“A sense of A sense of duty to science is all that impels me to recall, in these last years of my life,
scenes and happenings fraught with a terror doubly acute because I cannot wholly define it.”
(The Transition of Juan Romero, pg.54)
Welcome back to Our Daily Lovecraft. Are you still with me?
If you’re just joining us, you can start your Lovecraftian journey here!
“Old Bugs”
Initially I thought the subject matter would have something to do with actual old bugs, which sounded quite interesting. Instead, it’s another non-typical Lovecraftian tale (or at least, what most people think of when put in mind of Lovecraft these days), but rather a story written for a friend of Lovecraft’s who wished he could try alcohol before Prohibition happened in 1919. Apparently Lovecraft knew what alcohol could do to a man (either that or he embellished, but given the story material, it’s all very possible), and thus wrote of an worn-down bum nicknamed Old Bugs who did odd jobs in a tavern in exchange for alcohol or hasheesh. At one point in his life he was an aristocratic, learned sort of man who, after his first drink of alcohol, went straight downhill, losing everything. When a young man arrives to do the same, Old Bugs essentially freaks out once he learns who the man is – the son of Old Bugs’s long-ago fiancée. He doesn’t want this promising young lad to go down the same path, and in the end it works.
It’s an entertaining departure from surreal other dimensions and cosmic beings that once again showcases Lovecraft’s versatility and skill in writing. In fact, it’s actually a good sort of pause from the usual world of Lovecraft, like taking a breath of open air before continuing on a cave diving adventure where things are darker, murkier, and far less certain. And I’m pretty sure that as I continue the cave is just going to get deeper, and I’m not sure just how many pockets of air I’ll have left.
“The Transition of Juan Romero”
Juan Romero, for whatever reason, didn’t end well. Theoretically. The man, not the story. You see, here we have our first person narrator as par the course, and another man, Juan Romero. We’re in the Southwest this time, mining for gold in a cave. A controlled explosion to excavate more area instead opens up a terrifyingly deep abyss in which the men can find no bottom. That night, Juan Romero and the narrator hear drums in the deep (no, it’s not a Balrog) and feel an uncanny need to investigate. As they go into the mine toward the chasm, the drums grow louder and chanting joins them. Juan runs off toward the hole, leaps in, and when the narrator reaches it, sees Juan changing into something he dare not describe. However, the narrator then blacks out and finds himself back in his bunk when he awakens. Juan is gone, as is the chasm. When they drill one more time, there is nothing but solid rock below.
There’s a lot of vagueness in this story, and the introduction says so as well. It was never published by Lovecraft himself, but rather after he died in 1944. There are a lot of random elements involved, such as a strange ring the narrator owns but doesn’t want to get into detail about that is somehow involved in the whole strange business. There’s the reference to Huitzilopochtli by Juan Romero as he runs off into the mines (the Aztec god of deity of war, sun, human sacrifice). There’s the way the narrator sees nondescript things and then “Some power of heaven” intervened, which is how he ends up back in bed and everything wraps up.
It’s the sort of story that feels like it has a great deal of potential, but Lovecraft never got around to fleshing out and sprucing up. He also never used the Southwest as a backdrop again, save for two other stories that were ghostwritten by him. I’m very much into Lovecraft’s descriptions, so being denied much of them here only leaves me wanting more. It’s definitely got the trappings of some very fine material, but just never really reaches that final destination.
Featured image © Nicole Taft
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