Book Review
Title: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories by H. P. Lovecraft
Genre: Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction, Horror, Anthology
Rating: 3.6 Stars
I haven’t read any Lovecraft before but I have read book and been recommended books that are similar so I decided to pick up The Call of Cthulhu to see what Lovecraft’s writing is actually like. As this is a short story collection I will review each stories individually and the end this review with my thoughts on the collection as a whole.
Dagon - ***
Dagon was a strange story following a German naval prisoner of war who escapes from the ship housing them in a small boat. For a while he drifts at sea before awaking one morning to find himself on a strange and foreboding island. On this island he sees the decaying bodies of many strange creatures but eventually finds himself in a valley where he comes across a strange statue. The statue he later learns might be Dagon, the Fish-God but what unnerves him is the depictions of mermaid like people of a huge size worshipping Dagon. He ends up seeing one of the creatures before fleeing in terror, afterwards he uses drugs like morphine and eventually suicide to escape the madness plaguing him and the knowledge that one day when the land sinks into the ocean these creatures will reign supreme.
The Dunwich Horror - *****
The Dunwich Horror has to be one of my favourite stories in this collection. We are introduced Wilbur Whateley and his family as he is born, there have always been rumours that this family deals in the occult and Wilbur seems to be proof of this as he grows faster and larger than any other child and he is far more intelligent. The villagers keep an eye on Wilbur and the strange things that happen around him and his family but they very quickly notices that his grandfather along with Wilbur seem to be preparing for something although they don’t know what. After his grandfather’s death, Wilbur tracks down the copies of the Necronomicon housed at various universities and institutes for a spell passage that he intends to use to summon something. He is turned away from most of the universities but he sparks the curiosity of one professor who keeps an eye on what Wilbur is doing. Eventually Wilbur tries to steal a copy of the Necronomicon where he ends up dying but it proves to the professor and some of his colleagues that Wilbur isn’t completely human and they travel to the village where some invisible beasts has been destroying homes and killing people. They have learnt that Wilbur intended to summon something called Yog-Sothoth and Dr. Armitage believes that this invisible creature intends to carry out that purpose and they mean to stop it. Dr. Armitage and his friends manage to succeed in stopping the creature but they reveal that it was Wilbur’s twin brother and that unlike Wilbur, the creature took after its father who it was intending to summon for a realm outside their own. The Dunwich Horror was full of atmosphere and was exceptionally tense despite the fact you never see the creature properly and the occult elements are really on full display from the family.
The Statement of Randolph Carter - ****
The Statement of Randolph Carter is one of the shorter stories in this collection and it was amazing. Carter is presumably giving a statement to the police after being arrested after the disappearance of his friend, Harley Warren. Carter has been in the hospital after being found unconscious in a graveyard and he has had a lot of memory loss. He recounts to the police that Harley was obsessed with the occult and he often got dragged into experiments and research although the subject of the research is lost to him now. They venture to a crypt where Harley descended down the stairs to see what lay beneath while Carter waited above. Whatever was down there was not what Harley was expected and was killed by it but not before he could warn Carter to cover the stairs and flee. Carter doesn’t do this and eventually though the telephone system something informs him that Harley is dead and he remembers nothing else until he woke up in the hospital.
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family - ***
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family was an interesting tale not really focusing on horror or fantastical elements but certainly doesn’t lack any of the atmosphere that his other stories possess. We follow an unknown narrator as he discusses the tragic story of the Jermyn family. It seems that there is a madness in the Jermyn family that started when Wade Jermyn travelled numerous times to Africa, bringing back and unknown wife and child. This madness is passed down through the family line although it presents itself differently each time and even lead one ancestor to brutally murder his wife, three sons and attempted to take the life of his grandson before being stopped. Arthur Jermyn doesn’t seem to have this madness despite his unattractive appearance and strong intelligence which is a relief to many that knew his father and grandfather. Arthur begins looking into their family history thanks to the notes and objects that Wade preserved and he does end up going to Africa where he learns the tale of the Ape-Princess and the White God. A friend of Arthur’s actually managed to find the mummified corpse of the Ape-Princess and sends it to Arthur. Upon opening the chest, Arthur goes mad before lighting himself on fire, destroying himself and Jermyn House. It isn’t explicated state why Arthur did this but it is implied that the Ape-Princess sit somewhere on the evolution scale between man and ape. It is also implied that this was the wife of Wade meaning that the Jermyn line after Wade isn’t completely human Arthur included and he committed suicide because of this indiscretion.
