Loving Lovecraft

By Warren -
HP Lovecraft has been on my 'to read' list for sometime, but it was only recently I picked up the lovely penguin paperback edition of the short story collection 'The Dunwich Horror' while browsing in Waterstones. The book is conducive to being read, and I quickly worked my way through the first story on a bus trip to Wales, the scenery of which perfectly mimicking the tale.

It was a pleasure to find a story written in 1928 so enthralling and atmospheric in a distinctly contemporary way, and a delight to realise that the praise heaped on Lovecraft from various horror writers (there's a quote on the cover from Stephen King) is thoroughly justified. The modern sensibility of the horror is no doubt a reflection of the massive influence his stories have had on modern horror and fantasy. It's quite palpable.

Lovecraft is clearly writing at a time in the early 20thC when modern science as we understand it was coming to the fore, yet there still lingered a residual 19thC sense of the mysterious and ineffable, hidden corners of our world full of ancient magics. His skill lies in melding together these visions of the world, so that ancient sacrifices and demon creatures from other realms but up against scientific analysis of mysterious objects that reveals chemical elements with heavier atomic weights then thought possible. As such, Lovecraft's over 80 year old stories, provide us with a bridge between those two worlds and gloriously provoke the imagination. It's a chilling and satisfying experience.

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