The Shadow Over Innsmouth And Other Stories Of Horror
Ratings58
Average rating3.8
This was my first Lovecraft :-D I read it first time a couple of years ago. (Yes, I have actually managed to live over 40 years without reading Lovecraft! Oy vey! You know, I thought I don't like horror. Turns out that I kind of do :-D)
Anyway, it left a deep impression in my mind. I think Howard writes well (or well enough, I can't say much about the quality of writing), and manages to keep me on the edge of my seat, hoping for the safe return of the MC, just to find out that... well... you just have to read it yourself to find out, won't you? ;-)
There would be a really good joke here if he wanted to be a furry based creature instead of aquatic
O livro tem uma premissa boa, e começa muito bem, mas vai ficar gradualmente pior e tem um final horroroso. Definitivamente o pior que eu já li do Lovecraft.
First true Lovecraft novella I've ever read. I've enjoyed a lot of Lovecraft inspired things (Lovecraft Country, Arkham Horror) but never actually read the source material. I know he's a very problematic author but I enjoyed the creepy, impending doom vibe of this book.
Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2F04398UBU764?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
H.P. Lovecraft is a writer whose works have had a substantial impact on popular culture. His name itself has been turned into an adjective - “Lovecraftian” - meaning, basically, a kind of horror involving vast and undefeatable evil powers. Even people who have never read Lovecraft have a dim sense of Cthulhu and they are exposed to Lovecraftian elements in movies and television.
I'm one of those people. I didn't attempt to read Lovecraft until this summer - August 2020. One of the first stories I started with was one I had heard constantly referenced by other books and stories, namely “The Shadow over Innsmouth.”
The story involves a narrator making it a trip through the New England region. He decides to divert his tour through the town of Innsmouth because he had a distant ancestor who came from Innsmouth. Innsmouth had a poor reputation for backwardness and poverty. He goes to Innsmouth and finds it to be squalid and hostile. Many of the natives have an “Innsmouth look” which involves wideset eyes and a receding chin. As he wanders, the hostility against him increases. He comes to find that there is a conspiracy afoot and that his way out of town is barred by the natives.
Think about how many stories in television and movies involve an outsider stumbling into a community with a dark secret. I don't know if Lovecraft originated this trope but he did write this story in the late 1920s.
I liked this story. It is not particularly fast-moving. Lovecraft spends a lot of time on descriptions and information dumps. This story is probably unusual in the Lovecraft canon for the amount of dialogue involved and how Lovecraft advances the story through dialogue instead of a narration. I was surprised at how much Lovecraft put me in mind of the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.
I found the story to be intriguing and enjoyable. It definitely had a “creep” factor that has stuck with me. It's definitely a classic and I would recommend it on that basis. On the other thand, if you don't have the willingness to cut your way through what is fairly archaic, dense prose, then this may not be your cup of tea.
The concept and the story are so good, it's just that Lovecraft gets lost in these lurid descriptions that it slows the story down. Especially in the third chapter where it is incredibly difficult to read due to his decision to make it nigh incomprehensible dialogue from a drunk.
His writing style isn't for me, so much so that after reading the Wikipedia plot summary to clarify some points my appreciation for the story shot up. It got to his points quickly, and actually left much more of an impact on me than the actual story did.
Go figure.
It could just be a case of me being unable to appreciate Lovecraft's style as much as others. It could be me just being stupid and taking multiple days to finish a short novella.
