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-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 America has produced–the other three being Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe and Ambroce Bierce. ³

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 outrehorrors 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 England – an abandoned ruin known as “Exham Priory.” The narrator tells us about what went on at Exham Priory not just one or two decades ago, but centuries ago. The residual horror which one feels at the reading of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is felt at the reading of “The Rats in the Walls.” When Delapore resolves to know the facts that disturb everybody he feels that the rats in the Exham Priory beckon to greater horrors than he has ever known. It is not what is seen but what is felt beyond sight which evokes the horror.

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 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 “Mountain of Madness”–a novel of Arctic Exploration –he wrote a sequel to Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, which is a highly sustained work of art. “Pickman’s Model” and “The Rats in the Walls” are monologues reminiscent of “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell Tale Heart.”

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 lake of Hali and other such regions where they live in eternal glory. “The Dunwich Horror” relates the story of this race which ruled over us many eons of years ago. These alien creatures, living or hiding in their hideous abodes can be recalled to this earth through rituals recorded in books like Necronomicon. Wizard Whatley and Wizard Potter were able to call these spirits from the sky and they lived with them until their death.

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 byobscure 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 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 isnot in what isseen 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.

References

¹ Supernatural in Fiction, Peter Nevil, London, 1952. p. 165.
² Writing Fiction, Boston, The Writer Inc., 1946. p. 99.
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, New York. Dover Publishers, 1973. p. 12.