The Tomb (1917)
"... echoes of a forgotten prehistoric past beat insistently upon the enthralled consciousness." (location 101)

Dagon (1917)
"I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed, worshipping their ancient stone idols and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite. I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny, war-exhausted mankind - of a day when the land shall sink, and the dark ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal pandemonium." (location 336)

Polaris (1918)
"the Pole Star, evil and monstrous, leers down from the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey." (location 403)

Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1919)

I am putting this aside, having read about a third of it.

I liked the earlier (and shorter) stories better than the more famous later stories such as "The Call of the Cthulu", "The Dunwich Horror", or "The Mountains of Madness".

Here is a list of what I have read at this time (2014):
·The Tomb
·Dagon
·Polaris
·Beyond the Wall of Sleep
·Memory
·Old Bugs
·The Transition of Juan Romero
·The White Ship
·The Doom That Came to Sarnath
·The Statement of Randolph Carter
·The Terrible Old Man
·The Tree (perhaps my favorite)
·The Cats of Ulthar
·The Temple
·Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
·The Street
·The Picture in the House
·Hypnos
·What the Moon Brings
·The Shunned House
·The Horror at Red Hook
·The Call of Cthulhu
·The Dunwich Horror
·The Whisperer in the Darkness
·At the Mountains of Madness
·The Dreams of Witch House
·The Thing on the Doorstep
·The Book
( )

the complete chtulhu mythos, narrated by ian gordon (1921-1935 / 2018). certo, eu sei que é duvidoso incluir audio-livro num post de leituras. mas e se eu disser que sou uma pessoa de concentração bastante baixa para ouvir pessoas falando, e tenho de ficar consultando o livrinho eletrônico no kindle? de qualquer forma, tinha um objetivo em mente: ter certeza de não ter escrito besteira num artigo, no prelo, comparando o hiper-caos do meillassoux, o deus de descartes e o demônio sultão azathoth, o deus idiota cego no centro do caos pulsante. o artigo mesmo comenta sobre a entidade (?) a partir da novela “the quest for unknown kadath”, de 1927. ( )

**Review Under Construction**
******************************************************************************
November 1, 2015: Full disclosure, I don't really like Lovecraft. I love Poe, but Lovecraft did not impress me when I sampled him a few years ago. However, as with [b:The Turn of the Screw|10882679|The Turn of the Screw|Henry James|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1311647771s/10882679.jpg|990886], I feel I should read Lovecraft just to catch all the allusions, especially since I have recently fallen in love with the work of a writer of the self-proclaimed New Weird ([a:Jeff VanderMeer|33919|Jeff VanderMeer|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1400594878p2/33919.jpg]), as it seems that would make Lovecraft the old weird. In any case, if I chip away at this I might be able to finish it relatively painlessly.

I know if I don't review stories as I go, I won't have any idea what to say once I'm finished, so here we go. (Update 2017: And now I have moved all my reviews to the individual works, which I will link back here, as I have hit the character limit trying to review it all in one place.)

★★☆☆☆ The Tomb (1917):
★★☆☆☆ Dagon (1917):
★★☆☆☆ Polaris (1918):
★☆☆☆☆ Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1919):
★★☆☆☆ Memory (1919):
★☆☆☆☆ Old Bugs (1919):
★☆☆☆☆ The Transition of Juan Romero (1919):
★★★☆☆ The White Ship (1919):
★★★☆☆ The Doom That Came to Sarnath (1919):
★★★☆☆ The Statement of Randolph Carter (1919):
★★★☆☆ The Terrible Old Man (1920):
★☆☆☆☆ The Tree (1920):
★☆☆☆☆ The Cats of Ulthar (1920):
★★★★☆ The Temple (1920):
★★☆☆☆ Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family (1920):
★☆☆☆☆ The Street (1920):
★★★★★ Celephaïs (1920):
★★★★☆ From Beyond (1920):
★☆☆☆☆ Nyarlathotep (1920):
★★☆☆☆ The Picture in the House (1920):
★★☆☆☆ Ex Oblivione (1921):
★★☆☆☆ The Nameless City (1921):
★☆☆☆☆ The Quest of Iranon (1921):
★★☆☆☆ The Moon-Bog (1921):
★★★☆☆ The Outsider (1921):
★★☆☆☆ The Other Gods (1921):
★★☆☆☆ The Music of Erich Zann (1921):

(Hmmm. I've read almost half the works and only 15% of the book? I know the later stories are novellas, but sheesh.)

