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«The Call of Cthulhu»
by H. P. Lovecraft
Title page of «The Call of Cthulhu» as it appeared in Weird Tales, February 1928. Illustration by Hugh Doak Rankin.[1]
Country	United States of America
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror
Published in	Weird Tales
Media type	Print
Publication date	February 1928
Full text
The Call of Cthulhu at Wikisource

«The Call of Cthulhu» is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in February 1928.^[2]

Inspiration[edit]

The first seed of the story’s first chapter The Horror in Clay came from one of Lovecraft’s own dreams he had in 1919,^[3] which he described briefly in two different letters sent to his friend Rheinhart Kleiner on May 21 and December 14, 1920. In the dream, Lovecraft is visiting an antiquity museum in Providence, attempting to convince the aged curator there to buy an odd bas-relief Lovecraft himself had sculpted. The curator initially scoffs at him for trying to sell something recently made to a museum of antique objects. Lovecraft then remembers himself answering the curator with the response

Why do you say that this thing is new? The dreams of men are older than brooding Egypt or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon, and this was fashioned in my dreams.

This can be compared to what the character of Henry Anthony Wilcox tells the main character’s uncle while showing him his sculpted bas-relief for help in reading hieroglyphs on it which came through Wilcox’s own fantastical dreams:

It is new, indeed, for I made it last night in a dream of strange cities; and dreams are older than brooding Tyre or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon.

Lovecraft then used this for a brief synopsis of a new story outlined in his own Commonplace Book at first in August 1925, which developed organically out of the idea of what the bas-relief in the dream actually might have depicted. In a footnote for his writing down of his own dream, Lovecraft then finished with the suggestion «Add good development & describe nature of bas-relief» to himself for future reference.^[4]

Cthulhu Mythos scholar Robert M. Price claims the irregular sonnet «The Kraken»,^[5] published in 1830 by Alfred Tennyson, was a major inspiration, since both reference a huge aquatic creature sleeping for an eternity at the bottom of the ocean and destined to emerge from its slumber in an apocalyptic age.^[6]

S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz cited other literary inspirations: Guy de Maupassant’s «The Horla» (1887), which Lovecraft described in Supernatural Horror in Literature as concerning «an invisible being who…sways the minds of others, and seems to be the vanguard of a horde of extraterrestrial organisms arrived on Earth to subjugate and overwhelm mankind»; and Arthur Machen’s «The Novel of the Black Seal» (1895), which uses the same method of piecing together of disassociated knowledge (including a random newspaper clipping) to reveal the survival of a horrific ancient being.^[7]

It is also assumed he got inspiration from William Scott-Elliot’s The Story of Atlantis (1896) and The Lost Lemuria (1904), which Lovecraft read in 1926 shortly before he started to work on the story.^[8]

Price also notes that Lovecraft admired the work of Lord Dunsany, who wrote The Gods of Pegana (1905), which depicts a god constantly lulled to sleep to avoid the consequences of its reawakening. Another Dunsany work cited by Price is A Shop in Go-by Street (1919), which stated «the heaven of the gods who sleep», and «unhappy are they that hear some old god speak while he sleeps being still deep in slumber».^[9][10]

The «slight earthquake» mentioned in the story is likely the 1925 Charlevoix–Kamouraska earthquake.^[11]

S.T. Joshi has also cited A. Merritt’s novella The Moon Pool (1918) which Lovecraft ‘frequently rhapsodied about’. Joshi says that, ‘Merritt’s mention of a «moon-door» that, when tilted, leads the characters into a lower region of wonder and horror seems similar to the huge door whose inadvertent opening by the sailors causes Cthulhu to emerge from R’lyeh’.^[12]

Edward Guimont has argued that H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds was an influence on «The Call of Cthulhu», citing the thematic similarities of ancient, powerful, but indifferent aliens associated with deities; physical similarities between Cthulhu and the Martians; and the plot detail of a ship ramming an alien in a temporarily successful but ultimately futile gesture.^[13]

Plot[edit]

The story consists of three interconnected parts, and is presented as notes belonging to Francis Thurston, a Boston resident investigating the ancient deity Cthulhu.

The first part, «The Horror in Clay», concerns a mysterious clay bas-relief depicting Cthulhu. Thurston finds the bas-relief among the belongings of his great-uncle Professor Angell. The bas-relief was created by sculptor Henry Wilcox in March 1925 while half-asleep. At the time Wilcox was haunted by mysterious visions of Cyclopean cities. Angell also discovered reports of local residents — primarily artists, sculptors, architects, and others of a sensitive psyche — experiencing similar nightmares during that period. The next morning, Wilcox was amazed by his creation and took it to Angell, who noted that the bas-relief was reminiscent of a figurine seized by police from members of a New Orleans religious sect in 1907.

