Fiction Fans

The Call of Cthulhu & Other Works by H.P. Lovecraft

• Episode 162

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Your hosts were thoroughly unimpressed by the selection of works they read from Great Tales of Horror by H.P. Lovecraft. They talk about trying to avoid bias going into a work, and racist mthrfckrs. They also discuss cosmic horror, Cthulhu's tentacles, and Lovecraft's reputation. Did they read the wrong works? Maybe.

In this episode, they discuss:
The Call of Cthulhu
The Color From Out of Space
Pickman's Model
The Shadow Over Innsmouth (kind of, like maybe a quarter of it)

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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Darkest Child by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I'm Sarah.

Lilly:

And today we will be discussing a few short stories by H. P. Lovecraft, specifically The Call of Cthulhu and the one about outer space. The color out of space.

Sara:

Yes. And we're not doing more Lovecraft because I kept falling asleep when I tried to read these stories.

Lilly:

Yeah, fair. But first, before we get there, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara:

We got rain! It rained for 20 minutes on Wednesday morning and that was very exciting because I don't think we've had any rain since about May.

Lilly:

Nice, that's always good.

Sara:

You can, you can tell I'm very Californian.

Lilly:

I went down to Portland and we carved pumpkins and I saw some friends and it was nice. I picked out the wartiest pumpkin. He was precious and I loved him. I did leave him in Portland and it was a very brief meeting, but good times. What are you drinking today?

Sara:

It's a little warm outside for tea, but it's too early for anything else. So I'm drinking tea.

Lilly:

You know you can ice tea.

Sara:

Yeah, but that involves doing things in advance. Otherwise you just have watery drink.

Lilly:

Fair.

Sara:

and I did not make iced tea in advance.

Lilly:

Well, I am drinking coffee because it is the morning, as you mentioned. oat milk and a little bit of caramel drizzle. This has nothing to do with Lovecraft. I just like it.

Sara:

I mean, tea doesn't really have anything to do with Lovecraft either.

Lilly:

No, we are not on theme. There's not really a good, what, salt water? I don't know.

Sara:

I mean, I was sure that one could find some kind of like tea blend that was named after Lovecraft somewhere, because there's a tea blend for everything.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

But I did not do that.

Lilly:

Did you read anything else, however?

Sara:

I did. I read The Spell Shop by Sarah Beth Durst, and you know how we were talking off podcast about books that are very much that white middle class perspective?

Lilly:

Ah, yeah, and then I discovered the phrase squeakor, and then we complained about the phrase squeakor. Yeah

Sara:

so this is a cozy fantasy story. Which I mostly enjoyed but it did feel very white, middle class and so that kind of, yeah, like it, it was fine it was cute, there were some things I really enjoyed about it the setting was nice but the main character frustrated me a lot of the time. There was a twist with the main conflict that I called from the minute the main conflict appeared. And it, it just, I've read, I've read cozy fantasy that I enjoyed more.

Lilly:

I mean, even in cozy stories, there still needs to be something happening. It can be low stakes, but there still has to be something

Sara:

There, there are, there are stakes, I mean, there's some low stakes in this. It's not, it's not that the, that there's nothing that happens in the story. It's just that it felt very tropey and contrived. And to be fair I kind of think that's what she was, the author was going for, because she says in her acknowledgments in the end she wrote this during COVID and basically she just wrote things to make her smile. She wanted to be smiling every page when she was writing it. And if, That means that your book is full of tropes? Go for it.

Lilly:

Or, I've ruined you with Clive Barker, and now you're like, Not enough guts!

Sara:

No. I don't, I don't think that's the case.

Lilly:

don't know, it sounds like maybe it is.

Sara:

I, nope, nope. I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

Lilly:

Well, I read a little bit. additional Lovecraft. I also read Pickman's Model, and I started Shadow over Innsmouth, but did not get very far. So I'm going to have some very half baked opinions on that one to discuss later.

Sara:

did you not get very far with it because you weren't enjoying it or you ran out of time?

Lilly:

I ran out of time. But I did start with the introduction to this collection. So we,, read the same collection, although we did certainly not finish it. Great Tales of Horror,

Sara:

Yeah, I read two stories out of this collection.

Lilly:

When we were discussing what to read you were like, what if we read the whole thing? And I was like, we can try. And then after you finished the first story, you were like, what if we don't read the whole thing?

