I'm revved up to attend PulpFest 2012 in Columbus, Ohio this weekend. I'm really interested in connecting with the pulp magazine collecting community. As a genre fiction enthusiast / aspiring writer / scholar, I often take for granted the real material origins of the genres we take for granted. I have to remind myself that science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural horror didn't emerge, fully formed, from our culture like night mushrooms. They slowly but surely evolved out of many different contexts, one of the major ones (dare I say *the* major one) being American pulpwood magazines.
Sure, sure: modern supernatural fiction or "weird literature" can be linked to the British Gothic novel; science fiction can be connected to the science romances of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne; modern fantasy can be said to be fully founded or at least fully outlined by J.R.R. Tolkien. The British Isles can claim, indeed, to be a major "ur" location for the supernatural genres we love. And yet--something happened to these genres when they were "percolated" through the pulp magazines. The American pulp writers drew from this old world traditions and began to add to them, to change them.
In comparison to H.G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and J.R.R. Tolkien, I offer Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard. Generally speaking, all of these writers--all six of them--have mass appeal. Their work--which the clever genre historian has firmly situated within the history of the modern supernatural genres (the "weird" genres, as I like to call them)--was read and continues to be read by a lot of people. But there are characteristics that flag Burroughs, Lovecraft, and Howard as being in distinct camps from Wells, Shelley, and Tolkien: distinct shifts in tone, content, character, style, narrative structure, etc.. It just may (just *may*) be useful to attempt to map these shifts along national grounds. Hmm... A major project.
A distinct characteristic, I'm thinking, inherent in the pulp versions of science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural horror is the presence of, simply, a lot of geographical space. In Burroughs Mars stories, for example, you have Barsoom, a new world to explore and discover, to fight in and conquer, to organize. In Howard, you have the great vistas of Hyborian Age--all the many kingdoms, cities, dread ruins, and wilderness expances plumb, explore, conquer, organize. In Lovecraft, nothing less than the entire cosmos are unflung for the characters to experience, meditate on, and finally recoil from.
This is just a start, a tentative "toe-dip" along this line of thought. But it may be a fruitful road, I'm convinced: a major distinction between pulp versions of genre and their corresponding British representatives, it seems to me, is something as simple as space, more space: in the pulps the narratives are set against a lot of room for the characters to move around in, to adventure in. Hmm...
Showing posts with label H.P. Lovecraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label H.P. Lovecraft. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Thursday, June 14, 2012
An Homage and Critique of Michael Saler's *As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary PreHistory of Virtual Reality* (Oxford UP, 2012)
I'm reading a book of literary history, As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary PreHistory of Virtual Reality (Oxford UP, 2012) by Michael Saler. He treats the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, and J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. To really simplify his argument: he is pushing back against literary historians/critics who see genre fiction (i.e. mystery, science fiction, and fantasy) as problematically escapist, as completely severed from this reality. He asserts that these writers created alternative worlds that allowed readers to come to see their own realities as contingent, as "fictional" in a way. He attempts to make a case that the fictional worlds created by these writers opened up a space for their readers to imagine Reality with a capital R as malleable, as subject to change.
Let me just say, I loved Saler's book! For all intents and purposes, this is an homage to Saler's book! A recommendation for you to buy it and read it!
His reading of H.P. Lovecraft's biography and its relationship to the overarching thematic trends in the Cthulhu mythos is very convincing and compelling. I am so inspired by the idea that such an intelligent and serious scholar has turned his sights on Doyle, Lovecraft, and Tolkien. He even talks about Dungeons and Dragons in this monograph, something that delights considering it was published by the Oxford University Press. As a researcher struggling with many of the issues broached in this book, I can truly say it put wind in my sails. And, admittedly, there's a lot in Saler's book that I'm still trying to wrap my mind around.