In the second chapter, «The Tale of Inspector Legrasse», police officer John Legrasse reports at an archaeological society’s symposium on his participation in a raid of a sect worshipping Cthulhu, from which the figurine was confiscated. The sect’s actions were described as depraved and blasphemous. Local residents feared the sect’s orgies, and claimed that human sacrifices were made at these orgies. A team of officers led by Legrasse arrived at the scene in search of several missing squatters. The police detained several sect members, but interrogation yielded little result, as the degraded and insane members stubbornly defended the truth of their cult. One sectarian, Old Castro, proclaimed that Cthulhu’s time would come when the stars take a certain position. A phrase chanted by the sect turns out to have been previously used by a tribe of Eskimos, as revealed by one of the symposium’s participants.

In the third chapter, «The Madness from the Sea», Thurston continues his investigation. He learns of the Norwegian sailor Gustaf Johansen, the sole survivor of his crew, and finds manuscripts documenting his last voyage as second mate on board the schooner Emma. During a storm, Emma veered off course and encountered the pirate yacht Alert. Although the crew was victorious against the pirates, they were forced to abandon the damaged Emma and transfer to the Alert. Johansen took command following the skirmish, as the captain and first mate had perished. On the Alert, the sailors discovered a figurine of Cthulhu, which horrified and disgusted them. The sailors continued their course and landed on the uncharted island-city of R’lyeh. Although they were terrified, they proceeded to explore out of curiosity. The geometry of the island was unfamiliar, and it was not even possible to tell exactly whether the land and sea were horizontal.

The sailors approached a huge door, which began to appear not quite vertical. When they accidentally opened it, Cthulhu emerged, awakening from a dream. Two of the eight sailors died on the spot from fright. Cthulhu grabbed three more with its paw and swallowed them. As the other three fled, one of them hit the corner of a building and seemed to be sucked in. The remaining two managed to reach the yacht, but one of the sailors lost his mind from the horror he experienced and died a few days later. The only one who escaped with his life and mind, Johansen, started the yacht, but realized there was insufficient time to pick up speed. Johansen turned the yacht around and rammed Cthulhu. By the time Cthulhu began to recover, the yacht had already sailed to a safe distance. A few days later, R’lyeh submerged back into the ocean, and the nightmares that had plagued humanity ceased.

Thurston, after learning that Johansen died under unknown circumstances, speculates that Angell died at the hands of Cthulhu’s cult. He then fears that he has become the cult’s new target, as he has learned too much, and he attempts to keep his mind off of Cthulhu’s next coming.

Literary significance and criticism[edit]

Lovecraft regarded the short story as «rather middling—not as bad as the worst, but full of cheap and cumbrous touches». Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright first rejected the story, and only accepted it after writer Donald Wandrei, a friend of Lovecraft’s, falsely claimed that Lovecraft was thinking of submitting it elsewhere.^[14]

The published story was regarded by Robert E. Howard (the creator of Conan) as «a masterpiece, which I am sure will live as one of the highest achievements of literature…. Mr. Lovecraft holds a unique position in the literary world; he has grasped, to all intents, the worlds outside our paltry ken».^[15] Lovecraft scholar Peter Cannon regarded the story as «ambitious and complex…a dense and subtle narrative in which the horror gradually builds to cosmic proportions», adding «one of [Lovecraft’s] bleakest fictional expressions of man’s insignificant place in the universe».^[16]

French novelist Michel Houellebecq, in his book H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, described the story as the first of Lovecraft’s «great texts».^[17]

Canadian mathematician Benjamin K. Tippett noted that the phenomena described in Johansen’s journal may be interpreted as «observable consequences of a localized bubble of spacetime curvature», and proposed a suitable mathematical model.^[18]

E. F. Bleiler has referred to «The Call of Cthulhu» as «a fragmented essay with narrative inclusions».^[19]

Adaptations[edit]

Parts of the story were adapted in Eerie #4 by Archie Goodwin and Gray Morrow and in The Avengers #88 by Harlan Ellison, Roy Thomas, and Sal Buscema.

In 1981, Chaosium published the tabletop role-playing game Call of Cthulhu by Sandy Petersen based on the story as well as other Cthulhu mythos writing by Lovecraft and others.

Alberto Breccia illustrated an eleven-page story in 1974.^{[clarification needed]}

In the season 2 episode of The Real Ghostbusters, «Collect Call of Cthulhu», the Ghostbusters encounter the cult of Cthulhu and Cthulhu himself after the Necronomicon is stolen from an exhibit at The New York Public Library. In order to learn how to defeat Cthulhu, Ray Stantz goes to a dealer in old pulps to obtain a copy of the Weird Tales issue, which he had read when he was a child, but the copy is missing the last page. Ray remembers Cthulhu being electrocuted, and they trap Cthulhu at the Wonder Wheel and electrocute it with their proton packs. «Uh oh, we just killed their god,» Peter Venkman says as the angry cultists attack, but NYPD arrives and arrests the cultists. The episode was written by Michael Reaves.^[20]

The story was produced as a silent film of the same name in 2005, and as a 1920s-style radio drama, Dark Adventure Radio Theatre: The Call of Cthulhu, in 2012.

