones" that populate parts of it, do not care for human endevour and that is enough to drive one mad. This philosophy is well reflected in the chilling opening lines of the "The call of cthulhu"- " "the most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents".

With that in mind this is an excellent introduction to HP. It contains a mix of his more serious and well known works " The Call of Cthuthlu" and " The rats in the walls", to some of the more obscure and self parodying works. This is not the full stretch by any imagination, but serves as an excellent intorsuction to a writer whose influence cannot be understated. There are some very short stories, plus the a selection of the longer ones in the canon.

Joshis intorduction, and footnotes while from time to time are distracting are scolerly and informative. All in all this is THE best introduction to HP.

Bear in mind that the Cthulhu mythos is not for all readers. If you are expecting more direct and blunt horror such as King, you will be disappointed. If you want thought provoking writing, that will get you thinking and linger with you after you turn off the lights you will not be disappointed at all.

Grade: A++

This was my first exposure to the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and I enjoyed it so much that half way through, I went out and bought another collection, THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES. Lovecraft's prose is creepy in a way that I really hadn't experienced from other so-called horror writers. A lot of the stories follow the same basic structure, but that didn't distract from the fact that these were some of the wildest and most chilling stories that I have read in a very long time.

I had heard a lot about the types of stories that Lovecraft wrote, but I wasn't really prepared for how creepy they would be. A lot of them really shouldn't be as shocking as they are, but somehow Lovecraft gets away with it. He likes to use a lot of frivolous language and has the tendency to take short cuts by saying that the various creatures and entities are too frightening, too complicated, or too alien for the human mind to comprehend. While I'm usually the first person to roll my eyes at this sort of literary cop-out, I was completely enthralled by its use here. Lovecraft's command of language is precise and effective. The monsters and Gods that he describes truly seem fearsome and unnerving.

The actual plots of these stories seem to be vaguely repetitive. Since this is the first collection of Lovecraft that I have read, I'm not sure if these is indicative of his work in general, but it is certainly apparent that many of these stories follow the same basic structure. I didn't really find this to be a problem though. There are enough major differences in the stories that they don't all seem to blend together, despite their commonalities. This was helped, no doubt, by the fact that I only read a few stories at a time, managing to absorb the book slowly over a longer period of time.

This edition is semi-annotated, though I'd advice against reading them if you've never encountered these stories before. They contain a lot of background detail, but also contain numerous spoilers. I found myself reading a story and then going back and safely reading the notes and references. Each story is also given a short write-up that gives a non-fictional account of the background. Interested readers can see what the circumstances were behind each of the writings, as well as their publishing history.

To be honest, it's difficult to review a short story collection. After all, there are eighteen different tales in this book, and the reviewer simply doesn't have enough space to discuss each one individually. The best that I can do is to state that while there were one or two stories that failed to grab, the vast majority of these were spellbinding and genuinely unsettling.

But "weird" really does describe most of these stories. I remember liking these a lot more when I was younger. The mental image of the fish god arising from the bog doesn't really hold up over the years.

This is undoubtedly one of the best books of all time. I've gotten little or no sleep the last few nights (but then I'm a nervous, jumpy person to begin with). The stories, in addition to being scary, are interesting! Some are predictable, but never to the pint of being dull. The descriptions are poetic and envoking, and the stories are emotional. This book is great for anyone who can stand the sophisticated writing style and big words.

I found it interesting that most of the stories by H.P. Lovecraft (at least in this volume) seem to take place within the same strange world. It's almost like some reference each other without having the same characters reappear. Many of the creatures in his stories are either aliens from another world or demons.

I originally purchased this volume because of "The Colour Out of Space" which was used for the movie Die, Monster, Die starring Boris Karloff and Nick Adams. You also have "Herbert West - Reanimator" which was used for Re-Animator. Although I haven't seen it, judging from the DVD case, the movie Dagon is actually based on "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and not "Dagon." ("Innsmouth" has the Order of Dagon in it.)

Although there is a quote from Stephen King on the back, I didn't find these stories overly scary. They were enjoyable and interesting. "The Picture in the House" and "The Hound" are good horror stories.

His writing style took a little getting used to. Using words like "shew" struck me as a bit odd at first.

These are the only stories of his I've read, but I do feel he is a great writer.

Great master pieces of horror and suspense, although they are often predictable. Anyone who enjoys Edgar Allan Poe or modern writers such as stephen king would love every minute of this book. Tales of hybrids and "The Great Old Ones" and the Cthulhu whose name must not be written by mere mortals.

The author's influnece can be seen beyond other authors. The Metallica instumental "The Call of Ktulu" is named after this book. Another Metallica song, "The Thing That Should Not Be" is simply "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" turned into a song.