Sara:

I, I just I have an issue with not finishing books. So I wanted to read the whole thing because I just wanted to finish the book. And I probably will try to continue reading it eventually, maybe. For that sole reason, because it's currently marked as reading on my Goodreads, and I want to be able to mark it as read. But not because it was enjoyable for me.

Lilly:

It's short stories. That's like with a, Novel, I can kind of understand that. I mean, I do understand that. I also don't like to leave novels unfinished.

Sara:

I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm totally aware that my brain is being ridiculous in this instance. I'm not trying to call this I'm not trying to call this sensible, that that's what my brain is doing.

Lilly:

Well I started by reading the introduction, and right away had some issues.

Sara:

Yes,

Lilly:

There were some absolutely wild assertions being made.

Sara:

it's, it's certainly it was an interesting read. The introduction.

Lilly:

Prior to Lovecraft, most supernatural writers wrote about traditional genre fixtures, and then they gave some examples like werewolves, ghosts, vampires.

Sara:

way to imply that you think Lovecraft is like the originator of all good horror without saying that you think Lovecraft is the originator of all good horror.

Lilly:

Yeah, and even just the idea that like, Oh, you know, he created cosmic horror and brought horror into science fiction and it's like Frankenstein exists.

Sara:

Yeah, he did not, I will grant him that he invented cosmic horror. I don't know enough about cosmic horror to say that someone else did, but horror was part of science fiction before Lovecraft.

Lilly:

But also the definition of cosmic horror that I have understood and that is presented to us in the introduction of this collection is the idea that Humans are insignificant and that the universe is uncaring and bad things happen just because shit happens, which is interesting. And we've read some oh shoot, what was that book? I feel like it's on my bookshelf. Am I gonna find it? Was that Ada?

Sara:

Oh, The Outside by Ada Hoffman?

Lilly:

Yeah, there it is. I found it after you told me the name. And that felt like some good cosmic horror. But even reading The Call of Cthulhu, granted, that was only, I believe, the first Cthulhu short story. So maybe the concept develops later on. I would not call that cosmic horror by the definition presented in this book.

Sara:

I mean, not by that definition. I feel like if your definition of cosmic horror is that there are monsters outside of the known universe and outside of our understanding of the known universe. Then it fits, but that's not the definition that they gave.

Lilly:

Also, that's just monsters. Like, where the monsters come from does not change that it's just monsters.

Sara:

No, they have to, they have to be from outer space to be, to be cosmic. are not cosmic horror

Lilly:

They come from the moon.

Sara:

They S they could be space werewolves.

Lilly:

Yeah, there were some other things. I don't know. I don't know. I tried really hard. Okay, I didn't have a very high opinion going into this. And I really wanted to make sure that that did not, affect my reading of these stories, right? I didn't want my biases to affect it. So I went around in circles with myself over a couple of things that is going to sound like I was playing devil's advocate, because I was.

Sara:

In the introduction or in the stories that you read?

Lilly:

I know, this is the stories that I read. And, I think I ended up coming back to, I was right all along. But, I had to go through, I had to go through the thought process, right, to make sure that I wasn't just jumping to conclusions. And, I mean, the very first one, the most obvious one is, Lovecraft was a racist motherfucker.

Sara:

Yeah, I knew that to begin with. I mean, the name of his cat is well publicized. You can Google it. There's plenty of articles about how Lovecraft is racist.

Lilly:

I mean, don't make people go and Google that and get a jump scare. It's the n word, right?

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

But when I was reading The Call of Cthulhu, basically all of my notes are, oh boy, that's, that's some racism. Because it's extreme. I mean, even even if you try to be generous and say Lovecraft was writing in the late 1800s, early 1900s, like it's, it's extreme.

Lilly:

All of the short stories we read were written in the 1920s.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

So not that that's a huge difference, but I feel like mentally when I hear late 1800s, that's a different era. And he doesn't even get that.

Sara:

No, not, not for these stories.