In 2005, the survival horror video game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was released for Xbox and Windows PC.

Indie game developer Zeboyd Games created the role-playing game Cthulhu Saves the World, which was released on December 30, 2010 on Xbox Live.^[21] Cthulhu, the squid-faced, winged god created by H. P. Lovecraft emerges from the sea after centuries of slumber only to find his dark powers immediately sealed away by a mysterious holy wizard. A narrator then informs the player that the only way to break the curse is to become a true hero. Quickly breaking the fourth wall, Cthulhu informs the narrator that he was eavesdropping and now knows how to break the curse.^[22]

Zeboyd officially announced Cthulhu Saves Christmas, a prequel to Cthulhu Saves the World, on their personal website on July 29, 2019.^[23] It was subsequently released on PC on December 23, 2019. In the side-scrolling JRPG, Cthulhu teams up with Santa Claus’s granddaughter to stop Jack Frost before Christmas is cancelled forever. Along the way he fights Krampus, Mari Lwyd, and other “Christmas League of Evil villains” in turn-based combat. He also builds “R’lyehtionship” levels with his friends.^[24]

Call Girl of Cthulhu, released in 2014, was an indie horror film directed by Chris LaMartina, loosely based on Lovecraft’s writings.

Thrash metal band Metallica released an instrumental track called «The Call of Ktulu» on their 1984 album Ride the Lightning. In addition, they released «The Thing That Should Not Be» on their 1986 album Master of Puppets, «All Nightmare Long» on 2008’s Death Magnetic, and «Dream No More» on 2016’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, all dedicated to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu, as well as the band’s ex-bassist, Cliff Burton, who died in a bus accident in 1986 while touring in support of their album Master of Puppets. ^[25]

Metal Band Iron Maiden used the text «That is not dead which can eternal lie, yet with strange aeons even death may die» as an inscription on a gravestone on the cover of their album Live After Death (1985). Also H.P. Lovecraft is mentioned as the writer.

In 2018, a survival horror role-playing video game called Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game was developed for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC.

In 2018, the villain Black Manta in the movie Aquaman directed by James Wan and released by DC quotes «The Call of Cthulhu»: «loathsomeness waits, and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men».

In 2020, elements of The Call of Cthulhu were adapted in the science fiction horror film Underwater, directed by William Eubank and released by 20th Century Fox.

See also[edit]

• Cthulhu Mythos
• Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Lovecraft, Howard P. (1984) [1928]. «The Call of Cthulhu». In S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich Horror and Others (9th corrected printing ed.). Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-037-8. Definitive version.
• Lovecraft, Howard P. (1999) [1928]. «The Call of Cthulhu». In S. T. Joshi (ed.). More Annotated Lovecraft (1st ed.). New York: Dell. ISBN 0-440-50875-4. With explanatory footnotes.
• Price, Robert M. (1996) [1928]. «The Call of Cthulhu». In Robert M. Price (ed.). The Cthulhu Cycle: Thirteen Tentacles of Terror (1st ed.). Oakland, Calif.: Chaosium, Inc. ISBN 1-56882-038-0. A collection of works that inspired and were inspired by The Call of Cthulhu, with commentary.

External links[edit]

• Complete text of the story at Wikisource

«The Call of Cthulhu»
by H. P. Lovecraft
Title page of «The Call of Cthulhu» as it appeared in Weird Tales, February 1928. Illustration by Hugh Doak Rankin.[1]
Country	United States of America
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror
Published in	Weird Tales
Media type	Print
Publication date	February 1928
Full text
The Call of Cthulhu at Wikisource

«The Call of Cthulhu» is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in February 1928.^[2]

Inspiration[edit]

The first seed of the story’s first chapter The Horror in Clay came from one of Lovecraft’s own dreams he had in 1919,^[3] which he described briefly in two different letters sent to his friend Rheinhart Kleiner on May 21 and December 14, 1920. In the dream, Lovecraft is visiting an antiquity museum in Providence, attempting to convince the aged curator there to buy an odd bas-relief Lovecraft himself had sculpted. The curator initially scoffs at him for trying to sell something recently made to a museum of antique objects. Lovecraft then remembers himself answering the curator with the response

Why do you say that this thing is new? The dreams of men are older than brooding Egypt or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon, and this was fashioned in my dreams.

This can be compared to what the character of Henry Anthony Wilcox tells the main character’s uncle while showing him his sculpted bas-relief for help in reading hieroglyphs on it which came through Wilcox’s own fantastical dreams:

It is new, indeed, for I made it last night in a dream of strange cities; and dreams are older than brooding Tyre or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon.