And yet--
I get the sense Saler wants to see genre fiction and the alternative worlds that emerge from them as pseudo-"didactic" texts, texts that teach a lesson. I don't think he sees genre fiction as didactic in a direct, allegorical way (e.g. the orcs of Middle Earth aren't supposed to represent fascist Germany; Cthulhu is not supposed to be an alienating modernity; Sherlock Holmes is not performing as a perfect modern citizen, etc.). Saler is much more subtle. However, in spite of his subtlety and very convincing analysis (as well as the obvious respect he has for genre), I find his overarching framework slightly unpalatable. He seems to be describing (in a highly sophisticated way) what genre fiction allows its readers to do.
I guess a part of me doesn't prefer thinking about genre fiction in an instrumental context, as if its only worth studying because it serves an important social function. It's seems an obvious, kind of "throwback" argument. "Reading pulp fiction will rot your brain!" says the elitist. "You should read mature art that's truly beautiful." "No," responds Saler, "pulp fiction will make me a better person."
I think all art serves a social function. From an anthropological perspective, art is function. For me, that's a given. But by focusing on this function, some very important elements of art are thrown out of focus. How do I want to approach science fiction, supernatural horror, fantasy?
Uhh... let me get back to you on that.
Let me just say, I loved Saler's book! For all intents and purposes, this is an homage to Saler's book! A recommendation for you to buy it and read it!
His reading of H.P. Lovecraft's biography and its relationship to the overarching thematic trends in the Cthulhu mythos is very convincing and compelling. I am so inspired by the idea that such an intelligent and serious scholar has turned his sights on Doyle, Lovecraft, and Tolkien. He even talks about Dungeons and Dragons in this monograph, something that delights considering it was published by the Oxford University Press. As a researcher struggling with many of the issues broached in this book, I can truly say it put wind in my sails. And, admittedly, there's a lot in Saler's book that I'm still trying to wrap my mind around.
And yet--
I get the sense Saler wants to see genre fiction and the alternative worlds that emerge from them as pseudo-"didactic" texts, texts that teach a lesson. I don't think he sees genre fiction as didactic in a direct, allegorical way (e.g. the orcs of Middle Earth aren't supposed to represent fascist Germany; Cthulhu is not supposed to be an alienating modernity; Sherlock Holmes is not performing as a perfect modern citizen, etc.). Saler is much more subtle. However, in spite of his subtlety and very convincing analysis (as well as the obvious respect he has for genre), I find his overarching framework slightly unpalatable. He seems to be describing (in a highly sophisticated way) what genre fiction allows its readers to do.
I guess a part of me doesn't prefer thinking about genre fiction in an instrumental context, as if its only worth studying because it serves an important social function. It's seems an obvious, kind of "throwback" argument. "Reading pulp fiction will rot your brain!" says the elitist. "You should read mature art that's truly beautiful." "No," responds Saler, "pulp fiction will make me a better person."
I think all art serves a social function. From an anthropological perspective, art is function. For me, that's a given. But by focusing on this function, some very important elements of art are thrown out of focus. How do I want to approach science fiction, supernatural horror, fantasy?
Uhh... let me get back to you on that.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
*H.P. Lovecraft's, Book of Horror*: Arthur Machen's, *The Great God Pan* (1894)
A few days ago I discovered a very interesting fiction anthology at my local Half Price Books. It's titled, H.P. Lovecraft's Book of Horror and its edited by Stephen Jones and Dave Carson (New York: Fall River Press, 2008). It's a really interesting idea for an anthology.
It opens with H.P. Lovecraft's famous 1927 survey essay of weird literature, titled, "Supernatural Horror in Literature," and then it proceeds with a story from most of the writers Lovecraft highlights in this essay. So, basically, the anthology starts with a survey of what HPL thought was the best weird literature of his time; and then it gives you a taste of those writers (some forgotten), that he analyzed in his essay. In a way, you're reading the weird literature of the early 20th century with H.P. Lovecraft as your guide. Quite interesting.
