I’m not a stranger to the early 1900s Gothic, and it caused me no small sense of delight to see that The Call of Cthulhu begins with a quote from Algernon Blackwood.
I know of Algernon Blackwood as a writer who succeeds in bringing out the more haunting aspects of nature. Where one man might find a relaxing forest vista, Blackwood imagines the branches snapping behind him.
Onto the text itself…
The Plot of Cthulhu
Sometimes, it was a little difficult to understand what was going on. For that, I blame the antiquated sentence style, but I’ll do my best.
The nephew of a recently deceased researcher happens across some findings pointing towards a mythical religion. Curious, he chases these findings to their source. The path leads him to uncover more of his uncle’s mysterious works, which in turn lead him to speak with the sources of those findings, like the young and slightly deranged Henry Wilcox.
Throughout the text, madness lingers just below the surface of every character interaction. Much of the narrative is told through the recorded dreams of individuals like Wilcox, who see mysterious shapes and dark waters in their dreams.
As our narrator ploughs onwards, we learn that real world crimes are being associated with the dreams of Wilcox and the symbols from within are escaping into the real world.
But only our narrator pieces the full picture together; that the nightmare religion stems from reality; Chaotic ancients really do sleep beneath the waves of Earth, merely waiting for their human acolytes to set them free to rain destruction in a new world.
Knowledge in The Call of Cthulhu
There’s an overarching sense that learning too much will result in humanity’s downfall. In a post-nuclear world, this feels quite poignant.
‘We shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.’
Here, knowledge is correlated with light, but too much light is ‘deadly’. However, Cthulhu is commonly associated with darkness. From the description of Henry Wilcox the sensitive artist as a ‘a thin, dark young man‘, to Cthulhu’s own house, ‘the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R’lyeh‘, there are plenty more associations between Cthulhu and darkness.
And yet, if darkness suggests Cthulhu, then this early line about fleeing from the ‘light into the safety of a new dark age‘ is quite confusing. I’m not certain whether the narrator is secretly swayed by the horror of Cthulhu as opposed to the light of a life spent researching. It makes me wonder if our narrator quietly hopes for Cthulhu’s rising.
Overall, I felt that the themes of light and darkness within Call of Cthulhu were quite confused. Or, perhaps more precisely, nothing is definitively good in this story. Well, aside from white men.
Quite A Bit of Racism
As it has been said many times before, Lovecraft and this story have a real issue with race. Anything that has the potential to be good is a white man, and anything that is evil is associated with racial minorities. This is obviously troubling, and permeates the entire text.
Women are also curiously absent, but especially lacking in roles of importance. Perhaps this is to be expected in works from this era but reading it in the modern day still stings.
Did I Enjoy Call of Cthulhu?
This is an interesting question. I’m not sure if I enjoyed the Call of Cthulhu. It’s hard to enjoy a story with such blatant racism threaded throughout, not to mention the fact that I didn’t find the story to be nearly as chilling as I’d hoped.
This might be an issue with my pre-existing knowledge of Cthulhu and Lovecraft. In my mind, the word Lovecraft if usually followed by ‘horror’. Perhaps Lovecraftian Horror better describes the Cthulhu universe, as I’m aware that the Cthulhu mythos extends beyond this first short story, but I left this origin point feeling a little disappointed.
That said, I still appreciated the creativity. There are plenty of interesting descriptions and concepts. I love the idea that artists are closest to supernatural forces and therefore most at risk of madness—but it also suggests that the sensitivity of artists is vital in foretelling the impending danger of Cthulhu’s awakening.
Another thing I liked about reading Call of Cthulhu was how it filled a void in my cultural understanding. I have seen plenty of references to the Cthulhu mythos across various pieces of fiction, and now they all make far more sense to me. I’ve attained a retroactive understanding.
Final Thoughts
I’m really glad I read this short story, and I’ll definitely read more within the Cthulhu mythos, but this wasn’t exactly my favourite short story in the world.
Thanks for reading! Leave a comment!
Beyond The Spine Reviews 
1 Comment