H.P. Lovecraft Month, Week One: The Call of Cthulhu

Hmmm … for some reason it isn’t as frightening as it should be.

I suppose because I’m a product of the 21st century. It reads too much like the ‘blood libel’ stories that people make up. The description of ‘primitive negroes’ seems racist, and the discussion of pagan cults — I work closely with Pagans )at http://paganandchristianmoot.co.uk/pcvbforum) , and 99% of them simply aren’t like that. Most of them would be just as horrified of Cthulthu as anyone else.

G.K. Chesterton discussed this in his book ‘The Everlasting Man’. One of the chapters is called ‘the war of the gods and demons’ — though all pre-Christian ideas are inadequate some are demonstrably more inadequate than others. The worshippers of the ‘gods’ — virtuous pagans who believed in a moral code — warred with the worshippers of the ‘demons’ — pagans of the sort who worshipped Moloch or practiced human sacrifice.

Nonetheless, it is extremely well-written, although because of the aforementioned cultural issues it doesn’t have quite the impact now that it must have then.

In addition, I think every other horror writer since has stolen from Lovecraft… because the ideas are commonplace now, and therefore not frightening. It has even found it’s way into video games. But *the first time* it must have been truly creepy indeed, and a work of genius.

I also suspect Lovecraft was influenced by the Bible as well.

This passage …

“That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.”

Reminds me a great deal of Revelation 9, when at the sound of the fifth and sixth trumpets the Abyss is opened and the demons ‘bound at the river Euphrates’ are unbound. I can see it being very like this, and I can see it happening at a time when man has cast off restraint … when he who is keeping back the secret power of lawlessness (2 Thess 2:7) is removed.

The other interesting thing is that in this world there is no good God or good gods .. there is only immortal, supernatural evil being opposed by the forces of order, composed of mere flesh and blood. That all the goodness and mercy in the world is but a wax candle, and outside it is eternal, unending darkness. Further, the candle will burn out. The darkness will then rule forever.

This is why people who actually touch the supernatural in this world — who get beyond the bedtime stories and the conventions and the shared lies we tell each other … to grasp actual truth invariably go insane, because they see themselves as bunny rabbits frolicking before the hunters, who stalk ceaselessly just outside the firelight.

And right along with those who fight for order with all their might are those who willingly abet the return of Chaos, willing collaborators and traitors to the human race.

It is, in short, a world entirely devoid of the Christian God or indeed of any religion at all. A world where “God” is evil.

A fascinating work. It’s also important because there are people who really believe they live in such a world, and to understand we must understand Lovecraft’s thought.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention! I hope that other people will have interesting comments as well.

Respectfully,

Brian P.