Tag: H. P. Lovecraft

Review 2608: The Night Ocean

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

At first, I thought this novel was going to be about H. P. Lovecraft. Then, I thought it was a sort of homage to 30s and 40s science fiction and horror writers. But having finished it, I don’t know quite how to describe it.

Marina Willett’s husband Charlie is missing or dead. A writer of insightful profiles, Charlie began working on one of H. P. Lovecraft. During his research, he became interested in the story of a book purportedly written by Lovecraft’s much-younger deceased friend Robert Barlow that alleged a homosexual affair. This book was debunked as a fraud perpetrated by Lovecraft fan L. C. Spinks. However, Charlie becomes convinced after visiting Spinks that he is actually Barlow, having faked his own death and taken Spinks’ identity. He publishes a book telling this story and immediately becomes a literary celebrity.

But then, evidence comes out about facts that are incorrect, and Charlie himself is believed to have perpetrated a fraud. After checking himself into a mental hospital, he disappears, his clothes found next to a lake.

Marina is not satisfied. She decides to revisit the research that Charlie conducted, in the hopes of figuring out what happened. Since the last thing he did before checking into the hospital was revisit Spinks, Marina goes to see him.

Most of the rest of the novel becomes a series of stories beginning with Spinks’ first interview with Charlie. These stories name-drop 30s and 40s science fiction and horror writers and other prominent figures like crazy. This technique of the strange tale is one familiar to horror readers and a nod to Lovecraft.

If I were a bigger Lovecraft fan, I’d probably recognize more allusions besides the obvious ones—his fanboy-cum-writers themselves dropping his made-up words into their conversations, for example.

I think that Lovecraft fans will appreciate this novel more than I did, but the novel leaves Lovecraft behind about halfway through, and becomes more about Barlow. Myself, I got a little tired of the structure of story after story.

The novel is ultimately about identity, search for community, and reinvention.

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Review 1531: The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham

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I picked up this collection of gothic stories from the library so that I could read one of them, “The Doom That Came to Sarnath,” for the 1920 Club. Then I decided to read the rest of this beautifully presented book.

It’s hard for me to know what to say about it, because this type of gothic horror story, which used to appear in such magazines as Weird Tales, is just not my thing. On the other hand, it is almost definitely for people who like this genre. I prefer my scary stories to be about things that could happen or about ghosts, but Lovecraft is clearly drawn to grotesque creatures, dark family histories of the most freakish, and ancient rituals and beliefs become reality.

That he was deeply knowledgeable in the latter and often based his stories in actual locations or history is attested to by the many annotations and pictures in the margins of this book. That his writing is heavily dependent on description, some of it highly florid, is also certain. He loves using adjectives and adverbs, many of them unlikely, such as describing ruins as “hideously ancient.” In fact, he seems to have a fascination and repugnance for old things, both at the same time—or at least his narrators do.

The earlier stories are very short, only a couple of pages, while the later ones get longer and longer, so that I finished about half of the book but more than 3/4 of the stories.

Some of the more notable stories are “The Shunned House,” based on an actual house in Providence, in which the inhabitants seem to die off; “The Rats in the Walls,” combining a haunted house story with one of his favorite themes of a dark, hidden family history; and “The Outsider,” about a being who discovers he lives in a crypt. One of the stories, “Ex Oblivione,” described as a prose poem, I was unable to finish, but the rest were entertaining enough, just not my thing.

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Review 1496: #1920Club: The Doom That Came to Sarnath

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“The Doom That Came to Sarnath,” which I read for the 1920 Club, was my introduction to H. P. Lovecraft, whom I’ve read about for years. Based on this one story, I can’t really say much about Lovecraft’s work, but I intend to read all of the book it came in, The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham.

The short story is written in archaic language that is supposed to remind us, and does, of old stories and legends. It tells how men came to live near the ancient city of Ib, occupied by green, voiceless beings with bulging eyes, and destroyed the city and all its inhabitants, and how its sea green idol disappeared. There the men founded the city of Sarnath.

Later, the city becomes wealthy and so beautiful that people from other cities visit it. But doom was foretold with the original actions of the men, and on the city’s thousandth anniversary . . . . Well, I won’t tell.

I get the impression just from the notes on this annotated edition that Lovecraft invented whole worlds that he returned to in other stories. The story is atmospheric but very short and not particularly scary or disturbing.

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