Lilly:

Okay, so And even me, when I think of, oh, this person's really racist, it's oh, they think people of color are not as good at jobs as white people or something to that effect. No! It was worse than that! If I never read the phrase voodoo orgies again, I will die a happy woman.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

It was so xenophobic in such a wild way because, okay, and in The Call of Cthulhu, the main character is sort of, you know, discovering these texts about his uncle's research into the cult of Cthulhu. And there's a detective who also runs into the cult. It's kind of a cool can we call it epistolary? It's not an epistolary, but it's

Sara:

I mean, it's an

Lilly:

together from sources.

Sara:

it's an interesting framework for a story. And that framework, I enjoyed in theory, I just hated the story because it was not great.

Lilly:

So the characters investigating this mysterious cult keep running into rituals, and then each one is just worse than the other, just described as. Oh, those crazy foreigners, they're from that far away country. There's a lot of, I mean, continent even, right? There's a lot of Africa and Asia and just, they're from somewhere far away, they're not like us, and they're doing all of this human sacrifice and sex. And, first of all, bonkers. Second of all, the framing of this story is painting these cults as deranged, right? Oh, they're, they're so out there, But then we find out that Cthulhu is real, so actually they were right all along? But the story is not playing it that way. That could have been a cool twist, though. Oh, those, those crazy others are so out there, and they worshiping the devil. Except the devil's not real, it's Cthulhu, and blah, I don't know. There's a lot going on, and I feel like A different writer could have taken that and done something neat with it, but instead it's just, but also all of those people are the worst. We didn't get anywhere. Didn't go anywhere interesting.

Sara:

Yeah I mean, I, I really feel like Cthulhu, Call of Cthulhu, you know, Could have been a good story if it had been written by Premie Muhammad, for example. Who does have a cosmic horror trilogy, which is excellent. And I feel like she could have done The Call of Cthulhu better.

Lilly:

Well, it's just, there's plot holes. Because are these people? Deranged and sick in the head? Or, are they right and Cthulhu is real? You can't have both. Except there is both, and it doesn't make any sense. And then also, my big issue with cosmic horror, or calling this cosmic horror, or at least this story in particular the whole point is that Cthulhu needs the cult to release him from his hibernation thing. So actually, humans are not inconsequential at all, and are still really necessary and important for his scheme, or Cthulhu's scheme. So, no. It kind of ruins the whole vibe that I assume was trying to be created here.

Sara:

Yeah. It just, the story doesn't work on a lot of different levels.

Lilly:

And all of the fear, or all of the horror in that story, we get a little bit of Cthulhu at the end, but most of the scenes that I assume are supposed to scare the reader are just, Oh, people of color doing weird things in the woods. It doesn't actually have anything to do with Cthulhu at all, except at the very end and he maybe talks to people in dreams and that's it.

Sara:

And even then as, It's, I don't know, I as, as we've discussed over and over again, I am a horror wuss. I'm not going to try to call this not horror, it's definitely because we've talked about intent matters and this is definitely trying to be, trying to be horror. But this, this story is just not scary, because like you say, so much of what is supposed to scare us is just not. Xenophobia and racism. And that is scary, but maybe not for the reason that Lovecraft intended. So it just doesn't work.

Lilly:

I ran into a similar thing In the beginning of Shadow Over Innsmouth, where the narrator is talking to, he's getting directions from just some small town yokel, and he's trying to travel through an area, and this guy is explaining why no one goes to Innsmouth, and his reason for why the people in Innsmouth are so ugly and strange, is that, oh, it was a, like a port town, and so all of the sailors bred with foreigners. So, big yikes right there. However, the man who is giving this explanation is very clearly categorized as, like I said, small town yokel. His dialogue even has accent in it. It's, it's very clearly This is not meant to be interpreted as an intelligent character. So I had to ask myself, well, okay, is it just this asshole who thinks that? Or is it Lovecraft who is oh yes, that's clearly a reasonable explanation. Except, everything else that this guy is explaining is presumably correct. He explains oh this is like how to travel around the region, and this is all of the like trade that the Innsmouth people have been doing with us, and so if he's 100 percent correct about everything, and then there's also this one detail, I don't think we're supposed to assume he's unreliable for only one thing.

Sara:

I mean, I have not read Shadow of Rin's Myth, but judging by how Lovecraft talks about mixed race couples in Call of Cthulhu, I think it's just a Lovecraft problem, not an issue with that one guy.

Lilly:

But I think it's worth asking because stories can have a racist character. That doesn't make the story racist.

