Though not as well-known as Poe (you probably never read a Lovecraft story in a high school English class), the works of H.P. Lovecraft have arguably been much more influential on genre fiction and filmmaking. Whole volumes have been written about the man’s work and its effect on popular culture, many of which are lurking on the shelf above my desk as I type this and daring me to dig into them.
Historical importance aside, I admit that I have a lot of personal affection for his work. The first time I ever got a story published – at the ripe old age of 16 – was in a small press anthology devoted to tales with Lovecraft’s “cosmic horror” as a theme. I’d tracked down his writing in order to get a feel for the conventions, and after “The Lurking Horror” and “Rats in the Walls” I was hooked.
Of course even the most ardent fan must acknowledge the flaws in Lovecraft’s writing. He was a racist even beyond what would be expected of an average white person growing up in early 20th century New England, and this unfortunate trait infects some of his work. He also sometimes suffered excessive influence from the stuffy preciousness Lord Dunsany, one of his literary heroes. And don’t even get me started on his addiction to adjectives. The shambling! The gibbering!
And Lovecraft is the God Emperor of authors who write long stories building up to a conclusion that even the dumbest reader already figured out pages and pages ago. His destinations are fascinating, but you’ll tend to get there before he does.
Faults notwithstanding, Lovecraft is worth reading as one of the first and still one of the best authors to write non-gothic horror. Vampires, werewolves, mummies, drafty castles, swooning maidens (indeed, women of any stripe) are few and far between. Instead, Lovecraft starts with a simple yet awe-inspiring notion: that the universe doesn’t revolve around the human race. He proceeds to weave an entire pantheon of god-like beings who are either mildly antipathetic or wholly indifferent to the protagonists of the tales.
This denial of the ontological-good-automatically-triumphs formula that served storytellers for millennia dovetailed nicely with the young 20th century, from the pyrrhic victories of World War One to the questions raised by quantum physics about the fabric of reality. Lovecraft’s fiction is the stuff of nightmares, not the kind where you accidentally forget to wear your pants to work but the kind when you wake up one morning to discover that everything you know is wrong.
The beautiful thing about the beasts of this brave new world is that they don’t come with easy answers. They don’t seem to want our blood, and they generally can’t be expelled with crosses or silver bullets. They’re difficult if not impossible to figure out, and to make matters worse they aren’t always consistent from story to story. Even their names are impossible to pronounce.
In a universe gone mad, these stories make perfect sense.
Nyarlathotep – We’ll begin the list with an “appetizer,” a short piece Lovecraft wrote after awakening from a particularly strange dream. His recording of a nightmare-like parade of bizarre sights and sounds is more poetic than most of his actual poetry.
The Lurking Fear – Having no sooner sung the praises of cosmic horror than I’m forced to admit I like some of his less overwhelming stuff as well. This tale concerns a family so deeply ruined by decadence and inbreeding that they’ve transformed into mole monsters. As a teen I had a great ambition to make a movie out of this, and I still think it has cinematic potential (though the only film version I’ve ever seen suggests otherwise).
Pickman’s Model – Another favorite from my youth. An artist paints pictures of horrible monstrosities that are just a little too realistic for the comfort of the New England art world. This tale is tailor-made for anyone who fancies himself an intense, angry, outsider artist.
The Shadow over Innsmouth – At first I didn’t care much for this one. But like a shambling, gibbering fungus from another dimension, it sort of grew on me. With the dexterity of a paranoid schizophrenic, Lovecraft manages to spin his hatreds of both inbreeding and miscegenation into a single ugly thread. And no matter how many times I read the story, the end just flat out sucks (I even wrote a story – one of my few complete ventures into fiction – exploring how in such a situation a normal human would respond differently than a Lovecraftian narrator). On the other hand, I do like a good sea monster story. And the monsters rock, no matter how creepy their origins might be.
At the Mountains of Madness – This is the longest story Lovecraft wrote (either this or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, I can never remember which one holds the record). And it’s a glaring example of what I said above about the author telegraphing his moves so copiously that he ends up taking far longer than necessary to get where he’s going. On the other hand, it does get off to a heck of a start. I’m a sucker for stories set in Antarctica, so I might have liked this more than I should have. But most of all, this is one of the author’s more successful uses of “cosmic horror.” The protagonists’ discovery of a vast, frozen, empty city leads to some disturbing conclusions about the origins of humanity and the dangerous presence that may still lurk a bit too close for comfort.
The Call of Cthulhu – The list wouldn’t have been complete without this one. Cthulhu has become the Zeus of the “Yog Sothery” pantheon (though I’m not sure Lovecraft intended to place him in that role). This story lends its name to a role-playing game, a video game and at least one really good movie. And of course Cthulhu himself has become a minor pop culture phenomenon, showing up everywhere from the teddy bear aisle at the toy store to strange songs about narwhals. With that in mind, this story might best be considered a “humble origin.” It’s actually three stories in one, each of which would have done just fine on its own. We get strange relics, violent cultists, and an island thrust up from the bottom of the sea bearing with it something that should have stayed drowned and forgotten. I can see why this one is so popular. It’s Lovecraft at his most Lovecraftian.
The Color Out of Space – On the other hand, this one is Lovecraft at his least gothic. “The Color” isn’t even a monster in the traditional sense. Instead, it’s an undefined infection – though even the germ analogy sells it short – that comes to Earth on a meteor and begins to spread. Think “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” only without the comforting familiarity of moss.
The Whisperer in Darkness – With all due respect to the many beloved tales that didn’t make this list of eight, this one’s my favorite. I love the theme (about which I can’t say much without giving too much of the story away). I love the atmosphere. But even more than that, I love the balance. Throughout his career Lovecraft struggled to create just the right mix of reality and horror. Many of his stories are “okay, that’s way too much for me to accept,” while others are “wow, is that all there is to it?” For my taste, The Whisperer is neither too hot nor too cold, neither too hard nor too soft. It’s cosmic horror brought down to a personal level, and that’s where I find it most effective.
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