The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, by H.P Lovecraft

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories is a collection of short stories written by the masterful H.P Lovecraft, some say the pioneer of American horror throughout the 1920’s. I recently finished this collective work of his and I would like to focus on two stories that I found interesting: Firstly, The Picture in the House is a short narrative about a young man who comes across a dilapidated home while biking in dreadful weather. “Confronted with no refuge save the antique and repellent wooden building which blinked with bleared windows from between two huge leafless elms near the foot of a rocky hill”. The traveler goes into the house and begins to peruse the bottom floor, coming across a book with an account of the Congo region, with strange illustrations. The book seems to almost fall open to a picture depicting the butcher of a cannibal tribe, with ghastly body parts and blood everywhere. A haggardly old man comes from upstairs and the traveler begins to talk with him. It becomes apparent that the old man frequents this page and he explains that he looked at it before he killed various animals. The man expresses his “hunger for victuals”, and a drop of blood hits the page. The traveler looks up to see a crimson pool forming on the floor of the room above him, and the story ends. Lovecraft’s descriptions of the old man and his home are vivid in detail and he creates a very creepy mood. The majority of his stories focus on cosmic horrors, although some have to do with the norm of murderers and ghost stories of the time period.

The second story is the Call of Cthulhu itself, which is much longer, and more complicated. Lovecraft’s writing style has many citations dating back to old places, people, or historical objects from his time period, making his stories sometimes convoluted. The Call of Cthulhu first deals with the nephew of George Angell, a professor of Semitic languages. The nephew collects his uncle’s papers but finds one locked box among his possessions. After unlocking it with his uncle’s personal ring, he uncovers a great mystery. Inside are the accounts of a man named Wilcox, who had horrid visions of a creature and delirium on a certain date. Wilcox fashioned a clay sculpture of what he saw in his visions. The nephew reads on to find that another professor and a police officer named Legrasse both tell stories of a cult. The other professor explains that he came across Eskimo people worshipping an object that bears likeness to Wilcox’s figure, and the police officer tells of Louisiana voodoo practices that also have to do with worshipping this figure. The nephew goes on to explore the mystery further, finding a newspaper article talking about a ship lost at sea, returning with one passenger alive and one deceased. The nephew retrieves captain Johansen’s account of what happened and goes on to read about a group of cultists ordering his boat to turn back, and when he didn’t they attacked him. He had to kill them and commandeer their vessel, but he continued. Eventually Johansen came across the lost city of R’lyeh and the great Old One Cthulhu(The figure) himself.

The story is much more complicated, dealing in greater detail with the Cthulhu Cult. The cults main belief is that the Old Ones came from the stars and ruled earth aeons ago, and will return from their slumber beneath the depths to rule gain. It ends with the nephew concluding Cthulhu and his city must have sunk again, because the world is not in chaos.

Lovecraft’s story about the Cthulhu Cult and the great monster itself interested me greatly because most writers in his time period focused on supernatural ghost stories of the like while he chose to explore the vastness of space. This is one of the hardest stories for me to explain, but I enjoyed it. Its complexity, vivid descriptions of cultists, monsters, and excellent style of narrative and writing made me love it.