LOVECRAFT:
A TWENTIETH CENTURY POE
DR
M. C. SAXENA
Till
his death in. 1937 H. P. Lovecraft, the greatest
American author of horror tales after Edgar Allan Poe, was almost unknown to
all except the cognoscenti. Thanks, however, to the efforts of August Derleth and other friends, the reputation of Lovecraft no longer depends upon the favours
of these cognoscenti. His career is now a matter of public acclaim. August Derleth and friends established a publishing house– “Arkham House”–to publish the sixty and odd tales in book
form. The main aim of these enthusiasts was to see that he would not be
forgotten with the pulp magazines. A bouquet should be tossed up to Derleth for saving Lovecraft from
the dead-letter-office of literary history. The original “Arkham
House” editions of his The Outsiders and
Other Stories, and Beyond the Walls of Sleep are collector’s items today; so are his
letters of which he wrote an estimated one million. At the time of his death Lovecraft had only two privately, published volumes to his
credit -The Shadow over Innsmouth (1936) and The Shunned House (1937). The rest of his
tales were left published only in magazines. Since his death, however, numerous
collections of his tales have appeared. Thanks to the paper-back boom, all his
stories are now available to wider audience. Today Lovecraft
has achieved a universal fame. Trying to account for this posthumous fame of Lovecraft, Peter Penzoldt says,
“I am afraid that the mystery of Lovecraft’s sudden
fame following the complete neglect of his work must remain unsolved, but we
owe much to Derleth, who more than any other was
responsible for his valuable didcovery”.1 Admirers and enthusiasts
make pilgrimage to his grave in Providence to blend the vision of the place
with the memory of the man. Although Lovecraft
started in pulp magazines like Weird
Tales, taste for him is not confined to an esoteric group. There is a
heightened demand for escape fiction today and few tales offer as complete an
escape from the mundane as the tales of the supernatural horror. In the writing
of such fiction Lovecraft stands supreme among
American authors. Derleth says that America has
produced in this century only one writer worthy to stand with Arthue Machen, Algernon
Blackwood, Walter de la Mare, E. F. Benson, M. R. James and their company–H. P.
Lovecraft.2 However, like his mentor Poe, he was not discovered in
the country of his birth but on the Continent. European critics rank him as one
of the four greatest authors
The
claim that since Poe, Lovecraft is the greatest
American author of horror tales might seem absurd to those who have read Bierce
and James, especially James’ The Turn of the Screw.
However, the conviction found in Lovecraft is
missing in either. Lovecraft succeeded in his
attempts at evoking honors because he managed to make convincing the most outre horrors simply by the expedient of
utilizing the known world. Lovecraft explained his
own credo thus:
To
make a fictional marvel wear the momentary aspect of exciting fact, we must
give it the most elaborate possible approach–building it up insidiously and
gradually out of apparently realistic material, realistically handled. The time
is past when adults can accept marvellous conditions
for granted. Every energy must be bent toward the
weaving of a frame of mind which shall make the story’s single departure from
natural seem credible–and in the weaving of this mood, the utmost subtlety and
verisimilitude are required. In every detail except the chosen marvel, the story should be accurately true to
nature. The keynote should be that of scientific exposition–since that is the
normal way of presenting a “fact” new to existing knowledge–and should not
change as the story gradually slides off from the possible into the impossible.
Spectral fiction should be realistic as well as atmospheric–confining its
departure from nature to the one supernatural channel chosen, and remembering
that scene, mood and phenomena are more important in conveying what is to be
conveyed than are characters and plot. The “punch” of the truly weird tale is
simply some violation or transcending of fixed cosmic law–an imaginative escape
from palling reality–since phenomena rather than persons are the logical “heroes.” Horrors should be original–the
use of common myths and legends being a weakening influence.
In
his famous story “The Whisperer in Darkness” Lovecraft
uses such a commonplace thing as a phonograph to explain the amazing happenings.
