The Call of Cthulhu (found saved)
H.P Lovecraft is tiresome. There I said it; it’s out in the open. Lots of famous horror and science-fiction writers have professed the he is one of the reasons they write, but if he got much more purple, Willy Wonka would have him juiced. In his discussion on supernatural horror, he talked about how gothic writers spent too much time with too frilly of words. What was that, Howard? Did you say they were too flowery? Did I read things right, you H.P. Lovecraft accused other writers of having too much purple prose in their writing? Everything I’ve ever read with Lovecraft on it has oozed (no pun intended) with varying shades of violet. If he weren’t such a racist, I would say that Lovecraft would be best represented by the African violet.
But to his credit, I will say he helped to change the “literature of the weird.” Lovecraft especially liked for his monsters or sources of horror to come from the great expanses of space. Cthulhu is no different. He (if it has gender) came to earth from the stars and was worshipped as a god (an elder god to be exact.) Many other Lovecraftian monsters were little more than alien creatures that landed on earth and found it ripe for the taking. Until the Lovecraft era, most monsters of literature were ghost clanging chains in a castle of Italy. He mentions this in his treatise on horror. The creatures and monsters weren’t really from the unknown. Lovecraft gave horror the fear of the unknown. Most of his stories possess a creepy mood. All his long-winded and flowery writing made sure that the reader got the creepy part. He often told us of this instead of showing.
In The Call of Cthulhu, Lovecraft never lets the narrator give the first person vision of this horrible creature that has come from the stars to rest in the ocean. We see it only in the idols, statues, bas-reliefs, and first-person, second-hand news. This takes much of the scare out of the story. For all the hideousness this creature bares, I’m not scared of Cthulhu. I’m not frightened that at the end of the story he is still sleeping the depths of the pacific awaiting his chance to strike. Big deal, Godzilla’s down there too, and he’s much tougher than a squid face creepy.
I think ultimately, Lovecraft could see everyone else’s flaws, but not his own. He could see how early gothic novels were a bit over the top and unable to hold the reader’s belief. He didn’t see the same problems with his own writing. H. P. Lovecraft has inspired many. I picked him up because others recommended him, but he’s dated like so many other old monster tales and tellers. The problem is I’m afraid he might have been dated then. Just my humble opinion though.
