Table of Contents: “Collected Fiction Volume 3 (1931-1936)"

 

Welcome back, all of you who dare continue this journey with me. I hope your week has brought you as many joys as mine. In a very Lovecraftian fashion, a certain tide rose, an old and powerful force which swept away all those foolish enough to be caught in its path. People cavorted in the streets like madmen, and gave way to their base desires and instincts. I joined hundreds of my fellows in offering up our pay for robes and tunics stitched with strange runes, chief among them the primary letter of the alphabet, stylized in a most curious manner. Now the frenetic bliss is ebbing, as it always does, and we shall have a period of calm until next year’s season of festivals begins.

If someone were to ask me for a book that captures the best of Lovecraft, I could theoretically hand them this volume and be done with it. There are a few missing key components, certainly, my own beloved “Dream-Quest” chief among them. As an essential representation of Lovecraft’s central “cosmic horror” thesis though, the six primary tales found within are inarguably perfect. I’m honestly going to have to keep myself in check while writing my briefs for the ones I have read, because otherwise this post would approach research paper lengths. For the time being, I’ll curb my zeal, and get rolling with our list of the included works.

At the Mountains of Madness

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

The Dreams in the Witch House

 

Through the Gates of the Silver Key

The Thing on the Doorstep

The Book*

The Shadow Out of Time

The Haunter of the Dark

 

The Very Old Folk*

 

The Evil Clergyman*

…by Gan, that’s a Hell of a collection. Looks like I lied, there’s a bit more indulgent gushing before I talk about specific stories. At least three of these tales are given treatment in what I’ve read of Alan Moore’s Providence, and that was just the first six issues. One of these is my favorite “cosmic horror” story, and another is my second favorite of the same ilk. Every single one of these tales that I have read made an impression on me, and I am stoked to eventually make my way back to them.

*“The Book,” “The Very Old Folk,” and “The Evil Clergyman” are the only three I haven’t read, and all are a bit of an oddity. The latter two are taken from letters Lovecraft wrote – the man DID love him some letter-writing – and it’s likely neither were ever meant for wide publication. Likewise, “The Book” is a story fragment that was found among his papers and published posthumously.

At the Mountains of Madness

I seriously doubt that anything I write here about this story will do it justice. That’s not to slight my own analytical skills, or to say that I’ll never have anything to write about it which would fit the bill. (If anything, a big goal of this blogging project is to get me to that point!) What I’m writing here and now, though, is based off of me reading it over the course of several nights before bed back in early 2014. There were difficulties in my personal life at the time – which I will save for a different post – and as a result I was perhaps distracted from the investment the tale deserved and demanded.

Because make no mistake, this is a story that demands much of the reader. This was the first Lovecraft story I decided to read, and I both would and wouldn’t suggest that method to others looking to discover his works. All of his writing quirks and nuances are on display here, and for the uninitiated, if can be a little overwhelming. At the same time, you’ll get back whatever you put in, plus more on top of that. I keep typing and deleting more to say, but I think I’ll save it for when my journey brings me back around to read the story again.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

Ah, fish people. This is admittedly my least favorite of the seven stories from this book which I’ve read, but make no mistake, it’s still a classic. The narrator ends up in the titular Innsmouth – a place where one doesn’t want to linger – for far too long, and begins to discover things no sane person would want to know. There’s definitely plenty of tension, but I didn’t feel the same dread other Lovecraft stories inspire. I also figured out the big revelation well in advance of the ending, and found it lacked the same impact as something like “The Whisperer in Darkness.” Perhaps a re-reading will improve my opinion!

The Dreams in the Witch House

For some reason, this story escaped my attention until late 2015, when Bryant’s posts on The Truth Inside the Lie and my own reading of Providence drew me back. There is a particularly menacing issue of the comic which deals with “The Dreams in the Witch House,” which is probably why I finally got around to it. The narrator is a boarder at a most unusual house, and he finds that his room does not seem to obey the laws of geometry or physics.

