[Story] H.P. Lovecraft’s The Tomb

Truth is, I’ve got plenty of books by H.P. Lovecraft – and other dark fantasy writers too, for that matter. However, I have yet to read most of them, really, since I have been such a scaredy cat when it comes to horrific tales.

I was such a scardey cat anyway. I’m not sure if my Spanish shorts blog is to blame for my slowly adjusting tolerance for scary films, since I’ve been watching short films of all kinds of genres to add to my blog. However, I feel that when I had that horror short-filmfest some weeks back, my sensitivities for horror were somehow checked, and I didn’t have the nightmares and delusions I would have, like that time I watched Sukob when I was in college.

(Still, that Mamá short is creepy as heck.)

At any rate, I’ve been curious about H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu lore, which I may just check out eventually in the future. For now though, I went through a podcast for the author’s story “The Tomb”.

I was first struck by its eloquence, which I actually enjoy in classical fiction. This story was no different, and the persona uses a number of fancy shmancy words to tell his story of creepiness.

I was also interested in the progression of the tale, especially with how a young boy of 10 years old allegedly waits until he is of 21 years of age to venture into something he, in his young bones, believes he is not ready for yet. Don’t even get me started with how he plunked himself right in an empty coffin and slept there for the night. He mentioned monomania, and I think he was on to something there.

I was also wondering if H.P. Lovecraft himself did any of the nightly haunts that his character was performing. If he was, wow.

A creepy tale, but it ends with a quite realistic note. I appreciated it, and it is unlike a work by Edgar Allan Poe, of whose anthology I’ve already gone through when I was younger.

I’ll get to Cthulhu someday, I will.

(I again heard of the story through The Classic Tales Podcast.)