Celephaïs - ***
Celephaïs was an interesting look at madness and what it means. We are introduced to Kuranes although this isn’t his real name who created the city of Celephaïs in his dreams and a child and longs to return there. After 40 years he manages to do this but it is only briefly because our sleeping time is brief in reality but he finds his obsession with the beautiful city growing with each passing day. In his dreams he travels through many worlds and places but never finding the city he longs to return too. After a while Kuranes begins to turning to drug to increase the amount of time he spends asleep so he can look for Celephaïs but eventually he runs out of money and is made homeless. That night as he wanders the Knights of Celephaïs find him and help him return to the city and ascend to godhood as he is the city’s creator. However, in reality these might just be the drug-fuelled hallucinations of a homeless man who ends up dead on a beach. The duality of this story, of seeing both the beautiful and wonder of Celephaïs and the lifeless reality was interesting as we instantly connect more with the happier story even though it is possibly the imagined world not reality.
Nyarlathotep - **
Nyarlathotep was a story or poem that I didn’t really understand despite how beautifully it is written. It seems to follow an unnamed person as they learn of the power of a being called Nyarlathotep that brings destruction and death from other worlds. Being a scientist they want to see Nyarlathotep and when they do they dismiss its power as being fake due to their scientific mind but very soon after that they are sort of hypnotised where they can only weakly grasp the passage of time which must be hundreds or thousands of years and this is the true power of Nyarlathotep.
The Picture in the House - ****
The Picture in the house essentially follows a man taking shelter in what he believes is an abandoned house during a storm. The house isn’t abandoned as an old man lives there but he is very kind to the young man and then spend some time discussing the rare book collection the man seems to own. However, an image in one book disturbs the young man as it depicts cannibalism and this fascinates the old man until the young man realises that there is blood dripping from the ceiling. This story is intentionally vague but I believe that the old man was a cannibal and anyone who took shelter in his out of the way home became dinner and I believe this is the fate of the young man in the story.
The Outsider - ***
The Outsider was interesting as we follow an unnamed protagonist who lives in a derelict castle which the person longs to escape from. By the time they eventually do they wish to experience light and parties so they basically crash one and sends everyone into a panic. Here the protagonist realises that the monster is the room is actually them and they seem to be a ghoul or vampire from a bygone age which is why they don’t remember anyone else being at the castle and why human speech sounds strange to them as it has changed over time. I liked the fact that protagonist either forgot what they were or they genuinely didn’t know which was an interesting take on non-human protagonists.
Herbert West – Reanimator - *****
Herbert West – Reanimator is a six part short story follow the best friend of Herbert West as he recounts their friendships and the experiments they got up too over the years. It turns out that the protagonist became fascinated with West after hearing him speak about the possibility of reanimating the dead given the right condition and for a few years while they were at university together he performed many experiments on animals some of which were fairly successful before being shut down. West unfazed by this continued his experiments in secret with the protagonist’s help and eventually he turned to human specimens. Several of their experiments during this time went horribly wrong with the people coming back to life and causing mayhem, one attacked 17 people killing 14 before it was confined to an asylum when caught and other turned cannibal eating a child before disappearing into the night. Throughout this West was fanatical as he was getting closer and closer to a perfect reanimation and yet the results were becoming more and more hideous. Eventually during the First World War he managed to successful reanimate a friend who had been killed in a plane crash despite his head being severed. Moments later a German shell hit the hospital and for years West and his friend assumed they were the only survivors. 15 years after he began his experiments West learns through the newspaper of the creature in the asylum being set free by other strange almost human being and they were being lead by a man with a head made of wax. Later that very night a box is delivered to West’s address bearing the name of his old friend from the war and they immediately burn it. However, the basement was collapses and the creature bore out seizing West and tearing him to pieces before dragging him off. The friend was unable to say whether this was reality or madness because there was no evidence of the events afterward apart from West being missing but he firmly believes that everything he saw was real.
