An Insane Read

The Dunwich Horror and Other Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After you're finished with The Call of Cthulhu and you feel as if you still have your senses about you (You think you do, but you don't. Good try though!), give The Dunwich Horror and Other Stories a go. Herein you'll find more possessed people and plenty others driven insane, as per usual.

If nothing else, this is a wonderful foundational work on the Lovecraftian mythos that details in creepy color Cthulhu and that devilish book of magic, The Necronomicon.

The language evoked by Lovecraft is more simplified here than it was in Call... or The Horror at Red Hook. Dunwich... often reads like an old-timey newspaper story. That style tends to distance the reader from the action, but this is an intentional device used to keep up the mystery. Perhaps some might call the writing stiff at times. Maybe a modern reader or two might find this too formal. Well, this was writing about 90 years ago.

The fact is, this is still solidly spooky stuff. I'm thinking I should read Lovecraft every time Halloween comes around, if I dare...

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