Reading Lovecraft

[bladespark]

So I stumbled upon a site that has an apparently complete collection of H. P. Lovecraft's writing. Given how much his stuff turns up in modern internet culture, as well as in various other horror, sci-fi and fantasy settings, I figured I should read some of it. It... varies greatly, it seems. The Call of Cthulhu sucked. Just plain and simple. Badly written in every way. Individual bits were dull and uninteresting, the overall plot lurched, and despite being very short, it nearly lost my attention anyhow. The only good bits are, as one might expect, the descriptions of Cthulhu himself. And that's not much, really, to carry a whole story. The Color Out of Space was okay. Not actually horrifying to the modern reader, but one can see how it could have been scary back in the day, and the period chemistry bits actually interested me quite a bit. The Cats of Ulthar was good just because cats! And it's short enough to not lose the attention. But The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath was spiffy! (Though my grammar nazi-ism wants to say it should be The Dream Quest for Unknown Kadath, as Kadath is the object of the quest, not the one doing the questing. Anyhow, it was fairly long, but I didn't mind a word of it, except perhaps for the overly lengthy exposition by Nyarlathotep at the end. You wouldn't think the crawling chaos would ramble on at length, admiring his own cleverness as he goes, but apparently he does. (And it is strange that I'm having more troble figuring out how the heck you pronounce Nyarlathotep than I ever did with Cthulhu?) But anyhow, rambling aside it was really good. More cats, ghouls that go "meep" (I giggled every time the word "meep" came up. Ghouls! That meep!) and lots of just plain weird and interesting stuff. And I understand better why Nyarlathotep was portrayed the way he was in the Call of Whatever comic.

Now, what to read next?

Comments

[wtftastic.livejournal.com]

Herbert West: Re-Animator was awesome. And its good to see some one new coming into the Lovecraft "fandom" if you will. I'm new to it myself, but I know what I like, and I like this. :)

[malakim2099.livejournal.com]

Yeah, some of Lovecraft's stuff is creepy, some decidedly less so.

The freakiest one, to me, was Rats in the Walls. THAT was decidedly disturbing. Ironically, I think that his trips to the Old Ones aren't as interesting as his depictions of the insane.

Oh, and some authors have done some decent spinoffs of his work. The Hounds of Tintalos in particular was a fun read. And will want you to round off all the corners of your house. *grins*

[aurora77]

Ooh, linky?

[aurora77]

As far as what's next...

There are a lot of free audiobooks on the web, if you want to sew and listen at the same time. I started Robinson Crusoe not to long ago and am enjoying it. And The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Just poke around and you'll find lots of free readings of public domain works. Not all are good, but I found several that are. Some poetry, some short stories, some novellas, and many classics. From Rafael Sabatini to Alexander Dumas to Edgar Allen Poe. If I find the link to the really good site I found, I'll post it.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

http://www.gordon-fernandes.com/hp-lovecraft/

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Nie-ar-laf-ho-tep :) IMO any way

Of course after playing Discowrld Noir it will always translate it to Nylonethetep. The Laddering Horror.