The Hound – ****
The Hound was an interesting story we follow St. John and his friend who have the hobby of grave robbing in order to collect strange and horrific things and experiences. The friend is the one telling the tale of the night they ended up robbing a grave in Holland and taking from it a small jade amulet which seemed to call to them once they laid eyes on it. After returning to England, they make the connection between the grave, the skeleton inside, the amulet and the Necronomicon. After this both men hear the baying of what seems to be an enormous hound following them until the night it kills St. John and he warns his friend about the amulet. Fearing he is cursed the man tries to return the amulet to the grave only for it to be stolen and he learns of the deaths of the thieves. By the time he return to the grave and uncovers the skeleton once more he sees that it seems to be slowly restoring itself and from what he described it seems like a vampire. The story ends with the man preparing to commit suicide rather than dying at the hands of the creature which killed his friend.
The Rats in the Walls - ****
The Rats in the Walls follows the tale and haunting of the De La Poer family. The family owned Exham Priory until the slaughter of the majority of the family except for the 3rd son who was apparently the murderer before he fled to America to start his life over. We also learn that a letter is based down for father to the eldest son in every generation until the death of the protagonist’s grandfather in a fire where the letter burned with him and their history was forgotten. The protagonist buys the Priory after the death of his only son after the First World War and restores it to its former glory much to the disappointment of the local people. However, very soon after moving in the protagonist’s cats start acting strangely and he eventually hears the sound of phantom rats moving through the house. He and his friend investigate the sounds leading down into the sub-cellar where they find an alter concealing a lower level. After taking some archaeologists down into the lower level they discover almost an entire village devoted to feeding people from manty centuries to the rats dating well back before the Romans. Down in this village they get to see the horrific secrets that the De La Poer family had hidden for so long but when one of the cats darts into a pitch black tunnel the men follow but something happens to them there that no one can explain. Apparently the protagonists is found speaking in tongues which I believe are the various languages of his ancestors over the half-eaten body of his friend which they accuse him of even though he knows it is the rats. Several other men go mad and they are all imprisoned in an asylum alongside the protagonist but the rats continue to haunt him.
The Festival - ***
The Festival was a short prose poem about a family ritual performed once a year and the new member going this year. What follow is a surreal and trippy experience closely linked to a singular passage of the Necronomicon which really ties Lovecraft’s stories together so it feels at times almost like a novel rather than an anthology.
He - **
He was the story I disliked most in the collection so far because it seemed very similar to The Festival as it was written around the same time but it was feeling like I was reading the same story over again. However, it is interesting to note all the stories before Cool Air are Lovecraft’s pre-supernatural horror story and everything after seems to be what Lovecraft seems to be well known for.
Cool Air - ***
Cool Air definitely had a really creepy atmosphere and follows the themes of death and defying death that Lovecraft has followed in some previous stories. The protagonist is living in a boarding house with the mysterious Dr. Munoz but never meets the man until he suffers a minor heart attack which the doctor cures him of and during this time the doctor talks about how he has been working to defy death. However, the protagonist notes that the doctor’s room is a lot colder than the rest of the house but thinks nothing of it until the cooling unit breaks down one day. The doctor barricades himself in the bathroom ordering the protagonist to bring him a steady supply of ice while they wait for the part to arrive. However, upon the protagonist’s return he learns that the doctor has disintegrated and the reason for this was he actually died 18 years before and defied death but in order for his body to be maintained it had to be cold and there was also breakdown on a cellular level that he didn’t foresee which leaves our protagonist afraid of the cold because of what it represents for him.
The Call of Cthulhu - *****
The Call of Cthulhu was definitely a story that really gets you into the mindset of Lovecraft. We are introduced to an unnamed man who is the nephew of a scientist, after his uncle’s death he comes into possession of several papers and documents looking into what he refers to as the Cthulhu Cult. The nephew obviously intrigued by these papers begins seeking out those his uncle spoke to and beginning and investigation of his own where he learns far more than his uncle ever did. As he meets with artists, poets, seamen and scientists he learns of the eldritch beings that roamed the Earth when it was young, the greatest of these being Cthulhu who the cult believe will return to Earth when the time is right. However, all of these interactions are vague and relate mainly to dreams that Cthulhu has influenced until he learns of a seaman who saw Cthulhu in the flesh. He manages to track the man down only to learn he is dead but he left a written account of his experience with the man read and here he learns that when the truth about Cthulhu is known to someone, death follows shortly after. In the final words of this story the narrator begs that if death should come for him caution is advised with those papers and to make sure it is never known in full by another person or they shall meet the same fate as him and those that came before him. I liked how Cthulhu isn’t seen as a God in the traditional sense but rather an ancient being of unknown and terrible power who return must be avoided at all costs or it would spell the end of mankind as we know it.
