The Complete H.P. Lovecraft Collection: Fiction, Poetry, Essays and Letters, H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft is one of those names I grew up with. It's a name synonymous with the authors I loved the most growing up: Edgar Allan Poe and Robert E. Howard. So, when I heard, courtesy of a friend, that Amazon was giving away a complete collection of Lovecraft's fiction, I of course dropped everything and made sure to pick up a copy. Sorry, but that price point is no longer so sweet. Amazon.com now sells it for $.99. That's not a bad price considering what you get: a vast amount of literature capable of keeping you busy for a few months. It has a table of contents.This is something that would be terribly missed in so voluminous a volume.

I know that Lovecraft is revered. But, having gone through a few stories so far, I simply cannot seem to place them on the same shelf as Edgar Allan Poe or Robert E. Howard.

This text is quite long. It's roughly equivalent to three hefty Dickens novels. I don't think I will do it all in a single setting. I will do a few at a time and update this post as I read them.

Fiction

The Alchemist

Not a bad little horror story--the sort of pulp magazine fiction that would do well as a B-rated film script. A man is born with a curse. It is at once a magical curse and not a magical curse. It is magical in the sense that the nasty things that happened to his ancestors and nearly happened to him were the result of a kind of wizard who had attained a kind of immortality. But it was no curse in the sense that magical things would happen, or coincidental things would happen, due to some spoken curse.

At the Mountains of Madness

Image found at Mutantville.

 The beginning of this story feels so mechanical and dry. Like it's really out of the journal of some kind of explorer. The setting is the frozen continent: Antarctica. Perhaps the Antarctica had just begun to open up to explorers in Lovecraft's day and, therefore, easily exploited as an unknown possible horror.

Most of the story is pretty descriptive of setting. He goes into wordy descriptions of creatures and of this hidden city in the middle of the Antarctic. It is not until the main character begins to follow in the footsteps of the explorer, Lake, who disappears. He has gone to find out what happens to him. As a result, he discovers an alien race and some living remnants.

However, after seeing the ancient history of these alien races on earth through sculptures and artwork, a terrifying mist comes after his group, motivating a hasty retreat and a lucky escape.

There are really no characters. Although there are characters in the story, they are really nothing at all: no personalities at all. Does anyone say anything at all? No dialogue?

Current Thoughts

I am not entirely sure where I stand on this material. On the one hand, I think it is a kind of incomplete story: like there are parts missing to make it a good read. On the other, he was a kind of important pioneer. Many of the 20th century writers I admire point to him as an important influence.

In the Wikipedia article on H. P. Lovecraft, there is mention of his influences: Poe, Lord Dunsany, and others. I am already very familiar with Poe, while I don't recall having read any of Lord Dunsany.

Some things are worth reading just to get a sense of where other writers come from. I think this is one of those stories: read it to get a sense of historical evolution in the genres of science fiction and horror.

 --- I don't know when my next post on this book will be. Until then... may your nightmares consume you in unholy terror.

The Shunned House - H. P. Lovecraft

Image via WikipediaThe very name of H. P. Lovecraft is so often uttered with the same breath as Edgar Allan Poe. Having been an admirer of Poe's for quite some time, Lovecraft has always been on my radar, but "The Shunned House" is the first of his stories that I have read. "The Shunned House" can be found, for free, at Gutenberg.org.

It's a tale about a haunted house. Every inhabitant to live in the house has been cursed, and had subsequently died in that house or had had their minds twisted such that they were then sent to an asylum.

The hero of the story is never named. Though, it is written in first person. Perhaps I am to assume that the hero is Lovecraft himself. Through an all night vigil, he and his uncle watch the basement of the 'shunned house' to see what might be seen. However, this is to exact the cost of his uncle who somehow mysteriously vanishes or putrefies. Thereafter, armed with a pick-axe and acid, the hero manages to banish the spectre of horror from the house.

The language is positively amusing in how heavily it depends on macabre vocabulary. It is also amusing to read about the use of bleeding edge technology in the era within which this tale was written. Of course, seeming primitive to the early twenty-first century, it also makes me think of all the technology used in modern ghost busters' arsenal.

I still believe that people who are afraid of ghosts are more susceptible to believing in them. Hearing or seeing one, to me, would be a great curiosity that would not induce fear. Surely, how could I not engage in an interview with a ghost? Since I shall surely become one in the not too distant future...