Lovecraft then used this for a brief synopsis of a new story outlined in his own Commonplace Book at first in August 1925, which developed organically out of the idea of what the bas-relief in the dream actually might have depicted. In a footnote for his writing down of his own dream, Lovecraft then finished with the suggestion «Add good development & describe nature of bas-relief» to himself for future reference.^[4]

Cthulhu Mythos scholar Robert M. Price claims the irregular sonnet «The Kraken»,^[5] published in 1830 by Alfred Tennyson, was a major inspiration, since both reference a huge aquatic creature sleeping for an eternity at the bottom of the ocean and destined to emerge from its slumber in an apocalyptic age.^[6]

S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz cited other literary inspirations: Guy de Maupassant’s «The Horla» (1887), which Lovecraft described in Supernatural Horror in Literature as concerning «an invisible being who…sways the minds of others, and seems to be the vanguard of a horde of extraterrestrial organisms arrived on Earth to subjugate and overwhelm mankind»; and Arthur Machen’s «The Novel of the Black Seal» (1895), which uses the same method of piecing together of disassociated knowledge (including a random newspaper clipping) to reveal the survival of a horrific ancient being.^[7]

It is also assumed he got inspiration from William Scott-Elliot’s The Story of Atlantis (1896) and The Lost Lemuria (1904), which Lovecraft read in 1926 shortly before he started to work on the story.^[8]

Price also notes that Lovecraft admired the work of Lord Dunsany, who wrote The Gods of Pegana (1905), which depicts a god constantly lulled to sleep to avoid the consequences of its reawakening. Another Dunsany work cited by Price is A Shop in Go-by Street (1919), which stated «the heaven of the gods who sleep», and «unhappy are they that hear some old god speak while he sleeps being still deep in slumber».^[9][10]

The «slight earthquake» mentioned in the story is likely the 1925 Charlevoix–Kamouraska earthquake.^[11]

S.T. Joshi has also cited A. Merritt’s novella The Moon Pool (1918) which Lovecraft ‘frequently rhapsodied about’. Joshi says that, ‘Merritt’s mention of a «moon-door» that, when tilted, leads the characters into a lower region of wonder and horror seems similar to the huge door whose inadvertent opening by the sailors causes Cthulhu to emerge from R’lyeh’.^[12]

Edward Guimont has argued that H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds was an influence on «The Call of Cthulhu», citing the thematic similarities of ancient, powerful, but indifferent aliens associated with deities; physical similarities between Cthulhu and the Martians; and the plot detail of a ship ramming an alien in a temporarily successful but ultimately futile gesture.^[13]

Plot[edit]

The story consists of three interconnected parts, and is presented as notes belonging to Francis Thurston, a Boston resident investigating the ancient deity Cthulhu.

The first part, «The Horror in Clay», concerns a mysterious clay bas-relief depicting Cthulhu. Thurston finds the bas-relief among the belongings of his great-uncle Professor Angell. The bas-relief was created by sculptor Henry Wilcox in March 1925 while half-asleep. At the time Wilcox was haunted by mysterious visions of Cyclopean cities. Angell also discovered reports of local residents — primarily artists, sculptors, architects, and others of a sensitive psyche — experiencing similar nightmares during that period. The next morning, Wilcox was amazed by his creation and took it to Angell, who noted that the bas-relief was reminiscent of a figurine seized by police from members of a New Orleans religious sect in 1907.

In the second chapter, «The Tale of Inspector Legrasse», police officer John Legrasse reports at an archaeological society’s symposium on his participation in a raid of a sect worshipping Cthulhu, from which the figurine was confiscated. The sect’s actions were described as depraved and blasphemous. Local residents feared the sect’s orgies, and claimed that human sacrifices were made at these orgies. A team of officers led by Legrasse arrived at the scene in search of several missing squatters. The police detained several sect members, but interrogation yielded little result, as the degraded and insane members stubbornly defended the truth of their cult. One sectarian, Old Castro, proclaimed that Cthulhu’s time would come when the stars take a certain position. A phrase chanted by the sect turns out to have been previously used by a tribe of Eskimos, as revealed by one of the symposium’s participants.

In the third chapter, «The Madness from the Sea», Thurston continues his investigation. He learns of the Norwegian sailor Gustaf Johansen, the sole survivor of his crew, and finds manuscripts documenting his last voyage as second mate on board the schooner Emma. During a storm, Emma veered off course and encountered the pirate yacht Alert. Although the crew was victorious against the pirates, they were forced to abandon the damaged Emma and transfer to the Alert. Johansen took command following the skirmish, as the captain and first mate had perished. On the Alert, the sailors discovered a figurine of Cthulhu, which horrified and disgusted them. The sailors continued their course and landed on the uncharted island-city of R’lyeh. Although they were terrified, they proceeded to explore out of curiosity. The geometry of the island was unfamiliar, and it was not even possible to tell exactly whether the land and sea were horizontal.

