At Barnes & Noble you can find a plethora of leatherbound classics with gilded pages that, in many cases, contain an author’s entire works. In this case, we’re talking the one and only H.P. Lovecraft, master of atmospheric horror and the creator of the mythic Cthulhu. With enough fiction to fill each day in October with a few stories, it’s time to get your daily dose of Lovecraft. Join me as I read this tome from cover to cover – and hopefully maintain my sanity.
Please note that we here at Speculative Chic are very aware of the problematic issues regarding H.P. Lovecraft’s mindset, which included xenophobia and racism. With these pieces I intend to focus solely on the content of the stories themselves since I have read only 1-2 stories in the past and will be looking at them through my own personal lens rather than delving into any particular meanings Lovecraft may have meant. Such issues of racism and xenophobia will only be addressed if they appear in the story.
No turning back now.
“Gad split me! I’d rather be red whilst I’m here,
Than white as a lily–and dead half a year!”
(The Tomb, pg.19)
“The Tomb”
More along the lines of psychological horror, “The Tomb” features a narrator who is so obsessed with one particular tomb that he fancies himself a part of it, in a way. That he himself either was or now is the person who should ultimately lie in one of the empty boxes.
The cheeky part about this story isn’t necessarily the tomb itself, although in clear Lovecraftian form, his descriptions are rich and engrossing, but more so in terms of the narrator. Ultimately the gentleman is telling us his story from an insane asylum. He gives us his full account of what happened – only to have the reader wondering if he’s truly a reliable narrator at all. Eyewitnesses to his actions give rise to doubt, and even the narrator admits he has no true way to refute them. He only knows what he knows and that’s that. But given certain elements of the story, we’re left wondering – was he right? And you don’t even know what his true relation to the man who ought to be in the tomb is. Is our narrator reincarnated? Is his body slowly being taken over by some phantasm?
And now you’re questioning yourself as the narrator was. Hm. It’s all about keeping your sanity here, folks. So can you?
“Dagon”
Aka: “Lovecraft, Why You Gotta Hate On Fishpeople?”
Dagon is quite short and was written in 1917 and it’s quite clear this is a precursor to what Lovecraft conceived of later in “The Call of Cthulhu.” Here, a sailor is cast adrift after escaping his German occupied boat (circa WWI), when suddenly one night the ocean bed rises up around him. Eventually he discovers a bizarre obelisk-like structure with strange hieroglyphs and carvings – which include fish people (for lack of a better term). Then, as if on cue, one of these fish people appears and is thrilled to find its obelisk while the narrator flees in terror. This terror is so great that, eventually, he resolves to kill himself rather than be faced with the monstrosity that has since seemed to follow him everywhere.
Funny enough, this story is far shorter than the previous one, yet I find it far more interesting. The narrator’s choice to end his life is, at it’s core, because of the knowledge of this race of strange creatures. Within the story itself, the fish person did nothing more than get really excited about seeing the obelisk again (it hugged it and started saying things). Yet the very existence of this becomes something the narrator literally cannot unsee – thus leading to a morphine addiction and a meeting with a very lofty window. While the horror lies not so much in what the narrator sees and experiences (though the initial description of the ocean floor’s appearance is pretty freaky), but rather in his mental trauma afterward, I’m much more excited to have glimpsed the beginnings of the Cthulhu mythos and what appears to be Lovecraft’s lifelong attachment to this particular race of beings.
Will they make more appearances? I honestly don’t know – I haven’t read nearly enough Lovecraft. I’m assuming they do given that so many Lovecraft-based games and elements I’ve encountered in my life include weird fish-like people or creatures. Either way, I liked this story and I’m looking forward to discovering how the stories and the concepts continue to evolve.
Featured image © Nicole Taft
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