Sara:

It's true. It just because a character in the story is racist does not mean the author is racist. Except in this case, they do overlap.

Lilly:

Yeah, but that's, I was saying, I wanted to take the time to make sure that I wasn't just going, ugh, throw the whole thing out, you know?

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

But no, in fact, throw the whole thing out. Now, to be fair, I didn't finish Shadow over Innsmouth, and I'm pretty sure that these people are not, I mean, it's setting up that they are intermarrying with some kind of ocean demon, I'm pretty sure, just based on where it's going. But still the overlap there is a lot. Also, If every single one of his first person narrators are supremely racist, that's a trend.

Sara:

Mm hmm.

Lilly:

You get one.

Sara:

I think I think you you get one as long as The rest of the narration, although this is hard in a first person story, but if the narrator gets called out for it, it's okay.

Lilly:

Do we think I don't, I don't know any of the meta around Lovecraft's work. Are his first person narrators all supposed to be the same dude? Is this one guy just have a crazy life?

Sara:

have, I have no idea. I think the introduction says that it all is supposed to, or most of it is supposed to take place in the same fictional region of the U. S.,

Lilly:

Yeah, so it's, I mean, it's New England, but he makes up Arkham and Innsmouth are not real places,

Sara:

right?

Lilly:

but he's traveling through real places to get to them, is my understanding. In my head, they're all the same guy and he just has a crazy life.

Sara:

I mean, I only read two stories, so it certainly could be the same guy.

Lilly:

Pikmin's model takes place in Boston so that's a real place.

Sara:

What is Pikmin's model about?

Lilly:

The main character narrator is explaining to a friend why he doesn't hang out with Pikmin anymore, and he tells a story about how Pikmin was like, oh, the galleries think my art's too intense? Let me show you the real shit. And he apparently has a studio where he does his even crazier art because it's too intense to be done in his home studio. And he takes the main character there and the main character is like, Oh God, it's people with dog faces! Which is apparently really bad or something.

Sara:

That's terrifying.

Lilly:

And then but the, the twist at the end is Pikmin's explaining Oh, he takes pictures of. real scenery to paint his crazy demons on top of. So he, he does the scenery from photographic Models? No. Sources? Where you have a thing to look at

Sara:

There's, yeah, there's a reference.

Lilly:

Reference, thank you. He uses photos for references for the background and then he paints his crazy demons on top of it. And then at one point they're in this, the cellar where all the, the, apparently he paints scarier things deeper down into the house. I guess that's how artists work, I don't know.

Sara:

Your husband, is that what he does?

Lilly:

So the main character. Is in one room and he's like freaking out over this painting of this guy that sounds quite a bit like, is it Kronos devouring Saturn? Devouring his son? Is that the painting I'm thinking of? Saturn devouring his son. they've described this painting, and it sounds almost exactly like Saturn Devouring His Son by Goya. And so he's looking at it, and then there's sounds in the other room, and Pikmin is like, Oh, I'm gonna take this pistol and shoot the rats that are making those noises. And the main character grabs a photo that he is assuming is the reference for the background of this painting. And then the rustling noises and the shooting noises are over, and he leaves the house and never talks to Pikmin again. Because when he gets home, he looks at the photograph, and it's a photograph of the monster. And so it's actually all from photo references and they're real.

Sara:

Terrifying.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

It's interesting that it sounds like, at least in these four stories, they all have the same or a very similar kind of framework where the narrator is recounting a story or a very similar In the case of Call of Cthulhu, like summarizing his uncle's research. But it's that same kind of literary framework for all of them.

Lilly:

Yes. Although I did notice in Pikmin's model, and then in Shadow over Innsmouth, it is also someone recounting a tale of why Innsmouth got basically nuked from orbit. The government is burn the whole thing down. Except, The narrator was the whistleblower for that, he says at the beginning, so we're getting the story of him traveling to Innsmouth and discovering Whatever is so bad, you know,

Sara:

Mm hmm.

Lilly:

fuckers or whatever. I didn't finish it. Probably shouldn't be discussing a story I didn't finish, but I don't care that much.

Sara:

It's our podcast. We can do whatever we want.

Lilly:

Yeah, in The Color from Out of Space and Call of Cthulhu, the main character is recounting stories told to him by someone else. Whereas, at least in Pikmin's model and Shadow over Innsmouth, the narrator is telling a story that actually happened to him.