The Colour Out of Space - *****
The Colour Out of Space is definitely a story that retains the science fiction feel of Lovecraft’s early work while incorporating the horror elements that he is best known for. We are primarily following an unnamed protagonist who speaks to a man named Ammi Pierce who tells him of the “strange times” no one speaks about regarding the blasted heath. Ammi tells the man of the Gardner family who had a meteorite crash into their yard which caused a lot of excitement especially with scientists as nothing like it had ever been seen before but very quickly it begins to affect the family’s farm. The crops grow strangely with colours never seen before and are revolting to eat and this sickness eventually spreads into the livestock and the family themselves resulting in some very unique body horror that reminded me of The Thing but minus the physical creature and it is definitely one of my favourite stories in this collection.
The Whisperer in Darkness - ***
The Whisperer in Darkness definitely starts to connect the lore of the Necronomicon and the Cthulhu mythos together in some interesting way. We are introduced to the pen pal of Henry Akeley who has been counter arguing the existence of strange beings in Vermont when he receives a letter from Henry confirming the myths as he lives in the area and has encountered the beasts. Henry sends proof of these beings and while the protagonist does let the rumour mill die down a lot he doesn’t give up on trying to understand what the beings are and why they are on Earth. Along with Henry they exchange letter for quite a while trying to decipher the hieroglyphs on a black stone which seems linked to the Necronomicon but we know that this story is being told in the past tense and that Henry has already disappeared like he feared because he knew too much about the creatures. We follow the protagonist and Henry as they learn about the beings and eventually it leads to the point where we discover the truth behind what really happened to Henry and why the protagonist will never return to Vermont and risk encountering the Outer Ones again. I liked the fact The Whisperer in Darkness was a longer story and had more depth but it just didn’t grip me the way stories like The Call of Cthulhu did.
The Shadow Over Innsmouth - ****
The Shadow Over Innsmouth takes the themes and mythos presented in Dagon, one of the shortest stories in this collection and really expands upon it. We are introduced to our protagonist, Robert who stops in Innsmouth on his way to Arkham and ends up discovering the Dagon cult that controls the region after speaking with Zadok Allen. Zadok tells the story of the Dagon and how they came to control Innsmouth and the people that live there and while Robert doesn’t believe Zadok at first he quickly changes his mind after encountering some of the half Dagon people in Innsmouth. We follow Robert as he seeks to escape Innsmouth and the Dagon which he eventually does informing the Government about the Dagon who succeed in capturing quite a lot of the half-human, half-Dagon people and possibly a few of the Dagon themselves. However, Robert soon learns that his own heritage is tied to the Dagon and his journey through fear, apprehension and eventually acceptance was interesting to see and also made him seem like an unreliable narrator towards the end of the story. Despite this I did feel the story was little too long for the outcome and resolution that Lovecraft provides the reader with but I still really enjoyed it.
The Haunter of the Dark - ****
The Haunter of the Dark was the final story in my collection and I have to say that reading this collection really changed my opinions on Lovecraft as I thought the era when he was writing would mean I wouldn’t enjoy it and I was pleasantly surprised. We are introduced to Robert Blake who has a fascinated with a black church he eventually breaks into despite the numerous warnings from the local people about the evil that once lurked inside of the church. Robert finds evidence inside linking the church to a cult of some sort and a black stone which unknowingly summons the evil back and attaches itself to Robert. This evil thing haunts Robert and the other locals in the dark and in one particularly bad storm where the power goes it, the creatures frees itself from the church to find Robert. We don’t know what it does to Robert only that he was found dead apparently from fright the next morning.
Overall, I found this collection to be a wonderful introduction to Lovecraft’s work as it contains some of his most famous stories and a number from his earlier days where the stories are more science fiction than horror but I greatly enjoyed both. I know this is only scratching the surface of Lovecraft’s work and I will definitely be reading more in the future.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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