Furthermore, for Lovecraft, the horror not quiet seen
was more effective than the horror seen. In such tales as “The Rats in the
Walls” he is highly suggestive. The tale narrates the life of one Mr. Delapore, an American, who, after losing his son in World
War I returns to his ancestral home in
There
are certain stylistic mannerisms in Lovecraft. He
tells his tales through a first person narrator, usually a rationalist, who is
troubled by the things his eyes behold. Next, in most of his stories, the
denouement is held over for the last few sentences. These last sentences,
moreover, are printed in italics – it seems Lovecraft
desired to enhance the shock value of his stories in this way. The vocabulary
which he uses is also very evocative. For an uninitiated his vocabulary might
be baffling but the initiated can always call up the blocks of associations Lovecraft refers to. His “Shunned House” is always a house
which is avoided by common folk; the house hag supernatural horror
associations. Likewise, his “Primal Beings” are strange pre-human
extraterrestrial creatures who are malevolent. Lovecraft
also uses felicitous and apposite adjectives and adverbs to modify stark nouns
and verbs. There are many people who are put off by these mannerisms and leave
him in disgust. For example, Edmund Wilson, who could never reconcile himself
with Lovecraft’s fame says:
One
of Lovecraft’s worst faults is his incessant efforts
to work up the expectations of the reader by sprinkling his stories with such
adjectives as “horrible”, “terrible”. “frightful”, “awesome”, “eerie”, “weird”,
“forbidden”, “unhallowed”, “unholy”, “blasphemous”, “hellish”, and “infernal.”
Surely one of the primary rules for writing an effective tale of horror is never
to use any of these words – especially if you are going at the end, to produce
an invisible whistling octopus.
Edmund
Wilson echoes the feelings of many readers. However, those who are not put off
by Lovecraft’s mannerisms find themselves returning
to him again and again. He seems to haunt the dreams of his enthusiasts. For
example, in “The Weird Shadow over Innsmouth” the
pursuit of the narrator is highly striking. The narrator, who in his curiosity
lands in Innsmouth finds many stories told to him
true. He sees what man has hitherto known only in febrile phantasy
and tenuous legend. The demoniac, blasphemous creatures who
chase him are described by the narrator thus:
...I
saw them in a limitless stream–flapping, hopping, creaking, bleating–surging
humanity through the spectral moonlight in a grotesque, malignant saraband of fantastic nigmmare.
And some of them had tall tiaras of that nameless whitish gold metal...and some
were strangely robed...and one, who led the way, was clad in a ghoulishly
humped back cast and stripped trousers, and had a man’s hat perched on the
shapeless thing that answered for a head.
The
words are remembered even when the story has been forgotten.
Lovecraft evokes our
powerlessness in the face of scientific rationalism. Even an inquiring mind
which could rationalize things might find certain things beyond rational
explanation. The primordial sense of powerlessness in the face of inexplicable
and appalling evil is evoked by him. He makes us feel the meaninglessness of
human existence against cosmic immensity. This explains the shock devices used
by him. Stories like “Arthur Jermyn”, “The Rats in the Walls”, “The Shuttered
Room” and “The Terror from the Middle Span” exploit the terror evoked by the
theme of contaminated blood as it percolates through many generations. “Lurking
Fear” is the story of shocking creatures who eat human
flesh. “Shadows over Innsmouth” narrates the story of
a people, a whole race, being corrupted by fiendish under-sea creatures. In
“The Music of Erich Zann” the horror is evoked by the
sense of powerful things lurking – here the distinction between the rational
and irrational has been blurred.
There
are many influences on Lovecraft. By far the most
important influence on him is that of Poe. His stories betray this influence.
About his story “The Outsider” Derleth says that had
it been circulated as an unpublished Poe-story no one would have challenged the
assertion. Peter Penzoldt considers Lovecraft’s “Cool Air” more than a little reminiscent of
Poe’s “Strange Facts in the case of M. Valdemar.” In
“
Other
major influences are the Anglo-Irish fantasist Lord Dunsnay
and Welsh fantasist Arthur Machen. The early tales of
Lovecraft are clearly fantasies which try to follow
the ornate style of Poe, but imitate Lord Dunsnay.
Other artists in the macabre like Algernon Blackwood, M. R. James, Walter de la
Mare also influenced Lovecraft. E. T. A. Hoffman’s
influence is clearly visible in such tales as “The Music of Erich Zann.” The story “Shadow out of Time” with its strange
trips through time and space is reminiscent of H. G. Wells, especially The Time Machine.