I purchased the anthology for a specific story, Arthur Machen's proto-science-fiction / horror novella The Great God Pan (1894) which is widely considered to be a major influence for H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." I read it and I want to share a little about it. Here's some plot:
Plot
It concerns a scientist by the name of Raymond. He has discovered a surgical means by which to allow an otherwise invisible realm of reality to be perceived by the human sensorium. A minor surgical modification of the brain, he has discovered, will allow a human subject to glimpse "the great god pan." I won't give away what that means. Let this suffice: after Raymond performs the surgery on his ward, what she glimpses does not result in something favorable.
Narrative Structure
The story is written quite well. What really strikes me about it is its narrative structure. The story is not related from the perspective of one character; rather, the plot unfolds through the points of view of many different characters, each with their specific knowledge and their specific ignorance. From the reader's perspective, you become privy to certain information as you pick out patterns that other characters, embedded in the storyworld, cannot hope to see. A consequence of this narrative structure is that you, the reader, are the one making all of the connections even as the characters struggle to make the connections. And as these patterns begin to reveal themselves, the horror begins to mount.
Theme
In terms of theme, there's a lot in this story going on with gender and sexuality. The "villain," if you will, is a woman who is strongly implied to be sexually promiscuous. And a component of the horror, it seems, is the idea that she would let so many gentleman into her bed and body. It's strange. As a modern, this obviously doesn't stir as much as it would for, say, a contemporary reader. And yet--there is nevertheless something powerful about the story.
It opens with H.P. Lovecraft's famous 1927 survey essay of weird literature, titled, "Supernatural Horror in Literature," and then it proceeds with a story from most of the writers Lovecraft highlights in this essay. So, basically, the anthology starts with a survey of what HPL thought was the best weird literature of his time; and then it gives you a taste of those writers (some forgotten), that he analyzed in his essay. In a way, you're reading the weird literature of the early 20th century with H.P. Lovecraft as your guide. Quite interesting.
I purchased the anthology for a specific story, Arthur Machen's proto-science-fiction / horror novella The Great God Pan (1894) which is widely considered to be a major influence for H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." I read it and I want to share a little about it. Here's some plot:
Plot
It concerns a scientist by the name of Raymond. He has discovered a surgical means by which to allow an otherwise invisible realm of reality to be perceived by the human sensorium. A minor surgical modification of the brain, he has discovered, will allow a human subject to glimpse "the great god pan." I won't give away what that means. Let this suffice: after Raymond performs the surgery on his ward, what she glimpses does not result in something favorable.
Narrative Structure
The story is written quite well. What really strikes me about it is its narrative structure. The story is not related from the perspective of one character; rather, the plot unfolds through the points of view of many different characters, each with their specific knowledge and their specific ignorance. From the reader's perspective, you become privy to certain information as you pick out patterns that other characters, embedded in the storyworld, cannot hope to see. A consequence of this narrative structure is that you, the reader, are the one making all of the connections even as the characters struggle to make the connections. And as these patterns begin to reveal themselves, the horror begins to mount.
Theme
In terms of theme, there's a lot in this story going on with gender and sexuality. The "villain," if you will, is a woman who is strongly implied to be sexually promiscuous. And a component of the horror, it seems, is the idea that she would let so many gentleman into her bed and body. It's strange. As a modern, this obviously doesn't stir as much as it would for, say, a contemporary reader. And yet--there is nevertheless something powerful about the story.
Monday, June 11, 2012
The Danger of Asking "Cosmic" Questions: A Review of Ridley Scott's *Prometheus*
This blog post contains spoilers for the film Prometheus. If you haven't seen the film and intend on seeing it--and you don't want your experience marred--I recommend you stop reading.
***
Recently I saw the Ridley Scott's science-fiction horror film, Prometheus. I loved it! I left the theater with a sick feeling that has been lingering for a couple of days, but it was an experience. And so, I highly recommend it.