Sara:

Hmm.

Lilly:

So he has a little bit more involved, which I do think helps make Pikmin's model more compelling. And I liked the beginning of Shadow over Innsmouth better than The Call of Cthulhu, for sure. Just because it feels more personal?

Sara:

Yeah, I think that's part of my issue with Call of Cthulhu is that it Not touching the racism, which we've already talked about and the way that the main premise of the cosmic horror about human insignificance is kind of devalued. I, I feel like one of the main reasons why Call of Cthulhu, just is not that scary is how removed the story is from the reader. Like it's, it's not even the narrator talking about something that happened to him in the past. It's the narrator is talking about something that happened to other people and it's not immediate at all.

Lilly:

no. It tries, I feel like Lovecraft tries to bring you in a little bit. Because all of the people who had investigated or interacted with Cthulhu's cult get, well, die, and we suspect are murdered in some way. And so the main character's It could happen to me!

Sara:

yeah, like I, I do think that he's trying to, to bring that point home. But we don't see the main character murdered, so this is, this is just some hypothetical, yeah, you think, you think people of color are going around killing people, killing the the other people who have investigated this.

Lilly:

The White Professors and Detectives.

Sara:

Yes. So this is, maybe this is just you being racist again. You're, you might not die. These people could have died from natural causes.

Lilly:

Yeah. I just, yeah, The Call of Cthulhu was kind of nothing.

Sara:

Yeah, I

Lilly:

why I wanted to read more, because I was wondering if if he goes anywhere with it and that's why it's so famous? Or if people were just like, A dragon with a squid face? I'm into this!

Sara:

Yeah, it, it would be interesting to read more of the Kaulu mythos specifically. And if I do end up reading more of this anthology, I think there are some more stories in there, but I don't know, it was not particularly compelling. I did, I did the color from Outer Space better, or for a certain definition of the word I, I thought it was a better story.

Lilly:

yeah. I know, you're, you didn't like it because you're not a horror person, but it did a better job of what it was trying to do,

Sara:

Yes. I did, I did think it was creepy, so it succeeded.

Lilly:

Yeah, the, the vision of a, of people decaying in their farmhouse, and then also this the rural ness of, they're too far away from people to ask for help

Sara:

I, I think for me, the horror of you can see or you hear about their degeneration And how things are getting worse and worse for them, from the perspective of the person who is telling the story to our narrator. And yet, they don't see it themselves,

Lilly:

mhm.

Sara:

and

Lilly:

They don't want to leave,

Sara:

yeah, they don't, they don't want to leave they don't acknowledge it, and, and, so that's really horrifying the knowledge that whatever is causing this also causes you to, it, basically ignore all of the bad stuff that's going that's going on around you.

Lilly:

Yeah, no, I thought that was a very good one. Pikmin's model was also better written, I think, than that. Oh, the Cthulhu just wasn't that good. I didn't find it that scary. I thought the twist was, it was cute, but it wasn't good enough for a whole short story to rest on. There were a lot of descriptions of paintings that weren't that scary that he spent too much time jacking off over.

Sara:

I

Lilly:

What it might come down to is just, his writing style is really not for me. Like his prose. It's really, really, really not for me.

Sara:

didn't mind the prose so much. I mean, I wouldn't write home about it, but it didn't bother me particularly.

Lilly:

Okay, first of all, he leans way too hard on It was too crazy to describe. He does that at least twice in every story.

Sara:

That's, that's a very fair accusation.

Lilly:

He also uses the word queer three or four times per paragraph. Find a synonym for strange, for fuck's sake.

Sara:

Also valid.

Lilly:

He also uses some strange spellings for words. Like he spells show with an e. And then he spells jail, G A O L, and can I remind you, these were written in the United States in the 1920s. These are not that old.

Sara:

Okay, but those, those words, at least according to this very official Reddit post that I read where someone was complaining about that, that same thing the use of show anyway, or S H E W for show. Those words were still in use in the 1920s. So it's not anachronistic or anything. But,

Lilly:

they weren't,

Sara:

but I will grant you that he probably chose them deliberately.

Lilly:

yeah, there's, it's one thing to say that it's in use, it's another thing for it to be common.

Sara:

I don't, I don't think that it was un, like exceedingly uncommon.

