The Call of the Tentacle

It is no news to you dear reader that Matt and I think of ourselves as experts of some sorts on quit a few odd little things. And why shouldn’t we? One such subject that has recently become chief among our areas of expertise is that of ‘tentacle rape.’ We may not be well versed or particularly well experienced in ‘TR’ but it can not be denied that we, as a team, are more familiar and versed in the ins and outs of the act than any of you may be (however, if you would like to argue this point Matt and I would be more than eager to take it up with you).

It was in the spirit of ‘TR’ that I decided indulge myself in the work of an author I had long ago abandoned any consideration of ever reading: Mr. H. P. Lovecraft.

I will admit that I had many preconceived notions about Lovecraft’s work; I did not hold any of it in high opinion. Now though, after suffering through the insufferable, I see how right I always was. However, while all of my feelings about Lovecraft and Lovecraftian writing have been affirmed by reading a choice few of his short stories I’ve also gained some insight into the madness of (and attraction to) this prolific writer.

If you’re not familier with H. P. Lovcraft maybe I should fill you in a little bit and explain just how a thing like tentacle rape led me to him. Lovecraft can easily be described as a failed writer of what, in its time, was know simply as “weird fiction.” His works wove together elements of horror and science into a stories of troubled individuals dealing with cosmic terrors, daemons that were other worldly and personal insanities. Many of his short stories were originally published in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales where he gathered a small following of readers… In other words: ‘fail.’ It seems though that after his death in 1937 absurdity was not to be the final resting place for Lovecraftian canon. ("That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.") And then the internet happened and with it came the heyday of the meme. And things were good for the Lovecraft mythos. The internet offered to Lovecraft readers and fan writers the same thing it offered to every other fat middle aged man-child living in his parent back room, a place to met with other like himself to complain and praise anything and everything, from Mr. Plow, to Lovecrafts flagship creation, the monstrous god of mind sick legends- Cthulhu. Also, there was porn, loads of porn, and in these dregs of degradation poor men would stumble across the darkest thing the internet harbored within itself, a dangerous entity as remote and primal as any of Lovecraft’s creations…tentacle rape.

If you haven’t seen the connection yet here it comes. Lovecraft developed the Cthulhu mythos, a series of stories that dealt with a group of ancient monsters who would one day reappear to enslave the universe. Cthulhu, the heist deities among Lovecrafts pantheon of daemons, was an enormous, winged, taloned, mollusk encrusted, tentacled beast. A, if I may, tentacle monster.

"I'm going to rape your cheery ass"

But never mind all that. What’s far more interesting is the way in which these crazy ass stories read. Lovecraft writes with a care for language and detail which is near scientific. Many of the more thorough descriptions Lovecraft provides his reader with have a doctor’s attention to details, describing in full and sometimes over indulgent terms the situations and madness of what because of this elevated intellect of first person narration are characteristically bourgeois in their deepening states of insanity. Even so, the Lovecraft’s texts read as beautifully crafted and elegant stories…The problem is that words like “ooze” and “slime” sound very disconcerting when used by an author who before these failings has demonstrated an elevated command of the English language. Also, these types of descriptions are common and creep into the work very often. More over Lovecraft uses terms which are all together foreign to his reader and, for the most part, any reader. I can excuss this because in most circumstances it is done with the purpose of describing something which in the contect of the story is forign to the protagonist, like the sunken city of R’lyeh in Dagon and The Call of Cthulhu. For an author who is so well endowed with adjectives sing words like “ooze” sounds childish, even infantile, characterizing a setting as being “cyclopean” (admittedly Lovecraft also describes settings as being “non-euclidean” which is much helpful for the reader) is mysteriously lazy.

Much of Lovecraft’s writing seems to be in the form of journals and first person accounts of these weird and ominous happenings. The sense of narration and the use of language and detail is reminiscent of many gothic writers. In the end Lovecraft reads much like a hybrid, with touches of Poe’s dark and brooding Victorian style of language mixed with a type of story telling much like that of Arthur Conan Doyle’s. The man isn’t an incredibly bad writer, he’s actually a pretty alright (I’m hesitant to say good) writer, it’s just that, you see, he’s bat shit insane. What Lovecraft did for literature might not seem that big and important, and I’m sure someone else would have done it if he hadn’t but the point remains he was the first to do it. H. P. Lovecraft wrote prolifically, as many failed writers have been seen to do, he developed a cult following after death, also not uncommon. What he did do different from other writers like him (writers of horror, adventure, and science fiction) was reveal to the reader the insignificance of his protagonists in the greater scheme of things. Lovecraft’s characters are merely tools for larger stories, disposable unimportant human life that he used for perspective into an unknown threat of cosmic monstrosity.

I read Lovecraft because I knew that I could not in good conscience knock the man any longer with out sitting down and giving him a chance. It’s good to know you enemy I guess is what I was thinking. But it’s different then all that know. I’m glad I have a bit more insight into the fucked up stupid world of H. P. Lovercraft and his fucked up stupid followers. I mean shit, there are Cthulhu/Lovecraft “Scholars” out there who are unembarrassed to put that in their resumes. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be ashamed of themselves, because they should. But I’ll admit that if I had time to kill, and nothing better to read with more literary weight, I’d read some more of it. In the end is was kind of fun to read and grind my teeth through. Anyways, as I said, it isn’t completely horrible.

God this man is shit fuck ugly

Caleb Michael, literary critic