The call of Lovecraft

I re-watched The Dunwich Horror and Die Monster Die recently as part of my annual immersion in all things H. P. Lovecraft, a writer of horror stories who was little known in his day but who has become quite popular since his death in 1937. I'm not sure how widely read he is, though virtually his entire oeuvre of over 60 works (mostly short stories and novellas) has remained in print from a variety of publisher, and he's even got a volume in the Library of America series, though I suspect that many young people know him more from several popular video and role-playing games based on his work. (My sweetie even found a small green plush toy of the fearsome Ancient Dark God-Beast Cthulhu which he bought for me--see below.) I first encountered Lovecraft in college, back in the 70's; I can still vividly recall the circumstances of reading that first story, "The Call of Cthulhu," in the OSU library, in a comfortable reading chair up on the 3rd or 4th floor, looking out the huge window on the cloudy, blustery October day. I read several stories that quarter, and bought all the Ballantine paperbacks that were available.

Ever since then, I have made a point of reading or re-reading at least a couple of Lovecraft stories every October. The thing about his stories is that, while I enjoy them, they are not, individually, all that memorable. I have probably read some of his stories 5 or 6 times without retaining any knowledge of the plot or outcome--though the outcome is often some horrifying sight, unspeakable yet rendered IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Aside from that first Cthulhu story, the only other stories I remember well are "Dagon," about a race of water creatures, and the novella "At the Mountains of Madness," about an expedition to Antarctica that finds the ruins of a very scary and ancient site which was once home to some Ancient Monsters from the Stars. His writing is dense and long-winded, and often in the first person, with a narrator either relating something that happened to him in the past, or something that happened to someone else (usually a tale found in a journal or diary after the subject's death or mysterious disappearance). This means the stories lack the tension and immediacy of the writings of, say, Stephen King, but they do have atmosphere, and though the tales sometimes run together in the memory, they do build up a cumulative power over time. I'll report back as I do my Halloween Lovecraft reading over the next couple of weeks.