Lilly:

I've read a lot. other works from this time period. This is not just me not liking old writing.

Sara:

I'm, I'm not, I'm not saying that everyone used it. I'm just saying that I don't think it was so uncommon as to be. Like, I don't know how to,

Lilly:

You're making a lot of assumptions based off of one reddit post

Sara:

Yeah, sure.

Lilly:

Lovecraft.

Sara:

No, no, the, the, the Reddit, the Reddit post talks a lot about other books, or includes other books that used it. So I'm just saying that it was used in other places.

Lilly:

It just feels like he's trying too hard. Like he is trying to be weird and edgy.

Sara:

Not going to argue that, because he probably was.

Lilly:

Yeah if Fitzgerald didn't feel the need to spell it that way, then I think you can calm the fuck down.

Sara:

Fitzgerald was also writing a very different genre and style.

Lilly:

Yeah, but his prose was better. I would give anything for a Fitzgerald cosmic horror. I mean, if you think about it, The Great Gatsby kind of is the futility of life. More cosmic horror than The Call of Cthulhu.

Sara:

I'm not sure I've ever read The Great Gatsby, to be perfectly honest.

Lilly:

Oh, it's good. It gets ruined because everyone has to read it in high school. And I understand why that puts people off of it. But, if we're talking about bad things just happen for no reason and your life is inconsequential. That's the Grey Gatsby.

Sara:

No, no wonder I have no interest in reading it.

Lilly:

Mm hmm. Gal. I know, I know, it's jail. But who are you? I have no problem with those words when it is a truly old piece of writing, or if it actually makes sense for the place where it's written, but come on.

Sara:

He could have chosen to write normally. It's

Lilly:

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Another thing that I noticed while I was reading is that a lot of the concepts in these stories are very felt like they were aimed at religious folk? Like a lot of the, a lot of the horror, well, racism scary black people no, but even just the concept of cosmic horror as presented in the introduction of this collection, that is very much only scary if you think humans are God's favorite children. And all of the verbiage in these stories, anything that was bad was diabolical, or from the devil, or devil worship, or whatever. In The Call of Cthulhu at one point, they mention that the cult wants to free humanity from good and evil, and therefore, humans will run around murdering and raping. And it's well, that doesn't, that's a really big leap. That maybe you think only if outside morality is affecting people's actions, are they not? awful monsters, which sounds very religious to me.

Sara:

Okay, so I have two comments to that. One is that I don't think that the scariness of human insignificance is inherently to religious belief. I think that you can be frightened by how small humanity is in comparison with the universe without being religious.

Lilly:

You're right. I just think that in combination, that and then it got so religious language y that I was like, hold on a second. Is this literally just horror for religious people? Is he just trying to freak out people who go to church?

Sara:

But I, I also think that the U. S. in the 1920s was a much more religious society. And so some of that, some of his language and some of his ideas are just shaped by that fact.

Lilly:

well, what kind of blew my mind is, so I looked it up halfway through the first story because I was like, Is this guy religious? Is this why he thinks these things are scary? And no, apparently he was a very outspoken atheist. And so I kind of had to reassess how I was interpreting these things. And I think you're right. I think it ended up being more of a the culture around him and him just interacting with that

Sara:

I think you also have quite a bit of anti religious bias. And so you tend to view things. Much more much more slanted when

Lilly:

I mean the quote from page 13 though, I'm not making this up.

Sara:

I'm not saying you're making it up. I just think that, that you read more into some of the religious aspects than maybe are intended.

Lilly:

Well, you agree that it's not scary though

Sara:

I agree that it's not scary, but I don't think that has anything to do with my lack of, with my lack of religious beliefs.

Lilly:

With laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy that's what they think is gonna happen if Laws are thrown aside. Anyway, morality. I actually think Lovecraft being an atheist makes me more likely to be right. I think he was actively interacting with that culture in a way to point out oh, you think this is scary, don't you?

Sara:

Maybe I can see the argument. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can see the argument.

Lilly:

And not just an atheist, but an outspoken obnoxious atheist specifically. Yeah, it just felt so out of place that if it's a story that's supposed to be about Cthulhu and then everyone's blaming the devil, it's well, which one is it?

Sara:

Yeah, I don't know. That just sounds like the 1920s to me.