The sailors approached a huge door, which began to appear not quite vertical. When they accidentally opened it, Cthulhu emerged, awakening from a dream. Two of the eight sailors died on the spot from fright. Cthulhu grabbed three more with its paw and swallowed them. As the other three fled, one of them hit the corner of a building and seemed to be sucked in. The remaining two managed to reach the yacht, but one of the sailors lost his mind from the horror he experienced and died a few days later. The only one who escaped with his life and mind, Johansen, started the yacht, but realized there was insufficient time to pick up speed. Johansen turned the yacht around and rammed Cthulhu. By the time Cthulhu began to recover, the yacht had already sailed to a safe distance. A few days later, R’lyeh submerged back into the ocean, and the nightmares that had plagued humanity ceased.

Thurston, after learning that Johansen died under unknown circumstances, speculates that Angell died at the hands of Cthulhu’s cult. He then fears that he has become the cult’s new target, as he has learned too much, and he attempts to keep his mind off of Cthulhu’s next coming.

Literary significance and criticism[edit]

Lovecraft regarded the short story as «rather middling—not as bad as the worst, but full of cheap and cumbrous touches». Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright first rejected the story, and only accepted it after writer Donald Wandrei, a friend of Lovecraft’s, falsely claimed that Lovecraft was thinking of submitting it elsewhere.^[14]

The published story was regarded by Robert E. Howard (the creator of Conan) as «a masterpiece, which I am sure will live as one of the highest achievements of literature…. Mr. Lovecraft holds a unique position in the literary world; he has grasped, to all intents, the worlds outside our paltry ken».^[15] Lovecraft scholar Peter Cannon regarded the story as «ambitious and complex…a dense and subtle narrative in which the horror gradually builds to cosmic proportions», adding «one of [Lovecraft’s] bleakest fictional expressions of man’s insignificant place in the universe».^[16]

French novelist Michel Houellebecq, in his book H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, described the story as the first of Lovecraft’s «great texts».^[17]

Canadian mathematician Benjamin K. Tippett noted that the phenomena described in Johansen’s journal may be interpreted as «observable consequences of a localized bubble of spacetime curvature», and proposed a suitable mathematical model.^[18]

E. F. Bleiler has referred to «The Call of Cthulhu» as «a fragmented essay with narrative inclusions».^[19]

Adaptations[edit]

Parts of the story were adapted in Eerie #4 by Archie Goodwin and Gray Morrow and in The Avengers #88 by Harlan Ellison, Roy Thomas, and Sal Buscema.

In 1981, Chaosium published the tabletop role-playing game Call of Cthulhu by Sandy Petersen based on the story as well as other Cthulhu mythos writing by Lovecraft and others.

Alberto Breccia illustrated an eleven-page story in 1974.^{[clarification needed]}

In the season 2 episode of The Real Ghostbusters, «Collect Call of Cthulhu», the Ghostbusters encounter the cult of Cthulhu and Cthulhu himself after the Necronomicon is stolen from an exhibit at The New York Public Library. In order to learn how to defeat Cthulhu, Ray Stantz goes to a dealer in old pulps to obtain a copy of the Weird Tales issue, which he had read when he was a child, but the copy is missing the last page. Ray remembers Cthulhu being electrocuted, and they trap Cthulhu at the Wonder Wheel and electrocute it with their proton packs. «Uh oh, we just killed their god,» Peter Venkman says as the angry cultists attack, but NYPD arrives and arrests the cultists. The episode was written by Michael Reaves.^[20]

The story was produced as a silent film of the same name in 2005, and as a 1920s-style radio drama, Dark Adventure Radio Theatre: The Call of Cthulhu, in 2012.

In 2005, the survival horror video game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was released for Xbox and Windows PC.

Indie game developer Zeboyd Games created the role-playing game Cthulhu Saves the World, which was released on December 30, 2010 on Xbox Live.^[21] Cthulhu, the squid-faced, winged god created by H. P. Lovecraft emerges from the sea after centuries of slumber only to find his dark powers immediately sealed away by a mysterious holy wizard. A narrator then informs the player that the only way to break the curse is to become a true hero. Quickly breaking the fourth wall, Cthulhu informs the narrator that he was eavesdropping and now knows how to break the curse.^[22]

Zeboyd officially announced Cthulhu Saves Christmas, a prequel to Cthulhu Saves the World, on their personal website on July 29, 2019.^[23] It was subsequently released on PC on December 23, 2019. In the side-scrolling JRPG, Cthulhu teams up with Santa Claus’s granddaughter to stop Jack Frost before Christmas is cancelled forever. Along the way he fights Krampus, Mari Lwyd, and other “Christmas League of Evil villains” in turn-based combat. He also builds “R’lyehtionship” levels with his friends.^[24]

Call Girl of Cthulhu, released in 2014, was an indie horror film directed by Chris LaMartina, loosely based on Lovecraft’s writings.

