“Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.”
(Herbert West–Reanimator, pg.181)
Welcome back to Our Daily Lovecraft. Read on – and then pray for sweet dreams.
If you’re just joining us, you can start your Lovecraftian journey here!
At one point in time for our narrator, there was a street in Paris called the Rue d’Auseil where he once lived – but after his meeting with Erich Zann, he has never been able to find it again. As the story goes, he heard the viol player above him performing all sorts of music – some of which was rather strange. He did his best to befriend Erich, who was mute, and always wondered what the heck was up with the bizarre parts of the music Erich played. One night, it seems as though Erich plays to keep something dark and sinister at bay, though we never find out what. The narrator flees, and is never again able to find the strange Rue d’Auseil.
This makes me wonder – while the street itself is described as a rather strange place, the people living there (at least in the narrator’s lodgings) still seemed rather normal. Even Erich Zann himself appeared to be an average man who, somehow, had a supernatural problem. After the events of the final night, I wonder if that supernatural terror swallowed up the entire street, which is why the narrator can’t find it.
On the other hand, we can always entertain the idea that the narrator himself is unreliable, something he tells us himself. Who is to say? Until then, why not take a moment to watch the short film by John Strysik that brought this tale to life?
Eventually made into a movie in 1985 dubbed simply Re-Animator, this is kind of a similar story to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in which a man seeks to bring life back to something that is beyond this world. While in Frankenstein, the creature was essentially built from the nerve-endings up, here the character of Herbert West believes that with the right concoction of chemicals he can restart a body that has stopped, as one might a watch or other mechanical device.
Obviously, because this is horror and a Lovecraftian tale, it doesn’t go well. This particular tale was actually serialized and thus released in multiple episodes, which is why each section features a number and a bit of rehashing of the previous parts in order to catch the reader up. Things get more gruesome as the story progresses until the monsters get what they came for and the narrator is left with only his account of what happened. And he might be mad at this point. But what character sees the things Lovecraft presents to them and does not go mad? Or half-mad? Or think they might be mad but aren’t sure?
It’s an entertaining story, and I enjoyed how Herbert West just got weirder and weirder as the plot continued on, and everything got more out of control. I wonder – did Lovecraft tire of this story at any point? The intro states it becomes a self-parody and I don’t see why not. But read for yourself for some daily Lovecraft and make your own decision about Herbert West and his quest to reanimate the dead.
Featured image © Nicole Taft
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