Confession: I am still reading Peter Ackroyd and his history of England, enjoying it very much and its all fine, except that at certain point I found myself bothered with my electronic reader - it is not exactly Kindle but some mutant, inexpensive version that I bought thinking this will not appeal to me anyway - and perhaps I stuffed the poor thing too much or crammed too many books inside, in any case it shows very unpredictable behavior, with pages switching between being beautifully clear and white, into muddled grey just the next page. It bothers me so much that I am seriously considering just erasing everything from it and having one book at the time on it, if this is the case. But it hinders my enjoyment in reading Ackroyd's book so just out of curiosity I had a peek at a short story by American cult writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft (short stories being my new discovery) who spent all his life in penniless obscurity, just to get praise, recognition and heaps of admirers posthumously, as it usually happens.
I knew just a little bit about Lovecraft, as apparently he was hugely influential and everywhere you look, famous authors bow to his memory in awe but I never actually read him, expecting it to be something dark, creepy and nightmarish. This afternoon, exhausted with this silly electronic machine that works against me and obviously is asking to be thrown into garbage + Iceland is all covered with black clouds and howling winds even though its officially summer, something inspired me to check the short story "The Colour Out of Space" that is supposed to be one of Lovecraft's best things ever.
Lo and behold - thunder & lightings - MGM lion roaring - this is actually excellent!
It is just as I expected, dark, creepy and nightmarish but it got all my attention completely. I actually got real goosebumps just reading this not-so-short story (apparently the concept of short story is very vague, it can be anything from one page to dozen of them) and you can bet that tonight after work, I will read it again with the biggest pleasure. I have mentioned earlier that 2017 is the year when I discovered brilliant Shirley Jackson but it seems that Lovecraft is right there with her as another excellent discovery of horror genre - completely different, naturally, he is more creepy and nightmarish but it seems that I really might enjoy his work. (I have this very vague memory of actually reading him, could it be that I actually already read something by Lovecraft? Expedition in some isolated, ice covered place?) In any case, can't wait to discover more of his work. Strangely enough, somehow without noticing, this is also a year when I suddenly turned my attention to short stories - something I never done before - completely spontaneously I found myself reading several short stories by various authors and they were without exception very memorable.
This particular short story is very famous as perfect example of Lovecraft's writing as it combines science fiction and horror. It is about unknown evil out of space that terrorizes humans and the scariest thing is how this meteorite (?) is completely alien to our perception, we can't even possibly imagine or understand its origin or motives. Which is actually perfectly logic as our alien visitors might be (in all probability) really alien to us in shape, form or behavior and they intentions could be very harmful indeed. "The Colour Out of Space" happens in wilderness of Massachusetts where landing of strange meteorite resulted in most curious effects on plants, animals and ultimately humans in the vicinity. The story is told from a point of a view of a neighbor (whom everybody finds crazy, but he might just suffer the traumatic experience) and his testimony of what actually happened is extremely chilling. On the other hand, it is a complete treat for a reader as Lovecraft skillfully created a short story masterpiece - he must truly have been inspired with this one - that is timeless and unforgettable.
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