Thrash metal band Metallica released an instrumental track called «The Call of Ktulu» on their 1984 album Ride the Lightning. In addition, they released «The Thing That Should Not Be» on their 1986 album Master of Puppets, «All Nightmare Long» on 2008’s Death Magnetic, and «Dream No More» on 2016’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, all dedicated to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu, as well as the band’s ex-bassist, Cliff Burton, who died in a bus accident in 1986 while touring in support of their album Master of Puppets. ^[25]

Metal Band Iron Maiden used the text «That is not dead which can eternal lie, yet with strange aeons even death may die» as an inscription on a gravestone on the cover of their album Live After Death (1985). Also H.P. Lovecraft is mentioned as the writer.

In 2018, a survival horror role-playing video game called Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game was developed for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC.

In 2018, the villain Black Manta in the movie Aquaman directed by James Wan and released by DC quotes «The Call of Cthulhu»: «loathsomeness waits, and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men».

In 2020, elements of The Call of Cthulhu were adapted in the science fiction horror film Underwater, directed by William Eubank and released by 20th Century Fox.

See also[edit]

• Cthulhu Mythos
• Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Lovecraft, Howard P. (1984) [1928]. «The Call of Cthulhu». In S. T. Joshi (ed.). The Dunwich Horror and Others (9th corrected printing ed.). Sauk City, Wis.: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-037-8. Definitive version.
• Lovecraft, Howard P. (1999) [1928]. «The Call of Cthulhu». In S. T. Joshi (ed.). More Annotated Lovecraft (1st ed.). New York: Dell. ISBN 0-440-50875-4. With explanatory footnotes.
• Price, Robert M. (1996) [1928]. «The Call of Cthulhu». In Robert M. Price (ed.). The Cthulhu Cycle: Thirteen Tentacles of Terror (1st ed.). Oakland, Calif.: Chaosium, Inc. ISBN 1-56882-038-0. A collection of works that inspired and were inspired by The Call of Cthulhu, with commentary.

External links[edit]

• Complete text of the story at Wikisource

Зов Ктулху
The Call of Cthulhu
Жанр:	Лавкрафтовские ужасы
Автор:	Говард Филлипс Лавкрафт
Язык оригинала:	английский
Год написания:	Август-сентябрь 1926 года
Публикация:	Февраль 1928 года
Перевод:	Е. Любимова (год ?)
Текст произведения в Викитеке

«Зов Ктулху» (англ. The Call of Cthulhu) — мистическая повесть Лавкрафта, опубликованная в 1928 году.

Герои

Джордж Гаммелл Энджелл (англ. George Gammell Angell) — двоюродный дед главного героя. Из персонажей рассказа первым начал систематически изучать таинственные события, связанные с дьявольским культом Ктулху. Умер при загадочных обстоятельствах, оставив своему внуку в наследство результаты своих исследований.

Фрэнсис Тёрстон (англ. Francis Wayland Thurston) — бостонский антрополог, который находит глиняный барельеф с изображением древнего божества Ктулху в вещах своего покойного двоюродного деда. После чего он, заинтересовавшись находкой, начинает свое расследование смерти деда, которая была связана с необъяснимыми явлениями, происходящими в Бостоне, и культом Ктулху.

Джон Леграсс (англ. John Raymond Legrasse) — полицейский инспектор из Нового Орлеана, который совместно с отрядом полиции участвовал в задержании сектантов, поклоняющихся Великому Ктулху, 1 ноября 1907 года.

Второстепенные герои

• Генри Энтони Уилкокс (англ. Henry Anthony Wilcox) — скульптор, который, находясь в состоянии полусна, изваял глиняную статуэтку бога Ктулху. Преследуемый ночными кошмарами, он обращается к Энджеллу за помощью.

• Густав Йохансен (англ. Gustav Johansen) — моряк из Норвегии, второй помощник капитана с корабля «Эмма», единственный оставшийся в живых после встречи с «мёртвым, но спящим» Ктулху в южной части Тихого океана на острове-городе Р’льех в марте 1925 г. Вернувшись в Норвегию, описал всё увиденное им в ту страшную ночь под южными звёздами, оставив рукопись на английском языке, чтобы не пугать жену, и вскоре после этого умер таинственной смертью.

Сюжет

Повесть состоит из трёх связанных между собой частей. Она представлена как записки Фрэнсиса Тёрстона, жителя Бостона, который занимался расследованиями, связанными с божеством Ктулху.

Ужас, воплощённый в глине

В первой части сюжет разворачивается вокруг таинственного глиняного барельефа с изображением древнего божества Ктулху. Рассказчик находит барельеф в вещах своего двоюродного деда профессора Энджелла. Изображение было сделано скульптором Уилкоксом в марте 1925 года. Скульптор сделал барельеф в состоянии полусна. В это время Уилкокса преследовали загадочные галлюцинации циклопических городов. Подобные кошмары в тот период испытывали и многие жители. В основном это были художники, скульпторы, архитекторы, и прочие люди с чувствительной психикой.