★★★☆☆ Herbert West — Reanimator (1922):
★★★☆☆ Hypnos (1922):
★★☆☆☆ What the Moon Brings (1922):
★★☆☆☆ Azathoth (1922):
★★★☆☆ The Hound (1922):
★★☆☆☆ The Lurking Fear (1922):

(Oh, hey, I've hit 20%. I was starting to think I was reading inside of some kind of space-time anomaly.)

★★☆☆☆ The Rats in the Walls (1923):
★★★☆☆ The Unnamable (1923):
★★☆☆☆ The Festival (1923):
★★★★☆ The Shunned House (1924):

(Folks, it actually took me a year to read the previous story. Kept falling asleep during the opening section. The rest was some kind of awesome, though.)

★☆☆☆☆ The Horror at Red Hook (1925):
★☆☆☆☆ He (1925):
★☆☆☆☆ In the Vault (1925):

(31%! I shouldn't complain after taking a year long break, but good grief!)

No rating. The Descendant (1926): Fragment; judging by the set up, I'm glad.
★★☆☆☆ Cool Air (1926):
★★☆☆☆ The Call of Cthulhu (1926):
★★☆☆☆ Pickman’s Model (1926):
★★★★☆ The Silver Key (1926):

(And now to figure out how to do the rest of this review since Goodreads thinks I shouldn't write a novel to review one.)

★★☆☆☆ The Strange High House in the Mist (1926):
★★☆☆☆ The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1927):
★★★★☆ The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927):
★★★☆☆ The Colour Out of Space (1927):
★☆☆☆☆ The Very Old Folk (1927):
★★★★☆ The Thing in the Moonlight (1927):
★★★★☆ The History of the Necronomicon (1927):
★★☆☆☆ Ibid (1928):
★★☆☆☆ The Dunwich Horror (1928):
★★★★☆ The Whisperer in Darkness (1930):
★★★★★ At the Mountains of Madness (1931): Quite suddenly Lovecraft redeems himself.
★★★☆☆ The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1931): You've heard of this one, right? It's probably better than I'm giving it credit for. The previous story is a tough act to follow.
★★★★☆ The Dreams in the Witch House (1932): Witchcraft meets weird science. Loved.
★★★☆☆ The Thing on the Doorstep (1933): Loved everything but the sexism. (And no, I am not talking about the fact that sorcery types need male brains.)
★★★★☆ The Evil Clergyman (1933): A different kind of haunting. Loved.
★★★☆☆ The Book (1933): What I wanted a history of the Necronomicon to be. Why oh why couldn't he have finished this one?

And now (September 21, 2017) I am about to start his penultimate story. I'm almost sad. At the same time, freedom is so close!

★★★☆☆ The Shadow out of Time (1934): Sequel to At the Mountains of Madness but not as good.
★★★★★ The Haunter of the Dark (1935): His last is his best.

September 23, 2017: And now I'm finally done, and I really am sad. More thoughts to come.

Regarding the World Fantasy issue, since that came up while I was reading this collection: I have no idea why they were using a bust of Lovecraft as the award to begin with. Lovecraft does not represent fantasy as a genre at all. But since they went that road, I'm glad they dropped it. Maybe they will come up with something that is not tied to a particular person or subgenre in the future.

Regarding racism (trigger warning for foul mouthed bigotry): I had a flickering moment where I thought that Lovecraft had some self awareness and might even be parodying extreme racial sentiments, but I was wrong. Just in case anyone doubts that, a taste from his letters (to AEP Gamwell in February 1925):

Of course they can’t let niggers use the beach at a Southern resort – can you imagine sensitive persons bathing near a pack of greasy chimpanzees? The only thing that makes life endurable where blacks abound is the Jim Crow principle, & I wish they’’d apply it in N.Y. both to niggers & to the more Asiatic type of puffy, rat-faced Jew. Either stow ‘em out of sight or kill ‘em off – anything so that a white man may walk along the streets without shuddering nausea.

I have read and enjoyed the literary stylings of many racists; inclusion or exclusion in the canon is not the point here. Rather, Lovecraft's absolute horror at people who did not share his particular hue of skin or had physical features of a norm other than his own (including southern European groups such as Italians) is directly on point to the understanding and interpretation of his works. Any coherent review of his output as a whole needs to take this underlying theme into account directly. ( )

I spent more than 5 years with this book. It was a journey with its highs and lows. Many nice surprises. Mr. Lovecraft, Thou Art Not Gone. ( )