For me, it’s disappearing. That someday something will happen to me and no one will ever know what it was and where I am. That I will become one of those mysteries you see online and on TV shows. Whenever I think about it I feel nothing but dread.

    • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      3 months ago

      mountains of madness.

      I had similar chills with other Lovecraft stories, but then my roommate in college told me that the first time he read mountain of madness he had like a mini breakdown because it was so terrifying, and I hadn’t read that story yet.

      and the way he describes the immensity of surreal psychotic landscape is pretty terrifying.

      I actually read through the story like three or four times in a week to feel the chill more than once.

      • Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca
        2·
        3 months ago

        I haven’t reached that one yet, but I’m close. I really enjoyed A Colour Out of Space, The Dunwich Horror, Rats in the Walls, The Temple, Call of Cthulhu, and the very beginning of The Festival, when he describes wandering along the seaside road toward the distant twinkling lights of a wintery village. The opening pages of that book are beautiful.

        • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          3 months ago

          That’s great.

          The gothic beauty of his writing is part of what’s so deceptive about his world building, he can seamlessly lull the reader into terror through hints and connotations even within beautiful descriptions until all of a sudden you’re mired in the psychic clutches of lunatic behemoths.

          have fun, do you have his collected works?

          I actually don’t remember the festival.

          I have the collected works ready to read but haven’t restarted it yet.