Cuddling Up with Horror Novelist, H.P. Lovecraft

"Some day the piercing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

Throughout my life, H.P. Lovecraft has often made appearances, despite having never read any of his literature. His name is one that has come up in fleeting conversations, his notoriety for horror something that has always piqued my curiousity... To be a famous author is one thing, but for one's craft to be horror is a different accomplishment entirely on its own.

Horror has always fascinated me because I not only enjoy being frightened, but I enjoy unravelling why we find certain things terrifying. But right there, in and of itself, is where the very problem arises: making people afraid is not an easy task. Everybody finds different things frightening, and even for the things that we universally view as scary (ex. death), it still takes talent to evoke such a sense of fear into someone that they then see it in a different light. Kudos to the author who is able to transform the truly mundane into something macabre! 😱

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H.P. Lovecraft is a notable horror author for a number of reasons. For one, he capitalizes off the element of suspense. Most of Lovecraft's works are drawn out, in order to truly wrap the reader into the story.

For another, Lovecraft is able to describe his terrors perfectly. I specifically adore Lovecraft for the fact that he will describe them as "indescribable," which in and of itself is a terrifying concept! In one of his stories, Lovecraft tells us of how this monstrosity of a creature is so grotesque, that men simply die from perceiving it.

"He thinks two perished of pure fright in that accursed instant. The Thing cannot be described."

Lovecraft is especially gifted in the art of lore. Horror seems to be compounded when one introduces the idea that the horror has quietly existed long before we walked the earth.

(Source: https://2012movie.fandom.com/wiki/2012_(film))

It is reminiscent of 2012. I ponder on why that movie was universally terrifying for so many people. The end of the world has always been scary, but what was it that made 2012 so effective? I believe it was the idea of the Aztecs having "predicted" the end millennia ago. There is something about our fates having already been sealed for us before we are even made aware of it, that is not only scary, but pitiful...

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I read a few of Lovecraft's short stories, but of course the one that truly sticks out is The Call of Cthulhu.

This story is terrifying for a number of reasons. It begins with the death of the protagonist's great-uncle, who was a professor of ancient languages and inscriptions. It is a death that is deemed as almost unnatural... From there, the protagonist uncovers a peculiar clay figure of a grotesque creature.

"My somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings."

The protagonist discovers his uncle's research: a series of events, from an earthquake, to fevers, leading up to prophetic dreams. He learns of tales of the Great Old Ones, of a civilization that walked the earth long before we did and worshipped horrifying gods.

"Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died. ... The great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway."

Then he discovers a most recent news article detailing the rescue of a shipwrecked man. He was found clutching a "horrible stone idol of unknown origin," similar to the one in his great-uncle's study. The sailor would go on to recall his final voyage at sea, in which he and a crew of 11 other men accidentally uncovered the underwater city where Cthulhu resides.

"There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults and sending out at last, after cycles incalculable, the thoughts that spread fear to the dreams of the sensitive."

(Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/9mdbhq/cthulhu_digital_1800x1080/)

Two men immediately perished from fright, three were scooped up by the creature, and another three were plunged into the water.

In the end, the protagonist is left with a foreboding sense of doom, that he shall never be at peace since uncovering the secret of Cthulhu.

"I have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me. But I do not think my life will be long. As my uncle went ... so shall I go. I know too much, and the cult still lives."