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Public_enemy

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Public_enemy is Currently Reading

Public_enemy is currently reading

The Castle

by Franz Kafka

bookshelves: currently-reading, big-fiction, literature

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(page 99 of 328)
— Nov 05, 2026 06:23PM

Nov 05, 2026 06:23PM

Public_enemy rated a book it was amazing

The Shadow over Innsmouth

by H.P. Lovecraft

bookshelves: big-fiction, literature, currently-reading, horror

Reading for the 2nd time

read in October 2026

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Public_enemy said: " The Shadow over Innsmouth can be viewed as the crown jewel and a grand synthesis of Lovecraft’s entire philosophy and imaginarium.

In his earliest stories, Lovecraft's characters experience horror in utter isolation; later, it increasingly spills outw The Shadow over Innsmouth can be viewed as the crown jewel and a grand synthesis of Lovecraft’s entire philosophy and imaginarium.

In his earliest stories, Lovecraft's characters experience horror in utter isolation; later, it increasingly spills outward. Dunwich is already gripped by pathology, yet it remains isolated, backward, and contaminated through degeneration within its rural seclusion. Innsmouth, on the other hand, falls victim to globalization and capitalism. The genesis of horror in Innsmouth is a pure Faustian bargain driven by the greed of Captain Obed Marsh. Marsh knowingly trades human autonomy and genetic purity for the gold and overflowing fishing nets offered by the Deep Ones. The town is not attacked from the outside; it is sold out from within. It is human greed that flings the doors open to biological contamination. Here, infection is the price of success, and the disease (the "Innsmouth look") is actually the physical manifestation of a debt that comes due across generations.

The Shadow over Innsmouth is yet another tale in a lineage that tackles the inevitable dehumanization through genetic desecration. The characters of earlier stories (Jermyn, as well as the narrator of The Rats in the Walls) end up in destruction or madness because they attempt to apply human morality to a ruthless biology. The conflict between their human consciousness and genetic inheritance ultimately snaps the mind in isolation.

Surprisingly for Lovecraft, Robert Olmstead (the narrator of Innsmouth) undergoes the exact opposite process. His initial horror and flight from Innsmouth represent a desperate attempt to defend his human identity. However, when the transformation begins in his dreams and later manifests upon his body, a dark, sublime acclimatization takes over instead of madness. He does not experience a breakdown, but a transcendence. The sentences that close the story (“We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.”) do not carry the tone of a defeated man. It is a morbid triumph. Lovecraft suggests here that the only way to survive cosmic and deterministic horror is to become a part of it. It is maturation through surrender, where the ruin of the individual becomes his awakening into a wider, immortal order. ...more "

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(page 45 of 158)
— Oct 15, 2026 04:19PM

Oct 17, 2026 03:41PM · see review

Public_enemy is currently reading

Povijesna poetika romana

by Viktor Žmegač

bookshelves: currently-reading

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(page 118 of 523)
— Aug 18, 2026 05:50PM

Aug 18, 2026 05:50PM

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Public_enemy’s Quotes

“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

tags: inspirational

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“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

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“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

tags: inspirational, talent

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“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

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“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

tags: paraphrased, strength

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