HP Lovecraft

A collection of stuff related to Lovecraft

See 🎙 My Podcasts, 🍿 My Movies, 📺 My TV Shows for some related media, and Short Stories for a list of recommendations.

Videos

HBomberguy - Outsiders: How to Adapt Lovecraft in the 21st century - awesome video essay about what cosmic horror really is and how lovecraft stories are more about how a person feels and experiences than the monsters. The unimportance of mankind. And also Lovecrafts racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia…

Stories Read

Pickman's Model - A story about an artist that painted demonic beings into regular life. He offers a tour to a friend and explains how he uses a camera to capture backgrounds for his paintings in order to use as references. The friend takes a photo from an unfinished canvas and discovers that it's a real life photo of a monster in Pickman's cellar. The imagery in this story is scary as hell, the description of the paintings and Pickman's cellar are spooky as hell.
Dagon - A man escapes prison and drifts at sea. He wakes up in a black slime infested land, a monolith appears, ancient language of sea monsters, and the giant scaly sea monster itself reveals itself. He wakes up in the hospital wondering if it happened, but he knows it did.
The Rats in the Walls - A man inherits some land and decides to fix it up, he discovers an ancient "twilit grotto" below the priory. Unspeakable horrors and eldritch evils, hoards of hungry rats, endless piles of bones. He loses it. They find him eating his friend and lock him away, never speaking of the priory again.
The Beast in the Cave - a pretty mediocre short story about a guy that gets lost in a dark cave, gets tracked by a being, stones the being, gets found by the guide and goes back to see what the being is. Turns out it was a human, or WAS a human. Overall it sets the atmosphere of dread pretty well and offers some interesting descriptions, particularly of the "beast" (reminded me of the beings in The Descent), but just nothing special. Also, Lovecrafts use of language, it's almost funny how he has the cadence of Yoda at times, over utilizes difficult words, verbose.
The Alchemist - this one gripped me much more than the beast in the cave. Ultimately the story was a bit shallow, but the atmosphere, setting, and mechanics worked for me. It's a story about a guy who's family has been cursed for 600 years. Each ancestor dies by the age of 32 as a source of revenge. The final scene in which the main guy thinks he's free of the curse after using a little bit of his own alchemy to toss a torch and burn up the cloaked eternal evil guy, is great, very descriptive, and I like the supernatural/magic involved.
The Tomb - A creepy story about a kid, Jervas, that's obsessed with a tomb in the hillside. He waits until he's 21 to enter the tomb, often sleeping in one of the coffins. Long ago there was a mansion that had burned down after it was struck by lightning. This scene plays out in his head as if it were real, but it turns out he had never been in the tomb and the townspeople were all aware of his obsession and found him often sleeping just outside the tomb. Was he crazy? Couldn't be, his servant had confirmed his story upon entering the tomb, where he finds a coffin with Jervas' name. I really liked this one, gave the feeling of being a kid and full of wonderment and imagination. A kid that isn't like the other kids. Being misunderstood, finding solace in weird fascinations. I would have liked more description of the tomb itself, more backstory of the family. Very creepy and leaves you wanting to know more.
A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson - Not too sure what's up with this short piece. An old man recalls his friendship with the great Dr. Johnson and his other literary friends. They bickered and fought and got drinks at all the local spots, and even though they had varying opinions they got along. Perhaps it's autobiographical, or perhaps an experiment in style as the writing is written differently than his other works, with a dumbed down grammar and an accent.
Polaris - Named after the star. Story about a guy that can't sleep, observing a city, dreaming of he city, wondering what his place in the city is. He's a watchguard for a potential attack from the Inutos. The dream has become the reality and reality has become the dream. Definitely has some blatant racism. Didn't enjoy this one, just not a great story. Skip.
Beyond the Wall of Sleep - A backwoods mountain man goes crazy from his dreams. Dreams that he couldn't possibly dream, being the dullard that he is. He gets locked away and a doctor studies him, tapping into his dreams to discover that a cosmic being is living inside of him. The being describes the future and a celestial event that is to occur, which indeed does. I loved this one.
- This makes me think about dreams, can they be made of things that we don't even know about, have never had contact with, or heard of? Somehow the idea of this is almost believable. Dreams are insane as is (see 🌜 Dream Journal), but what if something cosmic is speaking to us through our dreams, what if it was a sort of being that lived in our dreams, while we sleep, hoping to communicate with us somehow some way?
Memory - This is awesome. A one page story, vivid imagery of palatial ruins in an ancient jungle. Two gods discuss where the ruins came from. One god tells the other that "Man", ape like beings, roamed here. The final image of apes roaming once again suggests a new dawn of man.
- It's wild how big and vast just a few paragraphs can be. This definitely changed how I think about stories and writing in a weird way, very impressive.
Old Bugs - a decent little story about a disgraced derelict, an academic in a previous life, now working at a speakeasy in Chicago. One day he sees a fresh, innocent face come in to "experience life", but he recognizes that it's his own son. He loses it, scaring the kid out of ever wanting to indulge again. The son finds the picture Old Bugs was carrying, it was his own mother.
- The descriptions of Old Bugs crazed rants did a good job of painting the picture of his descending into madness, along with the contrast of the good kid ripe for corruption. Overall it's a mediocre, predictable from early on, story.
The Transition of Juan Romero - A miner and his new friend, Juan, venture out into the night to investigate an abyss in the mountain caused by a blast intended to uncover more gold. The miners ring that he received in India glows eerily and the abyss seemingly devours Juan. Later it's rumored that the miner and Juan never ventured out that night, and the miners ring goes missing.
- A pretty good story and creepy atmosphere, although a bit racist. Imagery of the abyss in the mountain is fantastic, particularly the description of the sounds from beneath the earth. Lots of unanswered questions about the ring and Juan's passing.
The White Ship - A poetic little story about a lighthouse worker that sails the seas on a mystic white ship, eventually taking him to the land of Sona-Nyl where everything is perfect. But he wants to venture further and go to Cathuria, against the advice of the captain. Upon reaching what they thought was Cathuria they discover the rough oceans ending in a vast waterfall and they're destroyed by gods. He wakes to find himself back at the lighthouse and never sees the white ship again.
- The descriptions of the various utopian palatial lands are beautiful and the subtext seems to lean towards not taking what you have for granted, not to be greedy, to heed warning and temptation. Overall easy quick read, liked it

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