On days when life gets very tough for me, I reread Lovecraft (things can never go worse for you than for his characters); or I go for a walk to the Gigamesh bookstore – Miskatonic University library is too far for me – in search of fantasy, horror, and science fiction like a junkie goes to a drug den. The other afternoon I finally bought Kraken (La Factoria de Ideas), by the British-American China Miéville, a novel I had been circling for months, knowing it was waiting for me with open arms (to be more precise, tentacles). There’s nothing like getting into a story like that to forget the world and give a good middle finger to reality, which is what it is and makes even Arkham seem like a sane place.
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Kraken brings together some of the things I like most in this world, such as the old dreamer from Providence, giant squids, and zoology museums. In reality, H. P. Lovecraft is only mentioned very briefly in the book’s 450 pages, but the plot is so Lovecraftian it’s to die for, and the expression is apt when talking about the effects of the master of cosmic horror. In the novel – what a start! – unknown individuals kidnap the giant squid (a specimen of the mysterious genus Architeuthis, from the Greek “chief of the squids”) exhibited at the Natural History Museum in London, and everything indicates that it was the believers of a dark sect who worship it as a god and want to free it. The search for the stolen creature will bring to light a terrifying universe of shadows and the threat of the end of the world, no less.
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