It's a beautiful, sublime film in the spirit of such science-fiction / horror classics as Fred M. Wilcox's Forbidden Planet (1956), Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), and Paul W.S. Anderson's Event Horizon (1997). As in all of these films, the tone of cosmic vastness pervaded by horrible, indifferent and god-like creatures suggests to me H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. As in the work of H.P. Lovecraft, in these films (Prometheus specifically) existential questions about the origins of life, the meaning of the universe, the relative location of the human world are audaciously braved. And--*gulp*--answered.
The unifying structure that combines all of these films is that the answers discovered in the course of the narrative are, in a word, horrifying. In Prometheus, however, this theme is taken to a new height. In answer to such cosmic, existential questions as, "What is the meaning of life? Was humanity created? Why was it created?" the film responds with a resounding, hostile, scream-like gargle: there is no answer to these questions! Don't go looking for such answers! Die!
Weyland Meeting His Maker
Indeed, one of the most powerful scenes in the film was when the explorers have located one of the ancient engineers who is still alive but in suspended hibernation. They wake him up. The elderly Weyland is there, having traversed a great expanse of the galaxy, to ask a question of his maker: "Why did you make us?" After a strange moment where the Engineer-creature caresses the robot creation of Weyland (the android David), he kills the old man.
This exchange--existential question asked, horrible answer given--epitomizes what is going on in a specific tradition of science-fiction founded, I think, by the work of H.P. Lovecraft: cosmic horror. If you go to the stars looking for answers to existential questions, all you will find is horror. Sure, you might discover god, but you might not enjoy just what you discover god to be.
This is why I find the critical reaction to Prometheus somewhat frustrating. Consider the consensus review on RottenTomatoes.com, which rates that film a 74%:
"Ridley Scott's ambitious quasi-prequel to Alien may not answer all of its big questions, but it's redeemed by its haunting visual grandeur and compelling performances -- particularly Michael Fassbender as a fastidious android." (my emphasis)
It's so obvious to me that a major theme of the narrative is that certain cosmic-level, existential questions cannot be answered and should not, perhaps, be asked. The point of the film is that some questions--these cosmic questions--don't have answers; or, rather, the answers are of a scale beyond naive human understanding. Anyway...
To reiterate: I loved Prometheus. I find this kind of story intriguing. It stirs me intellectually and emotionally. But I need to qualify some things. The feeling it evokes is very modern. The reason it satisfies, I think, is because it names a demon, a feeling that many of us "sensitive folks" living in Modernity struggle with: the feeling of oppressive insignificance, anonymity; the unshakable sadness associated with the idea that perhaps life means nothing, that we human beings are just chemical accretions that slop around a rock for a brief span of time, eating, excreting, eating, excreting, multiplying, multiplying. Indeed, I find this kind of story intriguing. To reiterate again: I loved Prometheus. But let me be back off a little bit and say that, although I enjoyed the film--it entertained me--it didn't give me pleasure. The horror genre rarely gives pleasure. The pleasure it gives--if you can call it that--is the pleasure of picking at a wound, or massaging a canker sore in your mouth, or that terrible burn after shooting some liquor. It's the "pleasurable pain" of a horrible feeling confirmed. And so, as much as I liked Prometheus, I liked it conditionally.
***
Recently I saw the Ridley Scott's science-fiction horror film, Prometheus. I loved it! I left the theater with a sick feeling that has been lingering for a couple of days, but it was an experience. And so, I highly recommend it.
It's a beautiful, sublime film in the spirit of such science-fiction / horror classics as Fred M. Wilcox's Forbidden Planet (1956), Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), and Paul W.S. Anderson's Event Horizon (1997). As in all of these films, the tone of cosmic vastness pervaded by horrible, indifferent and god-like creatures suggests to me H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. As in the work of H.P. Lovecraft, in these films (Prometheus specifically) existential questions about the origins of life, the meaning of the universe, the relative location of the human world are audaciously braved. And--*gulp*--answered.