Lilly:

Yeah, you know who never blames the devil? F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's actually really funny. I remember reading Hemingway and seeing him described as such. His prose is so austere and it's so straightforward. And I was like, yeah, it is, I guess, and sure, it's good. But now reading Lovecraft, I'm like, Oh, if this is the shit people were comparing him to, I see why he got that moniker.

Sara:

I

Lilly:

Makes more sense now.

Sara:

would not call Lovecraft's prose particularly austere or straightforward.

Lilly:

No. Well, we read a couple of these. I read a couple more than you. I read one more than you.

Sara:

One and a half more. I'll grant, I'll grant you that half.

Lilly:

didn't really enjoy what you read. Is the only reason you would read more of these, just so you can say you did it?

Sara:

Pretty much. I'm biased because I'm not a horror reader. So I really would just be finishing this to say that I've finished it.

Lilly:

Ah, but they're not scary, so.

Sara:

they're not, they're not particularly scary. No. Although, like I said, I, I did find the color from out of space creepy. But I think it's interesting from a. historical or classic horror slash SFF perspective to read these because for better or worse, Lovecraft is a major influence on the genre of cosmic horror.

Lilly:

don't think he Okay. Based on the two short stories we read, I don't think he is. I think he has a badass name. And came up with one dope monster. And so people are like, oh yeah, that's the guy. He wasn't popular when he was alive, and everyone is just assigning him all of this stuff that he didn't, from what we read, actually do.

Sara:

Well, you don't, you don't have to be popular when you're alive to have an influence on the genre.

Lilly:

No, but I think it's all retroactive. I think people are assigning him importance because He's got a cool ass name. H. P. Lovecraft is a very cool name. And I think that is his greatest contribution to horror.

Sara:

it's a good name. And maybe that's true. I don't think that we've read enough to say for certain that it is.

Lilly:

That, I think, is why I would read more. Well, and they weren't all as bad as The Call of Cthulhu, to be fair. He is assigned such reverence.

Sara:

Right,

Lilly:

Even, yeah,

Sara:

which is why I think it's interesting, if you like horror or if you like cosmic horror, why I think it's worth reading. Reading his work to, to see whether or not you like, you think that that's a valid claim, like just for the historical perspective,

Lilly:

I wonder if we chose the stories to read. Well, there aren't even that many in this collection.

Sara:

there's 15 or something or 20.

Lilly:

So we read somewhere between 2 and 4 out of 15. And I don't know how representative this is of his total body of work. If this is just the top 10 percent or if this is the top 50%, you know?

Sara:

Yeah, I have, I have no idea. So something that would have been interesting, and maybe it's in the back of the book but a discussion of why the editor chose these stories in particular to include in this anthology would have been really nice.

Lilly:

Mm hmm.

Sara:

Because I think that says a lot about the author and the works.

Lilly:

I did the little bit of, well, okay, before each story there's a little bit of historical context, it tells you like when it was written, except it's mostly just focusing on how many times it got rejected, and it feels so much like An ego stroking

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

idiots who didn't see the value of this masterwork short story.

Sara:

Yeah that context could be interesting if there was more to it. Or more

Lilly:

time I read them, I'm like, yeah, I can see why they rejected this.

Sara:

We're not going to be publishing any H. P. Lovecraft and solstitia.

Lilly:

No. But I wonder if we should have chosen our short stories. But also, okay, You, it's kind of the perfect exercise, right? We pick up a collection that is titled Great Tales of Horror and start reading from page one. I understand why they started with The Call of Cthulhu because that is the one everyone knows. But, maybe they should have started with a better one.

Sara:

Yeah. I mean, if the goal was to start you with something terrible and then you enjoy the next story more, that it succeeded in that.

Lilly:

Then you get readers like us, who would like to put the book down. And then it's, the collection is kind of just riding on our guilt of going, Well, if I didn't like it, it must be something wrong with me. So I must have to read the rest of them, right?

Sara:

That, well, yeah.

Lilly:

of exploitative.

Sara:

I, I agree that it would be, yeah, I, I don't know how much our methodology did or did not suffer.

Lilly:

If there was, I don't know, we had managed to find someone who actually liked and read Lovecraft instead of someone who just knows the name and knows that Cthulhu has tentacles, which is, I feel like, the general knowledge level of most people.

