Book Review: SELECTED STORIES by H.P. Lovecraft

Selected Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities."

H.P. Lovecraft, that masterful artist of horror, understood that his craft consisted of only 50% shock and gore, and that the other 50% was about letting the reader's imagination go wild (and mine did!! While stuck in the looooong queue for the vaccine jab).

"...All life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreaming."

One of my two favorite stories in the book were THE SILVER KEY, where we have Lovecraft's philosophy beautifully expressed in the introduction, as a man who sought meaning in books and the life of the mind, where he found the harmony invisible to him on earth.

And the last story in the collection (THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP) was the creepiest!!! Let's just say: it pays to have a signature knock, just in case you get possessed and need to prove that you're... you. Haha.

Some observations on Lovecraft's insanely great writing:

1) He likes whipoorwills. He mentions them 2 or 3 times per story, in almost all of the stories! Apparently their singing is an ill omen signaling death 😳

2) He gives enough detail to paint a clear picture of something beyond the grave, but leaves the worst bits to our overactive imaginations. Which I am both grateful for, and in awe of. It's super effective!!!

"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 the black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."

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