The unifying structure that combines all of these films is that the answers discovered in the course of the narrative are, in a word, horrifying. In Prometheus, however, this theme is taken to a new height. In answer to such cosmic, existential questions as, "What is the meaning of life? Was humanity created? Why was it created?" the film responds with a resounding, hostile, scream-like gargle: there is no answer to these questions! Don't go looking for such answers! Die!
Weyland Meeting His Maker
Indeed, one of the most powerful scenes in the film was when the explorers have located one of the ancient engineers who is still alive but in suspended hibernation. They wake him up. The elderly Weyland is there, having traversed a great expanse of the galaxy, to ask a question of his maker: "Why did you make us?" After a strange moment where the Engineer-creature caresses the robot creation of Weyland (the android David), he kills the old man.
This exchange--existential question asked, horrible answer given--epitomizes what is going on in a specific tradition of science-fiction founded, I think, by the work of H.P. Lovecraft: cosmic horror. If you go to the stars looking for answers to existential questions, all you will find is horror. Sure, you might discover god, but you might not enjoy just what you discover god to be.
This is why I find the critical reaction to Prometheus somewhat frustrating. Consider the consensus review on RottenTomatoes.com, which rates that film a 74%:
"Ridley Scott's ambitious quasi-prequel to Alien may not answer all of its big questions, but it's redeemed by its haunting visual grandeur and compelling performances -- particularly Michael Fassbender as a fastidious android." (my emphasis)
It's so obvious to me that a major theme of the narrative is that certain cosmic-level, existential questions cannot be answered and should not, perhaps, be asked. The point of the film is that some questions--these cosmic questions--don't have answers; or, rather, the answers are of a scale beyond naive human understanding. Anyway...
To reiterate: I loved Prometheus. I find this kind of story intriguing. It stirs me intellectually and emotionally. But I need to qualify some things. The feeling it evokes is very modern. The reason it satisfies, I think, is because it names a demon, a feeling that many of us "sensitive folks" living in Modernity struggle with: the feeling of oppressive insignificance, anonymity; the unshakable sadness associated with the idea that perhaps life means nothing, that we human beings are just chemical accretions that slop around a rock for a brief span of time, eating, excreting, eating, excreting, multiplying, multiplying. Indeed, I find this kind of story intriguing. To reiterate again: I loved Prometheus. But let me be back off a little bit and say that, although I enjoyed the film--it entertained me--it didn't give me pleasure. The horror genre rarely gives pleasure. The pleasure it gives--if you can call it that--is the pleasure of picking at a wound, or massaging a canker sore in your mouth, or that terrible burn after shooting some liquor. It's the "pleasurable pain" of a horrible feeling confirmed. And so, as much as I liked Prometheus, I liked it conditionally.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Ἀκέφαλος in H.P. Lovecraft's "Azathoth": The Aesthetic of Ignorance
I recently read a fragment of a novel written by H.P. Lovecraft titled, "Azathoth," which was written in June of 1922.
It's a very interesting, suggestive fragment that the editor of my anthology suggests might be framed as anticipating the The Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath.
There's a line in this fragment that stirred some thoughts. Discussing the life and time of the protagonist, the narrator states that he lived in a time when "learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty" (214).
I find this statement so intriguing. It makes me wonder, do scientifici theories "strip" the earth of "her mantle of beauty." Is there something about ignorance, naieve "unknowledge," that makes the world beautiful?
This is definately a question that Lovecraft's work courts and is, to an extent, an answer to.
This passage suggests a more famous passage from Lovecraft's work, the opening to call of Cthulhu: "“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” I won't quote the whole opening. It ends with a conjecture that, perhaps, scientific theory will reveal the truly horrific place humanity has in the universe and that we will recoil from it to the "safety" of a new dark age.
By juxtaposing this passge from "Azathoth" on the opening of "The Call of Cthulhu," we start to get a vision of a particular theme in HPL's work, namely, that learning, that theorizing, is the problem.
This pattern brings to mind an ancient greek myth/concept, the Ἀκέφαλος (Akephalos) or Headless Ones. These are humans without heads.