Lovecraft was highly
inventive. He created a chink-proof world for his tales. The New England where
most of the tales resemble frogs and toads more than fish, though their eyes
are ichthyic. They have perfect human hands and feet except for being webbed.
They can go without food or drink for a considerable time and increase and
decrease in size rapidly and at will. They inhabit the
The
Cthulhu mythology envisages an alien being “Cthulhu” who has been sleeping under the South Pacific
waiting for his chance. Cthulhu is a very nasty
creature who is being awaited by obscure cults to rouse from his slumber
so that mankind could become as the Great Old ones. His arrival would make
known all the secrets of heaven and hell. This Haunter of the Dark has his
other companion gods who are equally malevolent: Hastur,
Shub-Niggarath, Wendigo, Yog Sothoth and Cthugha. All these gods are trying to get back to earth and
dominate it once more. This conquest has to be achieved through deserters from
the human race. They already have their following and new recruits are being
added everyday. These people perform certain rites and chant certain Mantras
and these spirits are at their beck and call. “The Whisperer in Darkness” is
the story of one such deserter. In “The Dreams in the Witchhouse”
the protagonist signs the Black Man’s book. “The Things at the Doorstep” brings
before us people who participate in blasphemous rites deep underground.
Through
these manipulations Lovecraft intends to rouse in his
readers the desired response of horror. Writing about the psychological basis
of the popularity of the horror tale Lovecraft
remarked: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear and the oldest
and the strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown. These facts few
psychologists will dispute and their admitted truth must establish for all time
the genuineness and dignity of the weirdly horrible tale in literary form.5
The Gothic novelists evoked this response through traditional devices like the
ruined castle, the gloomy tyrant, the mysterious portraits and the dark
dungeons. Lovecraft evoked the sense of horror by
depicting violations of normal human behaviour. The
malevolence of the “Lovecrafrian gods” exceeds human
comprehension and thus it excites fear. The terrible sufferings which the
narrators in the tales of Lovecraft undergo do not
end the reader’s fears but enhance them because of the presentiment of future
atrocities and sufferings which they have to undergo. Horror is
not in what is seen but in what is sensed beyond
sight.
A
weird tale is to be judged by the sensations it excites. Lovecraft
said:
The
one test of the really weird is simply, this–whether or not there be excited in
the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown sphere and
powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the bleating of black
wings, or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe’s
utmost rim.
There
is great critical disagreement about Lovecraft. At
one end is the opinion of Edmund Wilson, who, finding Lovecraft
praised in superlative terms, and being compared to Poe as T. O. Mabbott did, remarked, “The real horror of most of these (Lovecraft) fictions is the horror of bad taste and bad art.
Lovecraft was not a good writer. The fact that his
verbose and undistinguished style has been compared to Poe’s is only one of the
many sad signs that nobody any more pays any real attention to writing.” On the
other extreme is the opinion of L. Sprague de Camp who hopes that Lovecraft “may well overtake Poe...in the field that Lovecraft made peculiarly his own...” Both the opinions are
extremes of detraction and admiration. In the writing of pure horror tale Lovecraft cannot hope to overtake foe, but his horror is
not in “bad taste.” The few admirers of the pure horror tale still pay their
homage to this 20th century foe. He is an author of some profound stories of
pure horror that cannot be forgotten easily. Stories like “The Call of Cthulhu”, “At the Mountain of Madness” and “Shadow over Innsmouth” are treasures of the horror genre. One can agree
with Penzoldt that “it would be a great loss to
American letters if Lovecraft was to banish from the
libraries as suddenly as he had come.” In the writing of the pure tale of
horror he has achieved a universal fame.
1
Supernatural in
Fiction, Peter Nevil,
2 Writing Fiction,
3 L.
Sprague de Camp, “H. P. Lovecraft: Master of
Fantasy,” The American Review, XX
(1976). pp. 108-109.
4 The Best Supernatural Stories of Lovecraft, op. cit. p. 8.
5 Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature,