While visiting a friend this weekend, I picked up his copy of a collection of H. P. Lovecraft stories, and began reading The Call of Cthulhu. Upon returning home, I found an online copy and was able to finish reading it.

I appreciate the way Lovecraft conveyed his dark tale. The opening lines paint a chilling portrait of his vision of humanity as an insignificant spec in the midst of cosmic powers:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

For the rest of the 30-odd pages of the story, Lovecraft tells of unspeakable horror, of powerful deities from the stars, the very sight of which is sufficient to overload the mortal mind, and of cults in their honor, waiting to revive the Great Old One Cthulhu from his ever-dreaming vigil under the sea. The myth is masterfully told, conveying well the scale and gripping terror of his visions, while leaving ample room for the reader’s imagination to take his words and conjure images of unique consternation.

This last aspect commends the text to me as a remarkable piece of literature. One can write extensively (or, in our present day, graphically depict on the screen) an image of terror, and scare some people. But when the reader’s (or viewer’s) imagination is allowed to take charge, they can take a journey into the author’s world, coloring it with their personal perspective and prior experiences, creating a world which they can share with the author in a unique manner. The result is a rather satisfying literary experience.