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Read this for a horror book club I recently joined. I have never read H.P. Lovecraft until now, so I can’t speak to his other works, this is my opinion based on just this short story.

Honestly, the only thing terrifying about this short story is how boring it is and the fact that it’s riddled with problematic content. Of course, at the time this was written and published, it wouldn’t have been viewed as problematic, so technically it’s a product of its times. A time when it was accepted to be openly racist, homophobic, and ableist.

I also just hated the writing style. Why some writers feel the need to show off their vocabulary instead of using clear, concise language is beyond me. To me, it just makes your writing more boring, not interesting. So you know how to use “corpulent” in a sentence to describe your character, so what? You could just as easily have said, “he was fat.” Instead of wasting time thinking of fancy, college-level words to use in the story to cover up the fact that this story could bore someone to tears, how about putting that time and effort into writing a decent horror story? I don’t know, just a thought. Though this is a personal preference, so if a reader likes stories with this kind of writing style, then I’m glad that works for them. It will never work for me.

George Orwell said, “never use a long word when a short one will do.” I wish someone gave that memo to Lovecraft. I’ve never read anything by Orwell yet either, so who knows how well he was at taking his own advice, but it’s still great advice!

I think this is one of the reasons I usually hate “classics,” the writing just comes off as pretentious(yeah, I can use fancy words too, but I’d rather just say, quit showing off). I really don’t get how people like “classics,” especially considering all the problems in them due to when they’re written. As much as I hated a lot of the books/stories I had to read in school, I’m glad none of my teachers ever subjected us to this crap. ( )

Alveg þokkalegasti Lovecraft. Yfirnáttúrulegur hryllingurinn tröllríður öllu. ( )

So, there is something that has been tugging at me about Lovecraft's racism. He so despises what he thinks of as lower races that he can't even let them be the master villains of his stories. He always brings in some educated white dude to really kick off the evil plot. In addition to that, the plot and the ultimate reveal are both train wreck material in this one. I know I've been complaining about the horrors to horrible to actually take place, but this one goes to the other extreme, showing so much that the horrors are almost comical.

The one good thing I can say about this is that Victor LaValle decided to make something of it. Run don't walk over to [b:The Ballad of Black Tom|26883558|The Ballad of Black Tom|Victor LaValle|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1447086249s/26883558.jpg|46932536] and enjoy a complex and moving horror story instead. ( )

This is going to be short. This story was terrible and it has Lovecraft's racism and xenophobia on full display. I think if he could have torched New York and wiped it clean of those he saw as inferior he would have.

The Horror at Red Hook tells a story taking place in the 1920s with a New York police detective named Thomas Malone. Malone is left disturbed by an incident that left several people dead.

Lovecraft then works backwards telling how a rich and eccentric old man named Robert Suydam. Suydam ends up buying property in Red Hook and people are disappearing. The police believe something nefarious is happening, but can't prove it. And then suddenly Suydam seems to be slowly reverse aging and marries a young 20 year old distant relative of his.

The story jumps around too much to really get a handle on the story. Lovecraft doesn't include the Chulthu mythos at all. Instead it seems to be about human sacrifice and Lilith. I don't get what caused Suydam to be turned against unless that was the plan all along. And the ending with Malone being buried after falling into another portal and witnessing what Suydam was up to was pretty lame. The story honestly put me to sleep for a few minutes and I was not happy when I woke up and realized I still want done right this story. It is short though and I finished in it about 25 minutes (nap included). ( )