На утро Уилкокс поразился своему творению и отнёс его профессору Энджелу. Оказалось, что барельеф очень напоминал статуэтку, изъятую полицией у членов религиозной секты в Новом Орлеане за 17 лет до этого.

Рассказ полицейского инспектора Леграсса

Во второй части полицейский Леграсс рассказвывает на историческом симпозиуме, как он в 1908 году участвовал в захвате секты, поклонявшейся Ктулху. Это была как раз та секта, у которой изъяли статуэтку.

Действия секты описываются как крайне развратные и богохульные. Местные жители боялись оргий секты, и говорили, что на этих оргиях приносятся человеческие жертвы — так оно и было. Команда полицейских во главе с Леграссом прибыла на место событий после призыва о помощи: пропало несколько скваттеров. Полиция захватила многих членов секты, и деятельность оной была прекращена. Но допросы пленников дали мало результатов: они оказались деградировавшими людьми с признаками помешательства, упорно отстаивавшими истинность своего культа.

Что очень удивило историков в данном рассказе — так это слова, используемые культистами: Пх’нглуи мглвнафх Ктулху Р’льех вгах’нагл фхтагн. Приблизительным переводом слов было «В своем доме, в городе Р’льехе мёртвый Ктулху спит в ожидании своего часа». Оказалось, что точно такие же слова использовались в культе одного племени эскимосов, которое исследовали некоторые участники симпозиума.

Безумие, вышедшее из моря

Йохансен был вторым помощником капитана. Вместе с 10 другими моряками он совершал рейс на шхуне «Эмма». Во время шторма шхуна сильно сбилась с курса и встретилась с пиратской яхтой «Проворная». Пираты потребовали от моряков, чтобы те повернули назад. Моряки не подчинились, и тогда пираты вступили с командой «Эммы» в схватку. Команда «Эммы» победила, но обстрелянное судно пришлось оставить и пересесть на яхту пиратов. Во время схватки погибли капитан и его первый помощник, поэтому Йохансен взял командование на себя. Также погиб ещё один матрос.

На яхте моряки обнаружили странного идола, вызывавшего ужас и отвращение. Это была статуэтка Ктулху, очень напоминавшая изъятую у культистов в Новом Орлеане. Моряки продолжили свой курс и причалили к неизвестному острову-городу, который и оказался Р’льехом. Они испытывали ужас перед этим местом, но из любопытства решили его осмотреть. Геометрия острова была непривычной, и нельзя было даже точно сказать, являются ли суша и море горизонтальными.

Команда набрела на огромную дверь. Когда люди приблизились к двери, она стала казаться не совсем вертикальной. Команда безуспешно попыталась открыть дверь, и после этого один из матросов стал взбираться по ней, пытаясь найти подвижный участок. Вдруг дверь начала открываться, и наружу вышли смрад и ужас. В проёме появился великий Ктулху, пробудившийся ото сна. Двое из восьми моряков скончались на месте от испуга. Ещё троих чудовище сгребло лапой и проглотило. Остальные трое начали убегать, один из них угодил в угол здания, и его как будто бы засосало. Оставшиеся двое успели добраться до яхты, но один из матросов лишился рассудка от пережитого ужаса и спустя несколько дней умер. Единственный сохранивший жизнь и рассудок Йохансен завёл яхту, но понял, что она не успеет набрать скорость. Тогда моряк развернул яхту и протаранил Ктулху. Тот напоминал своим строением медузу, и после тарана быстро стал восстанавливаться. Но яхта уже успела отплыть на безопасное расстояние.

Через несколько дней Р’льех снова опустился под воду, и кошмары, мучившие людей, прекратились.

Экранизация

В 2005 году вышел одноимённый фильм, который в точности повторяет сюжет книги. На съёмках была впервые использована технология искусственного состаривания изображения «мифоскоп».

Фильм был создан группой поклонников Говарда Лавкрафта по одноимённому произведению писателя. Фильм стилизован под немые черно-белые фильмы 20-х годов. Изначально предназначен для распространения на DVD.

Компьютерные игры

В 2005 году вышла одноимённая игра «Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth» по мотивам повестей Лавкрафта для Xbox, в 2006 году игра портирована на PC. Стоит отметить, что как такового, Ктулху в игре нет. Сюжет основан на многих различных произведениях Лавкрафта.

Интересные факты

• У метал-группы Metallica на альбоме Ride the Lightning есть инструментальная композиция «The Call of Ktulu», что является прямым отсылом к повести Лавкрафта. Также бывший басист Metallica Клифф Бёртон являлся фанатом Лавкрафта.
• У метал-группы Cradle of Filth на альбоме Midian есть композиция «Cthulhu Dawn»
• У дум-метал-группы Draconian на альбоме Dark oceans we cry есть композиция «Cthulhu Rising»
• В 2006 году интерес к произведениям Лавкрафта в России был сильно подогрет после акции «Вопрос Путину», в ходе которой президенту России задавались вопросы, предварительно отобранные Интернет-голосованием. На голосовании неожиданно, в результате флешмоба, победил шуточный вопрос «Как Вы относитесь к пробуждению Ктулху?»^[1]. После этого образ и имя Ктулху стали гораздо чаще использоваться в Рунете.
• В 2008 году чудовище было упомянуто в игре «Санитары подземелий 2: охота за чёрным квадратом».

