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Dec. 27th, 2010 05:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crantzFor Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day (the most holy of days) I spent my downtime from relatives reading Lovecraft.
In this manner, I completed The Shadow Over Innsmouth (mentioned in a previous post, I hadn't finished yet. Now I know what Kadath meant by it having a happy ending), The Tomb, and The Rats In The Walls. I'm currently reading The Dunwich Horror, but that was mostly delayed by being suddenly put on baby watching duty yesterday. It kept making noises. And threw up on me. PANIC.
Thoughts and Summaries:
The Shadow Over Innsmouth: First, the summary. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a town with a dark secret story. I talked about it in the last post, so I won't get too much into it. I didn't, for some reason, see the ending coming which was an interesting development. It actually had some good tense scenes in it, too. It took me longer to read this one than expected because I thought it was a short story at first, and it was quite a while before I realized it was probably a novella and not going to end anytime soon.
Once I got the hang of HP Lovecraft's writing style (words words words!), it had a nice rhythm to it I enjoyed and stayed with me for the other stories.
The Tomb: This is one of Lovecraft's early stories (I'm not sure if it's his first or not), and I would describe it as... you know those stories, where the kid can see ghosts or fairies and stuff? And has adventures? This is that scenario gone horribly wrong.
The Rats In The Walls: This one was actually my favourite of the stories I read. UNFORTUNATELY, it also features the most terribly named cat ever, name taken from Lovecraft's own cat. I'm not going to get into the name of the cat (just gonna call it N-Man), but I'll tell you that Lovecraft probably thought he was real clever naming a black cat that. Jesus.
Anyway, this story is about a guy who's rebuilding the ancestral home, even though the local peasants are all like 'DUDE YOUR ANCESTORS WERE EVIL OKAY'. He moves in, with his cats and his beloved favourite cat N-Man.
That's when the rats come.
N-man is a good cat. My friend Ann described him as a 'great cat of literature'. He's got his owner's back, he goes on the adventure, and when things go to hell, N-man tries to stop the madness. That's the biggest problem (besides the obvious) with the name, if the cat hadn't been so prominent/excellent, I could have just warned for the unfortunate name and moved on. But I wanted to talk about the little guy.
In any case, I've been enjoying these stories. Previously, the only Lovecraft I had read was The Call of Cthulhu and The Thing On The Doorstep, which I will post about some other time since I want to reread them. I've found they're a lot more enjoyable when I'm reading on my ereader, than on my monitor.
In this manner, I completed The Shadow Over Innsmouth (mentioned in a previous post, I hadn't finished yet. Now I know what Kadath meant by it having a happy ending), The Tomb, and The Rats In The Walls. I'm currently reading The Dunwich Horror, but that was mostly delayed by being suddenly put on baby watching duty yesterday. It kept making noises. And threw up on me. PANIC.
Thoughts and Summaries:
The Shadow Over Innsmouth: First, the summary. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a town with a dark secret story. I talked about it in the last post, so I won't get too much into it. I didn't, for some reason, see the ending coming which was an interesting development. It actually had some good tense scenes in it, too. It took me longer to read this one than expected because I thought it was a short story at first, and it was quite a while before I realized it was probably a novella and not going to end anytime soon.
Once I got the hang of HP Lovecraft's writing style (words words words!), it had a nice rhythm to it I enjoyed and stayed with me for the other stories.
The Tomb: This is one of Lovecraft's early stories (I'm not sure if it's his first or not), and I would describe it as... you know those stories, where the kid can see ghosts or fairies and stuff? And has adventures? This is that scenario gone horribly wrong.
The Rats In The Walls: This one was actually my favourite of the stories I read. UNFORTUNATELY, it also features the most terribly named cat ever, name taken from Lovecraft's own cat. I'm not going to get into the name of the cat (just gonna call it N-Man), but I'll tell you that Lovecraft probably thought he was real clever naming a black cat that. Jesus.
Anyway, this story is about a guy who's rebuilding the ancestral home, even though the local peasants are all like 'DUDE YOUR ANCESTORS WERE EVIL OKAY'. He moves in, with his cats and his beloved favourite cat N-Man.
That's when the rats come.
N-man is a good cat. My friend Ann described him as a 'great cat of literature'. He's got his owner's back, he goes on the adventure, and when things go to hell, N-man tries to stop the madness. That's the biggest problem (besides the obvious) with the name, if the cat hadn't been so prominent/excellent, I could have just warned for the unfortunate name and moved on. But I wanted to talk about the little guy.
In any case, I've been enjoying these stories. Previously, the only Lovecraft I had read was The Call of Cthulhu and The Thing On The Doorstep, which I will post about some other time since I want to reread them. I've found they're a lot more enjoyable when I'm reading on my ereader, than on my monitor.