A Few Words About Lovecraft (Morefon#2) #moreфон2018 #morefon2018 [Note: Morefon2018 is a 30-day challenge of keeping public dairy in English, announced here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXhrGBY27kY , Russian language] Day 2 Today I want to say some words about H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Colour Out Of Space". After watching one of the Dmitry's videos, devoted to Lovecraft's works, I decided to pick this one to read because of Dmitry's emphasis on this story and the reasons why he prefers it to the other stories of Lovecraft. The point is that most of his stories include depiction of monsters of various kind, with tentacles and other visible physical features. But in "The Colour Out Of Space" the monster is of a different kind: it's not physical in terms of our reality, but more supernatural. Dmitry pointed out, as I recall, that such approach is more subtle, and it leaves more work on a reader's imagination. This was quite close to my own beliefs and I got to reading. And the story did not disappoint me. It is brilliantly written and exceptionally good in creating the mood of dangerous mystery. Yes, I think it is more of a mystery than of horror. The whole story holds a reader in awe before a hidden, powerful, obscure and evil thing. A reader doesn't know what to expect from it, he guesses of it's origin and purpose. As the moster is hidden and not even tangible, a reader comes to know it from its doings. And the doings delivered through the details. That's where Lovecraft is doing his magic. The transformation of nature, for example, is wonderfully written. One may think that the most natural way to depict a monster's influence on the surrounding nature is through various detrimental effects and constant degradation. Well, Lovecraft do it, but not in a banal way: after the arrival of the monster the surrounding nature... begins to thrive. The crops are record-high. Is this a miracle? Is this a ray of hope that the unknown entity is not so evil and the mortal danger will pass by? But the faint hope quickly turns into gloom as all the harvest turns out to be poisonous. Lovecraft plays with a reader such a way not once and create deep and mezmerizing scene inside of not-a-very-long story. I would recommend this story to everyone who loves good literature.