Classics Corner: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft; An Anthology About Fear of the Unknown and The Madness That Comes With It

Classics Corner: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft; An Anthology About Fear of the Unknown and The Madness That Comes With It

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I admit it. I have dementophobia which is a fear of insanity and mental illness. Even though I have Depression and Anxiety, watching movies or shows or reading books where a character has a breakdown and needs to be institutionalized terrifies me. I especially fear them when they involve verbal and auditory hallucinations. I remember reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper” for the first time at a college student center and threw the book down because it affected me so badly. (It has since become one of my favorite short stories of all time).

I also remember, in middle school, reading a short story called, “Voices” about a young girl hearing voices in her head telling her who's going to die then passing this ability to her friend after she dies. This story made me so sick that I had to go to the nurse. The teacher agreed saying that I looked “as white as a sheet.”




So you can understand my conflicting feelings about reading The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft. Knowing that Lovecraft loved to write about madness and that he himself spent a number of years in various institutions, I knew this would be a potentially scary adventure. But as always, I challenge myself in my reading and even though I was frightened, I was able to recognize and appreciate the fear factor in which Lovecraft's stories conveyed.




One of the most interesting aspects to Lovecraft's stories are the set ups. Sometimes the presentation of the monsters are lackluster (Cthulhu is part octopus and several other aquatic animals), but they often are preceded by a sense of madness and tension that fills the characters and the Reader with fear long before they arrive. Even their names are enough to drive a person to insanity. Usually the encounters leave the characters succumbing to insanity and drug addiction to forget them.




Another interesting aspect is the interconnection of the stories. They all appear to be set in the same universe, the majority in a fictional town called Arkham, Massachusetts. (Batman fans will recognize the tribute to Lovecraft's work with the name for Arkham Asylum where Gotham City's not so finest are usually sent after their encounters with the Caped Crusader.) Many names are repeated in various stories like Ryloth, Dagon, Nylarhotep, and of course Cthulhu. Many characters refer to a spell book called the Necromonicon which usually becomes the gateway to these creatures. In fact the stories’ interconnection so inspired other authors to write about this world so now the Cthulhu Mythos has become a shared universe.




All of the stories are terrifying but my favorite stories are:




Celephais-I call this Lovecraft-lite (or as lite as he can be). A man dreams of a beautiful city and spends the rest of his life trying to get to it through other dreams, travel, and drug use. Finally he sees the city once more and it's residents welcome him as people see his body wash up onshore. He is only able to visit the place after death.




The Rats in the Walls-Lovecraft wrote about family secrets and this one was quite terrifying. After his son's death, a widower visits his ancestral home. He is haunted by the sound of rats scurrying in the walls. He discovers a secret door which leads to several quadruped humans bred to be chattel and then food for his ancestors. The final scene is very gruesome as the man succumbs to his family hunger but refuses to admit it blaming it on the rats in the walls that he still hears in his padded cell.




He-Lovecraft shows the decline of progress in the big city. A visitor to New York City encounters a mysterious man in old fashioned garb. Through the man’s storytelling the narrator is taken on a visual journey to New York City's past where he sees it literally transform from the forest and village that it once was to the bustling city. The man then takes the Narrator to the future where the city is destroyed by smog, overcrowding, and violence. The Narrator then realizes that the man has more than insight to New York’s past. He was one of the early settlers. The narrator runs but he can't forget the man or his visions.




The Call of Cthulhu-The story that brought that lovable Dark God to our hearts. The Narrator receives a letter from his uncle and two sculptures of some really ugly characters. He learns that his uncle had been studying massive outbreaks of hysteria, madness, and suicide all over the world. Various unrelated cults around the world celebrate the return of the Old Ones, particularly a character called Cthulhu. The uncle also learns that this cult began when a meteor fell from the sky.

That's frightening enough but an account from a sailor is even more so. He and his crew encounter morass where the meteor fell. They end up in a place called Ryloth and get a glimpse of Cthulhu before they retreat with only one sailor left.




The Shadow Over Innsmouth-Not only is this story a creepy description of a village with a dark secret but the implication that it's a follow up to a previous story, Dagon makes it even more chilling. In Dagon, a sailor ends up near a strange land mass containing a monolith about a sea creature. He becomes terrified when he encounters the sea creature and retreats back to his home to bury his fear in drug addiction. He then learns of the creature's possible name from a friend who describes it as Dagon, a very rare and obscure god who is no longer recognized.

Now, here’s the interesting part about Innsmouth, the Narrator (a different one this time), goes to the titular village which consists of reclusive locals who worship Dagon. So not only have people become aware of Dragon's presence by the time Innsmouth is set, but a cult is created and a village is inhabited by his followers. (It is entirely possible that Dragon's Narrator enabled him to travel to our world and be recognized). Even better, the Innsmouth villagers have mated with either Dagon himself or various sea creatures and are reptilian or amphibian in appearance with fish eyes that never blink, scales on their bodies, large feet, and a persistent odor of fish.




The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories is a truly chilling but well-written anthology about the fear of the unknown, the creatures in the dark and the madness that often comes when they are encountered.