I like to think of Akephalos generally and allegorically, as just folks who... just. Don't. Think.
Though he doesn't say so, for Lovecraft, the Akephalos are the one's who we should envy, the ones who know nothing. Why is knowing nothing good? For Lovecraft, true knowledge is equivalent to horror; ignorance is a precondition, it seems, to the aesthetic experience of beauty.
In a strange way, there is an ethos is much of Lovecraft's work that seems to say, we should envy the headless/mindless ones.
Hmm...
It's a very interesting, suggestive fragment that the editor of my anthology suggests might be framed as anticipating the The Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath.
There's a line in this fragment that stirred some thoughts. Discussing the life and time of the protagonist, the narrator states that he lived in a time when "learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty" (214).
I find this statement so intriguing. It makes me wonder, do scientifici theories "strip" the earth of "her mantle of beauty." Is there something about ignorance, naieve "unknowledge," that makes the world beautiful?
This is definately a question that Lovecraft's work courts and is, to an extent, an answer to.
This passage suggests a more famous passage from Lovecraft's work, the opening to call of Cthulhu: "“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” I won't quote the whole opening. It ends with a conjecture that, perhaps, scientific theory will reveal the truly horrific place humanity has in the universe and that we will recoil from it to the "safety" of a new dark age.
By juxtaposing this passge from "Azathoth" on the opening of "The Call of Cthulhu," we start to get a vision of a particular theme in HPL's work, namely, that learning, that theorizing, is the problem.
This pattern brings to mind an ancient greek myth/concept, the Ἀκέφαλος (Akephalos) or Headless Ones. These are humans without heads.
I like to think of Akephalos generally and allegorically, as just folks who... just. Don't. Think.
Though he doesn't say so, for Lovecraft, the Akephalos are the one's who we should envy, the ones who know nothing. Why is knowing nothing good? For Lovecraft, true knowledge is equivalent to horror; ignorance is a precondition, it seems, to the aesthetic experience of beauty.
In a strange way, there is an ethos is much of Lovecraft's work that seems to say, we should envy the headless/mindless ones.
Hmm...
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Developing A "Corpus-Wide Working Familiarity" of H.P. Lovecraft: "What the Moon Brings"
I've decided it's time to re-read all the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Why? Lovecraft is going to be a major topic of my dissertation (I plan on devoting an entire chapter to him). And so, of course, I want to be familiar with his work.
I find developing this sort of "corpus-wide working familiarity" particularly difficult in the case of pulp writers, who tend to write copious amounts of short fiction (in addition to lots of shorter novels). When you're studying a novelists, it's somewhat easy to isolate their major novels and just read them. It's not so easy with pulp writers. First off, they tend to write a lot more; and, secondly, because they write a lot more, it's difficult to clearly delineate what's worth studying from what's not worth studying.
Although I've read the majority of HPL's fiction (is a scattered sort of way) I can't attest to having read it all; and so, I think it's time for me to march steadily through his entire bibliography (as much as is possible).
You might be interested in this PDF version of H.P. Lovecraft's bibliography: H.P. Lovecraft's bibliography. I for one have difficult keeping track of which of his stories I've read.
The first story I read in this effort to develop "corpus wide working familiarity" of HPL was actually a prose poem called, "What the Moon Brings." According to the introductory note in the anthology I'm reading from, it was written on June 5th, 1922, and it was published in The National Amateur in May of 1923.
What's it about? It's about a wanderer who hates the moonlight, which seems to change the familiar to the unfamiliar and strange. Also, the wanderer is stirred by visions of the ocean illuminated by moonlight.
To a large extent the narrative is skeletal. The only thing that happens is the wanderer watches the ocean tide roll out and then he sees a horrible sight: "I watched the tide go out under that sinking moon, and saw gleaming the spires, the towers, and the roofs of that dead, dripping city" (213).
This seems to be a recurring image in Lovecraft, the receding of a veil and the exposure of a secret, usually figured as gross and threatening. I am thinking of a little kid, overturning a rock, and seeing spiders and centipedes and pill bugs.
