![]() With the occasional small diversion off topic. In some respects, this is where Lovecraft really starts to come together, and while I am aware I have said similar things with other tales, this really is the point Lovecraft starts to put all the pieces of his mythological jigsaw together.Īs I said this is a tale in three parts, and while I have kept these witterings on Lovecraftian lunacy to one post a story in the past. Cyclopean columns from the depths of the ocean, the ravings of everyone’s favourite mad Arabian, the Necronomicon itself, all that otherwise tedious wondering about in the dreamlands he is so fond of, all the mythos stories that came before this have all been building irrevocable towards ‘The Call of Cthulhu’. It builds on the foundations of the best of his earlier tales and sits astride them, going all the way back to Dagon one of his earliest tales of all. Not only does it build on the foundations it lays for itself as you read it. It is this that sets it apart for me over some of Lovecraft’s other long tales, for while he had tried to do this before in the likes of ‘The Lurking Fear’ he never really managed to hold the reader’s interest (mine at least) or build upon the foundations he had laid in the earlier parts of the story.īut ‘ The Call of Cthulhu’ is built on stronger foundations than anything he had tried before. Unlike other episodic tales by Lovecraft, Herbert West being the example that springs to mind, this central thread really holds it all together and makes it the complete tale it is, and the threads left hanging by the first two parts are all sewn together in the final one. In many ways, you could treat them as three different tales all closely linked by a central thread. ![]() The three parts of this tale are titled The Horror in Clay, The Tale of Inspector Legrasse, and The Madness from the Sea. The story itself is told in three parts, which begin with our narrator, one of the endless unnamed, Not-Randolph’s who inherits the papers of a deceased wise old uncle… Stop me if you have heard that little nugget of plot before… Yes indeed, we are back in Not-Randolph’s discovering strange rites and mysteries, through the medium of an old uncle… I guess after reading ‘ Cool Air‘ last week I should not be surprised by this, but let’s not get bogged down in that old trope once more. Which is surprising because when it comes down to it, I am not actually a collector of Cthulhu memorabilia, this is just stuff that has accumulated over the years… Even if you bear in mind that I am a habitual geek who has a fascination with such things, it is safe to say that beyond just Geekdom itself, Cthulhu is everywhere in the modern cultural zeitgeist of western civilisation… So with that in mind, this is a tale with a reputation to live up to. Old Tentacle Face is frankly everywhere in my house. And remember this is just in my study, I did not bother looking for my Cthulhu cufflinks … ![]() I have in there a Cthulhu POP figure, a crocheted Cthulhu made by my friend Cal, a Cthulhu inspired piece of wall art (technically a page of the Necromonicon made by a Canadian artist), several Cthulhu T-shirts occasionally hang on the radiators to dry, any number of Cthulhu inspired books, Cthulhu inspired comic books, the Call of Cthulhu B/W movie on the shelf with other DVD’s, Cthulhu inspired board games, Cthulhu inspired card games, Cthulhu Dice, Cthulhu badges, and several RGP game books for everything from The Call of Cthulhu, Cthulhu Dark Ages, Cthulhu Romans, Cthulhu in Space. Just how widespread Old Tentacle Face is can be demonstrated by a quick look around my front room at home, which for the sake of pretentiousness I’ll call my study. Cthulhu is simply everywhere in modern popular culture. As for the old star spawn itself, Cthulhu is without a doubt the most widely known of all Lovecraft’s creations. Lovecraft has had a more pervasive impact on popular culture or done more to establish ‘old tentacle hugger’ as a major literary influence than ‘The call of Cthulhu’. And with strange aeons even death may die.”
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