Classic Book Review: "Necronomicon" by H.P Lovecraft

The Necronomicon has long been associated with the peak of modern horror for many readers and horror enthusiasts. To be perfectly honest with you, most of the stories are quite frightening and you probably don't want to be reading them at night under the sheets. However, there are some that are clearly better than others and it would be false to say that this is the best horror anthology I have ever read in my life. Let me take you back to when I was fifteen years' old for a second - I have to show you something...

I was fifteen when I first read the Necronomicon by H.P Lovecraft and honestly, at that time, it didn't really scare me as much as a book like Salem's Lot did some couple of years' before. It was one of those books where the short stories often fascinated me with their in-depth descriptions of very sordid activities and atmospheres that seek to terrify. Every time I revisited it, things seemed to distort a little - as if this was becoming more problematic than I remembered when I first read it.

But, for some reason, something always seemed a bit off, like it was brilliantly written but wasn't quite right in aspects.

This was due to its treatment of non-white people as spectacles.

H.P Lovecraft if not remembered for his great horror writing is also remembered for his racial insensitivity. We can all go ahead and blame the time that he lived in but from comparing an African-American man to an ape to the name of his cat and blatant use of the derogatory terminology used to refer to Black people, Lovecraft comes off as a really horrid human being. This is a fault in which I knock off two marks for. No matter how well it is written - I don't need to read that.

Let's move on to a lighter topic. What was actually good about this book?

The story Dagon was probably always my favourite from the anthology because it deals with something I really enjoy - folk horror of the sea. We have a morphine-addicted man with some sort of PTSD who escapes to a sea-ridden land unknown described as a "region (that was) putrid with the carcasses of decaying fish and less describable things" where the possible volcanic activity has thrown stuff upon the shore that shouldn't be there.

After waiting it out a while, he decides to venture out on foot and comes across a rock which is actually a "well-shaped monolith whose massive bulk had known the workmanship and perhaps the worship of living and thinking creatures." This is where we get to the horror. These 'people' or 'creatures' are described as being horrifying shapes and sizes. I love the way Lovecraft writes of them:

They were damnably human in general outline despite webbed hands and feet, shockingly wide and flabby lips, glassy, bulging eyes, and other features less pleasant to recall. Curiously enough, they seemed to have been chiseled badly out of proportion with their scenic background; for one of the creatures was shewn in the act of killing a whale represented as but little larger than himself.

This is followed by a creature arising from the place where the narrator is exploring and obviously, in classic Lovecraft fashion - it is absolutely horrifying to the worst possible degree.

Another story I enjoyed was called The Rats in the Walls. This and Dagon are stories I have often used to teach creative writing and description with intention to create emotion. However, in The Rats in the Walls I think what disturbed me more was the infrequent use of derogatory terminology that, I must unfortunately admit, almost made me stop reading the story in some cases.

All in all, I have had to - over the years - come to terms with the fact that I can enjoy the stories of Lovecraft whilst also being critical of his language use in some cases. Thankfully, the story Dagon - which I enjoy the most, has none of this derogatory terminology or racially insensitive and awful comparisons between man and animal.

Though it may not be as frightening as we perceive it to be, it is an enjoyable read in many respects.