Sara:

I mean, that's, that's about the extent of my knowledge of Cthulhu. And that's basically still the extent of my knowledge of Cthulhu. So,

Lilly:

um, which is wild because I feel like Poe, most people could at least tell you a little bit about the Telltale Heart or the Raven or Murrs on the Rue Morgue. Yeah, everyone knows the name. But people probably have some information about the actual content. Whereas Lovecraft is so ubiquitous, but who has actually read it?

Sara:

to be fair. I think the only things I could tell you about any of those Poe stories you mentioned, except maybe the Raven I think that we had to memorize it in grade school but basically anything I could tell you about those. I have gleaned from you over the course of this podcast.

Lilly:

I am the one true reader and everyone mimics me, and so everyone knows more about Poe than Lovecraft.

Sara:

there, there was the Lovecraft adaptation, right? Lovecraft

Lilly:

That's actually based on a book, Lovecraft Country.

Sara:

Interesting.

Lilly:

which I do kind of want to read now. My understanding is that it is kind of a response to how fucking racist Lovecraft is.

Sara:

That's my understanding of it too, but I didn't realize that it was

Lilly:

Its own book,

Sara:

it's own book. Yeah.

Lilly:

I watched the first couple of episodes, but they came out once a week and that's not how I watch TV. So I stopped.

Sara:

It would, it would be interesting to. read the book, I think. Particularly given that we have now read at least a little bit of Lovecraft.

Lilly:

I have phrased my argument better. People who fling one or two comments out about Poe seem to generally be accurate, based on my readings of him. one or two details people fling out about Lovecraft So far, do not seem accurate.

Sara:

I mean, there are tentacles. What's inaccurate about that?

Lilly:

I mean, yeah, that's about it. But the,

Sara:

I, I think, I think maybe what you're trying to say is that people who talk about Poe tend to have a slightly deeper understanding of Poe than people who talk about Lovecraft.

Lilly:

or at least the, the talk that I've heard, I do want to throw that. I'm sure there are people out there who are like, of course I've read Lovecraft. What do you mean? Proof to me you exist. I don't believe it. It's just all of the praise for Lovecraft that I've heard. Because you do get, there's a lot of yeah, he sure is racist, but he's worth reading because he came up with these cool concepts. Where, where are those, point me to them. Have not found them yet. Granted, didn't look very hard. But shouldn't. A collection of his work have introduced me to them a little bit quicker. I don't know.

Sara:

I do think, I do think tentacly space monster is interesting.

Lilly:

There was no space! Yeah.

Sara:

Tentacly alternate dimension slash earth monster that, that can be called forth. In dreams. It's a cool concept. I don't think he does it justice, but I do think, I do think it's an interesting concept.

Lilly:

My husband has heard of a story, cannot tell me the name of the story. Suspicious if it exists, not because I doubt him, but because I doubt Lovecraft. Apparently there's a monster that can travel through the concept of corners and edges.

Sara:

Interesting.

Lilly:

Right? Sounds neat. I wonder if that's gonna be 50 pages of people of color making human sacrifices and then a paragraph of that at the end.

Sara:

Probably. Hound of Kindalos? Maybe.

Lilly:

Is that even in this collection?

Sara:

So they are fictional creatures created by Frank Belknap Long and later incorporated into the Cthulhu mythos when it was codified by August Durleth. So

Lilly:

good. So not Lovecraft at all.

Sara:

Lovecraft mentions the creatures in his short story, The Whisperer in Darkness.

Lilly:

I feel so justified, Sarah. Lovecraft

Sara:

are

Lilly:

that he has not earned.

Sara:

the hounds are said to inhabit the angles of time and Yeah, he, he did not come up with them.

Lilly:

Yeah, so The fact that the third hand discussion around this very cool concept got assigned to AHP Lovecraft for, I won't say no fucking reason, but a very flimsy reason, just shows that if you have a badass name, Then you will get credit you don't deserve.

Sara:

I

Lilly:

I'm right and no one can prove me wrong.

Sara:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Lilly:

Come disagree with us. We're on Twitter, Blue Sky, Instagram, and TikTok at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at Gmail. com

Sara:

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Lilly:

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense. FictionFans

Sara:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!

Lilly:

Bye. Ooh, I missed that hard.

Sara:

You, you missed that quite hard.