Lovecraftian Horror

Sounds like a bizarrely wholesome time.

Rereading "The Whisperer in the Darkness", I've noticed that there's one bit where it goes immediately from third-person to first-person and then back. I'm not sure if it was a rare grammatical error on Lovecraft's part — I've seen at least one version of the story online that treats it as such and "corrects" it — or if it actually was a bit of foreshadowing.

If it was deliberate, it's pretty brilliant. Basically, the Mi-Go that impersonated Akeley made a tiny slip up when describing the Mi-Go in the letter.

FYI -

If you like audiobooks or graphic audio productions, you might enjoy the HPLHS (HP Lovecraft Historical Society) Dark Adventure Theatre. They're basically made in pulp The Shadow sort of veins with bombastic dialogue, characters, and fake commercials for things like radium toothpaste that actually existed.

I got some free copies as a Cthulhu reviewer and author.

Here's my MASKS OF NYARLATHOTEP review, which is obviously an adaptation of the tabletop module.

https://beforewegoblog.com/audio-drama-review-dark-adventure-radio-theatre-masks-of-nyarlathotep-by-hp-lovecraft-historical-society/

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 18th 2023 at 11:27:26 AM

He's not kidding about the radium toothpaste, by the way.

Also, TIL that back in the early 20th century there was a whole field of radioacative quackery thanks to the lack of knowledge of the greater public about radiation.

No, he's not. When radiation was first discovered, marketers everywhere jumped on it to make all sorts of nifty glowing products. Then a lot of people started getting cancer and all those products were swiftly recalled.

And this is why we mandate rigorous product testing these days...

Not just the greater public, but also manufacturers and scientists. Scientists were doing demos with full body x-ray machines and stuff, for example, when x-rays were first discovered. Then, once again, a lot of people got cancer and they cut that shit out.

Basically, they discovered something cool, and it took a while to discover the long term side effects (for context, we're not talking about high exposure, instant radiation sickness and death levels of radiation here, just the sort of slow-burn radiation poisoning you can get from any chunk of low grade uranium ore or x-ray machine (and yes, people have been collecting those rocks, too...)

Edited by Redmess on Feb 18th 2023 at 10:11:50 AM

Yep. Every "joke" product they advertise is real like asbestos teddy bears.

It adds to the oddity of the whole thing.

Or all the lead that used to be in make-up. Makes you wonder how many "mentally unstable" women just had severe lead poisoning back in the day.

For a long time, doctors weren't sure what the thyroid gland did. If it got enlarged, they'd bombard it with radiation in order to get it to shrink. And then, years later, many of those people who'd had their thyroids bombarded got thyroid cancer...

Edited by Robbery on Feb 19th 2023 at 12:03:39 PM

Alright, I finally read The Call of Cthulhu. I gotta say, it really helped and hurt the story that I only mostly know Cthulhu from pop culture.

I like the framing device, there's the intro, and the other 3 stories, and then the ending. The mystery of what the figure of Cthulhu actually is and what it leads to is enthralling even with the basic knowledge of how Lovecraft's stories go and what Cthulhu is. The dreams and cult are decent mystery elements that commanded my attention and kept me dreading what was next.

And Cthulhu's cult is also into orgies. These creepy cults always have to be a sex cult as well huh?

Also the first mention of the Necronomicon and Abdul Alhazred. Pretty passing though/

But I think my favorite story was the one where the sailors end up accidentally discovering R'lyeh.

And Cthulu is defeated by a steamboat ramming on to him. It's a shame how epic the narration explains it because I could not stop laughing at that and take it seriously.

"But Johansen had not given out yet. Knowing that the Thing could surely overtake the Alert until steam was fully up, he resolved on a desperate chance; and, setting the engine for full speed, ran lightning-like on deck and reversed the wheel. There was a mighty eddying and foaming in the noisome brine, and as the steam mounted higher and higher the brave Norwegian drove his vessel head on against the pursuing jelly which rose above the unclean froth like the stern of a daemon galleon. The awful squid-head with writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but Johansen drove on relentlessly. There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves, and a sound that the chronicler would not put on paper."

Like seriously? The great Cthulhu whose awakening heralds the end times with the awakening of the other great old ones and one of pop cultures great evils... is defeated by a fucking steamboat ramming into him.

Words fail me.

Most of the horror comes from the cult's actions. Hell it's implied they ended up killing Thurston. Sure Cthulhu himself might come back but don't worry, just ram a steamboat into him and end times will be averted.

What a wild read. Did not see that coming.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Feb 22nd 2023 at 11:42:47 PM

Yup, I know right? And then he just sort of sods off, apparently, because the world does not end after all.