Примечания

Произведения Говарда Филлипса Лавкрафта
1897—1908	Знатный соглядатай* (1897) · Потайная пещера (1898) · Тайна кладбища (1898) · Маленькая стеклянная бутылка (1899) · Дом с призраками* (1902) · Секрет могилы* (1902) · Джон, детектив* (1902) · Загадочный корабль (1902) · Зверь в пещере (1905) · Картина* (1907) · Алхимик (1905)
1910-е	Склеп (1917) · Дагон (1917) · Воспоминание о докторе Сэмюэле Джонсоне (1917) · Милая Эрменгард (1917) · Полярис (1918) · Тайна Мардон Грейндж* (1918) · За стеной сна (1919) · Память (1919) · Старые ошибки (1919) · Перевоплощение Хуана Ромеро (1919) · Белый корабль (1919) · Карающий Рок над Сарнатом (1919) · Показания Рэндольфа Картера (1919)
1920-е	Ужасный старик (1920) · Дерево (1920) · Кошки Ултара (1920) · Храм (1920) · Некоторые факты о покойном Артуре Джермине и его семье (1920) · Улица (1920) · Жизнь и Смерть* (1920) · Селефаис (1920) · Извне (1920) · Ньярлатотеп (1920) · Картина в доме (1920) · Забвение (1921) · Безымянный город (1921) · Поиск Иранона (1921) · Болото Луны (1921) · Изгой (1921) · Иные боги (1921) · Музыка Эриха Цанна (1921) · Герберт Уэст — реаниматор (1922) · Гипнос (1922) · Что приносит луна (1922) · Азатот (1922) · Пёс (1922) · Таящийся ужас (1922) · Крысы в стенах (1923) · Неименуемое (1923) · Фестиваль (1923) · Глухой, немой и слепой (1924) · Заброшенный дом (1924) · Ужас в Ред Хуке (1925) · Он (1925) · В склепе (1925) · Потомок (1926) · Прохладный Воздух (1926) · Модель для Пикмана (1926) · Серебряный ключ (1926) · Загадочный дом на туманном утёсе (1926) · Сомнамбулический поиск неведомого Кадата (1927) · Случай Чарльза Декстера Варда (1927) · Цвет из иных миров (1927) · Очень старый народ (1927) · История Некрономикона (1927) · Ибид (1928) · Зов Ктулху (1928) · Данвичский ужас (1928) ·
1930-е	Шепчущий во тьме (1930) · Хребты Безумия (1931) · Тень над Иннсмутом (1931) · Грёзы в ведьмовском доме (1932) · Тварь на пороге (1933) · Служитель Зла (1933) · Книга (1933) · Тень из безвременья (1935) ·
*не сохранились Экранизации произведений Лавкрафта · Лавкрафтовские ужасы · Портал:Лавкрафтовские ужасы

Мифы Ктулху
Авторы	Говард Филлипс Лавкрафт · Август Дерлет · Кеннет Грант · Фрэнк Лонг · Роберт Говард · Роберт Блох · Фриц Лейбер · Колин Уилсон · Брайан Ламли · Генри Каттнер
Места	Аркхем · Данвич · Иннсмут · Й’хан-тлеи · Страна Снов · Р’льех · Йаддит · Юггот
Существа	Азатот · Гатаноа · Гидра · Гончие псы Тиндала · Дагон · Йог-Сотот · Ктулху · Ноденс · Ньярлатотеп · Ран-Тегот · Тсатхоггуа · Шуб-Ниггурат ·
Расы	Великая Раса Йих · Глубоководные · Древние · Летающие полипы · Ми-го · Потомки Ктулху · Старцы · Шогготы
Личности	Абдул Альхазред · Джозеф Карвен · Жан-Франсуа Шарьер · Замакона · Ричард Пикман · Рэндольф Картер · Харли Уоррен · Чарльз Декстер Вард · Эрих Цанн
Вымышленные книги	Книга Эйбона · Культы упырей · Люди монолита · Некрономикон · Пнакотические манускрипты · Сокровенные культы · Тайны Червя · Текст Р’льеха
Основные произведения	Дагон · Данвичский ужас · Зов Ктулху · Обитающий во Тьме · Случай Чарльза Декстера Варда · Тень над Иннсмутом · Тень из Безвременья · Хребты Безумия · Шепчущий во тьме
Лавкрафтовские ужасы · Портал:Лавкрафтовские ужасы