I find developing this sort of "corpus-wide working familiarity" particularly difficult in the case of pulp writers, who tend to write copious amounts of short fiction (in addition to lots of shorter novels). When you're studying a novelists, it's somewhat easy to isolate their major novels and just read them. It's not so easy with pulp writers. First off, they tend to write a lot more; and, secondly, because they write a lot more, it's difficult to clearly delineate what's worth studying from what's not worth studying.
Although I've read the majority of HPL's fiction (is a scattered sort of way) I can't attest to having read it all; and so, I think it's time for me to march steadily through his entire bibliography (as much as is possible).
You might be interested in this PDF version of H.P. Lovecraft's bibliography: H.P. Lovecraft's bibliography. I for one have difficult keeping track of which of his stories I've read.
The first story I read in this effort to develop "corpus wide working familiarity" of HPL was actually a prose poem called, "What the Moon Brings." According to the introductory note in the anthology I'm reading from, it was written on June 5th, 1922, and it was published in The National Amateur in May of 1923.
What's it about? It's about a wanderer who hates the moonlight, which seems to change the familiar to the unfamiliar and strange. Also, the wanderer is stirred by visions of the ocean illuminated by moonlight.
To a large extent the narrative is skeletal. The only thing that happens is the wanderer watches the ocean tide roll out and then he sees a horrible sight: "I watched the tide go out under that sinking moon, and saw gleaming the spires, the towers, and the roofs of that dead, dripping city" (213).
This seems to be a recurring image in Lovecraft, the receding of a veil and the exposure of a secret, usually figured as gross and threatening. I am thinking of a little kid, overturning a rock, and seeing spiders and centipedes and pill bugs.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Shadow Over Innsmouth: Sneaking Past the Lovecraftian Shieldwall
I recently read H.P. Lovecraft’s “Shadow Over Innsmouth,” a novella about a strange town that has become entangled with a race of fish-people who worship a dark god (this summary is probably gratuitous considering the fame of this story). Generally, I love Lovecraft’s fiction. Specifically, I love this novella.
Some general comments about Lovecraft before proceeding: I’m reluctant to write about him. Why? Because of all the weird writers I’m interested in, the “critical/scholarly/fan” community—I like term “shieldwall”—that comments on and critiques him is very large and intimidatingly well read. This is, of course, connected with, among other things, the establishment of Arkham House Publishing, a company founded to preserve Lovecraft’s legacy.
As I continue this blog, I aim to more fully delve into this work (side note: I will begin with the relatively new biography of Lovecraft written by Lovecraft afficionado S.T. Joshi titled *I Am Providence*). And so, please please consider this post as a tentative and “amateurish” step into a field that is quite large—a single toe into a pool of eldritch slime-horrors.
Now. Let us return to “Shadow Over Innsmouth.”
The pace and structure of the story is what truly endears me to it. It begins subtly. The protagonist wanders aimlessly through Innsmouth gathering this or that tidbit of information which begins to accumulate allowing him to piece together a vision of horror. To some extent it emulates the structure of a traditional detective novel like, say, *The Maltese Falcon.* After he has a talk with a drunken homeless person, all the pieces fall together and the novella actually becomes a psuedo-action thriller. I won’t spoil the ending, which is great.
Aside from “cheerleading” this story, what else can I offer? Well, here’s a little information. The story was written in November and December of 1931. It wasn’t published until 1936 and, according to August Derlath, it is the only fiction written by Lovecraft that was published independently and not in a periodical. I find this intriguing because the material circumstances of the periodical market determines, to a large extent, the narrative shape of the stories published within it.
How does the material circumstances of this story’s publication play out in terms of the story’s structure and style? Here’s some conjecture: the pace is unhurried and, though it still split up into sections, it reads as if it organically holds together the way that some other longer Lovecraft pieces (I am particularly thinking of “Herbert West-Reanimator”) feel stitched together from otherwise distinct episodes.