After so many homages that make him out to be so much more of a threat, it can't help but feel anticlimactic.

See this why I prefer Nyarlathotep

It kinda bugs me that only the sailors were there when Cthulhu awakened. Where the hell were the cultists who were waiting for him to return?

Oh man, next story I want to read is about Nyarly.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Feb 23rd 2023 at 1:59:14 AM

I don't thin the cultists were supposed to be on the actual island.

Cthulhu isn't defeated or even slowed down by the steamboat. The important thing is not that they head shot him.

It's that Cthulhu immediately regenerates.

Cthulhu goes back to sleep because the stars aren't quite right. It was a "five more minutes, mom" moment.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 22nd 2023 at 5:50:52 AM

That just makes it funnier, honestly.

"What do you assholes want? It's 3 AM for fuck's sake, let me sleep!"

I get that Cthulhu survives since the narration notes that Cthulhu will return but it's just hilarious to me that the steam boat is what defeats him.

It still fits in with the fact that these cosmic horrors can't ever be truly defeated, only slowed down.

Eh, like I said I don't even think he's defeated. The ship goes through him and they escape. Cthulhu didn't even seem to really notice, though. But I admit, I like how Cthulhu isn't a Mighty Glacier. He's liquid-ish and not even matter of this reality. Like a T-1000.

BTW, going back to the Cthulhu cult's rituals:

• Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos: There's a prevailing theory that HPL was asexual (though not gay by his own words). Hs wife disagreed but this was a theory in his own time and Robert E. Howard had something of a "man, what?" reaction when HPL said his marriage dissolved because his wife kept wanting to have sex and he didn't like it. Thus, sexuality in Lovecraft is always something sinister and vile when it shows up.
• Religious Satire: Some HPL scholars, myself included, have postulated both this and THE DUNWICH HORROR are clever religious satire. Much of the Cthulhu cult makes no sense as a world spanning secret organization with every nation in the world unless you stop to note the ideology, eschatology, and so on is Lovecraft making very subtle fun of Christianity AKA a fish-related apocalypse religion about a dead but sleeping god worshiped across the globe.
• Dracula Homage: The story is also very much a homage to Dracula. The whole thing being a big globe trotting adventure that is mostly told via documents and varying perspectives. It's also the inspiration for most Call of Cthulhu campaigns being Indiana Jones-like treks.
• Raiders of the Lost Ark: There's a very good argument the protagonists accomplish absolutely nothing during the entirety of the story. I actually find this interesting because unlike The Dunwich Horror, there's no proof that the Cthulhu cults rituals are doing anything either.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 22nd 2023 at 7:39:40 AM

It certainly makes reading through the mythos more interesting once you know the RL Lovecraft and his influences more.

Def understand why the Cthulhu cult was also a sex cult.

Ruthanna Emrys also notes that it's easy to also read the Cult of Cthulhu as a Values Dissonance Big Good. Lovecraft's depictions of it are it's a multi-ethnic religion of oppressed peoples that are all praying for deliverance from the 1920s world. One could easily see the Mythos as the religion to destroy the imperialist world and Cthulhu as a Liberator.

That angle certainly would flip the story on it's head.

I'm reminded of the Shadow over innsmouth actually. Where there's been debate over if Lovecraft seriously intended for the Deep Ones to be straight up monsters or actually enlightened people that fit Lovecraft's own desires to focus on culture.

How one views the ending is also reliant on how they think what Lovecraft was going for I guess.

Yeah a lot of it there is a desire to take back some of his racism, granted I see cthulhu as sort of apocalytian god that will rise and make people "Better" in theory.

I remenber a ocultist deciding to use mythos, Gnosis necronomicon, very intersting.

I love Cthulhu Mythos occultism. It was started by someone as a joke but then people ran with it.

Cthulhu and the others are either:

• Actual deities contacted by Lovecraft's unconscious psychic abilities/mysticism
• Tulpas created by his dark fantasies added to by so many other people feeding into them.

The RL Jack Chick believes Cthulhu is a powerful demon lord in Hell.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 22nd 2023 at 8:12:26 AM

Like I said, it sounds like a wholesome friendship activity.

This has a bit more substance in the Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath where Randolph Carter (HPL's Author Avatar) befriends a lot of monsters in his quest to become a god/find the Dreaming City. Richard Pickman turns out to be his best friend and Hypercompetent Sidekick. He also meets Yog-Sothoth and discovers he's a god who bestows enlightenment alongside Nyarlathotep.

(Albeit both turn out to be Be Careful What You Wish For)

A big contrast to his normal treatment of the Mythos.

In short, while the mythos clearly isnt wholesome you can see a sort of evolution of howie in his writing the more time it past.