Some interpretation: this story is preoccupied with racial purity and a fear that informs it is the fear of the racial purist who is afraid that somewhere in their family tree are some “alien” elements. I don’t find this particularly scary. What I do find intriguing, however, is the idea of “inhuman” elements secretly infiltrating human society, of other worlds—older than our own—existing outside of what we consider the norm. The fear of genetic contamination that pervades a lot of Lovecraft’s fiction is difficult for me to understand and *may* be anachronistic here in 2011 (this is, of course, being optimistic).
Fear of the Other is more universal. For me the power of this story is that Lovecraft has created a village of Others who are strange not because of how *different* they are from us. It’s the other way around. They are anthroid fish people. Thus, they are creepy because of their *resemblance* to us. Therefore, the predominant aesthetic effect of the story is—(::sigh:: I hate using this word.) *uncanny.* In other words, the fish-people of Innsmouth are a distortion of ourselves, but the distortion is skillfully tempered. This is why I think the final scene in the story is so disturbing—the protagonist staring at himself in a mirror.
Some general comments about Lovecraft before proceeding: I’m reluctant to write about him. Why? Because of all the weird writers I’m interested in, the “critical/scholarly/fan” community—I like term “shieldwall”—that comments on and critiques him is very large and intimidatingly well read. This is, of course, connected with, among other things, the establishment of Arkham House Publishing, a company founded to preserve Lovecraft’s legacy.
As I continue this blog, I aim to more fully delve into this work (side note: I will begin with the relatively new biography of Lovecraft written by Lovecraft afficionado S.T. Joshi titled *I Am Providence*). And so, please please consider this post as a tentative and “amateurish” step into a field that is quite large—a single toe into a pool of eldritch slime-horrors.
Now. Let us return to “Shadow Over Innsmouth.”
The pace and structure of the story is what truly endears me to it. It begins subtly. The protagonist wanders aimlessly through Innsmouth gathering this or that tidbit of information which begins to accumulate allowing him to piece together a vision of horror. To some extent it emulates the structure of a traditional detective novel like, say, *The Maltese Falcon.* After he has a talk with a drunken homeless person, all the pieces fall together and the novella actually becomes a psuedo-action thriller. I won’t spoil the ending, which is great.
Aside from “cheerleading” this story, what else can I offer? Well, here’s a little information. The story was written in November and December of 1931. It wasn’t published until 1936 and, according to August Derlath, it is the only fiction written by Lovecraft that was published independently and not in a periodical. I find this intriguing because the material circumstances of the periodical market determines, to a large extent, the narrative shape of the stories published within it.
How does the material circumstances of this story’s publication play out in terms of the story’s structure and style? Here’s some conjecture: the pace is unhurried and, though it still split up into sections, it reads as if it organically holds together the way that some other longer Lovecraft pieces (I am particularly thinking of “Herbert West-Reanimator”) feel stitched together from otherwise distinct episodes.
Some interpretation: this story is preoccupied with racial purity and a fear that informs it is the fear of the racial purist who is afraid that somewhere in their family tree are some “alien” elements. I don’t find this particularly scary. What I do find intriguing, however, is the idea of “inhuman” elements secretly infiltrating human society, of other worlds—older than our own—existing outside of what we consider the norm. The fear of genetic contamination that pervades a lot of Lovecraft’s fiction is difficult for me to understand and *may* be anachronistic here in 2011 (this is, of course, being optimistic).
Fear of the Other is more universal. For me the power of this story is that Lovecraft has created a village of Others who are strange not because of how *different* they are from us. It’s the other way around. They are anthroid fish people. Thus, they are creepy because of their *resemblance* to us. Therefore, the predominant aesthetic effect of the story is—(::sigh:: I hate using this word.) *uncanny.* In other words, the fish-people of Innsmouth are a distortion of ourselves, but the distortion is skillfully tempered. This is why I think the final scene in the story is so disturbing—the protagonist staring at himself in a mirror.
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