This is, in my opinion, Lovecraft at his very finest. There are connections to the greater mythos, but at its core this is a very finely-tuned tale of one man’s personal experiences with horror of the most malicious sort. It was responsible for a few restless nights while I was reading it, and will undoubtedly have the same effect the second time around.

Through the Gates of the Silver Key

 

I initially confused the plot of this story with that of another, “The Statement of Randolph Carter,” which is more a condemnation of my own memory than of either tale. In working on these posts I realized my error, and have amended Table of Contents: “Collected Fiction Volume 1 (1905-1925)” accordingly.

Yet another Kadath-related yarn, this one takes place later in Carter’s life… maybe? I don’t want to give too much away, but things play out in a New Orleans manor, where some folks have gathered to try and determine the fate of Randolph Carter. The more I recall about the story, the more I remember liking it; this is once again Lovecraft working more in the realm of the fantastical than the horrific, and it still suits him.

The Thing on the Doorstep

This is one of the rare cases where Lovecraft’s execution – exceptional though it is – does not quite match the full scope of the story’s subject matter. Over the course of the tale, our narrator begins to fear that his best friend is the victim of some awful plot involving body swapping and something which is both ancient and not at all human. The central plot is good, but the more time I have to consider the concept, the more terrifying the idea of being forced out of your own body becomes. Alan Moore takes the concept into darker territory in Providence; does he take it too far? We’ll talk about that when we reach that issue!

 

The Shadow Out of Time

I’ve mentioned it in other posts, but in case you’ve missed those: “The Shadow Out of Time” is undeniably my favorite Lovecraft story. It combines my favorite elements from other tales listed so far, with a core concept that both fascinates and terrifies me. The protagonist is a professor who starts losing chunks of time from his life; when he comes to, he encounters people confronting him about things he’s never said or done. Worse than that, these lapses are accompanied by visions of a place complete alien to him, inhabited by beings he can barely find the words to describe.

 

I’ll stop myself there, before I give too much away, but I will add that the ending to this story rattled me more than most of the others combined. Once I had read it, I was not surprised to learn in the least that this was the second-to-last story Lovecraft ever wrote, and the final one to spring from a completely original idea. By the time of its composition, it must have been obvious he was sick, to himself if not to anyone else. As such, this story reads like something written by a man who knows his time on this Earth is nearing its end.

The Haunter of the Dark

The final story ever written that can be attributed 100% to Howard Phillips Lovecraft, “The Haunter of the Dark” has a rather unique origin. In 1935, Robert Bloch – who was only 18 at the time! – wrote a story called “The Shambler from the Stars.” As you can probably guess from the title*, it was a pastiche of works by Lovecraft, who had already become a mentor to him. Lovecraft was impressed enough with the tale that he actually wrote a sequel, that being the tale we’re currently discussing, and dedicated it to Bloch. Bloch would eventually finish the “trilogy” in 1950 with his story “The Shadow from the Steeple.”

 

Lovecraft’s story involves a young writer, Robert Blake – almost definitely a stand-in for Bloch – who becomes obsessed with an old, strange church he can see from his window. A little discussion with the locals reveals that the church has a dark history, and has been the object of investigation before. Blake ignores their warnings and his better judgment, and decides to try and gain access to the church. From there, as you can imagine, things don’t go so well. The entire tale is genuinely engrossing, and it features some of the best moments of suspense in any fiction I’ve ever read.

*I much prefer this title to ANY of the ones used by August Derleth in his co-opting of Lovecraft’s name for the former’s “new” stories supposedly written from the latter’s notes and unfinished writing. Also, while I haven’t read those stories yet, something tells me both “Shambler” and “Shadow” – which I have read, and enjoyed – are far superior.

 

 

This is the penultimate volume of the set, and the last which deals directly with fiction only attributed to Lovecraft; the final volume is focused on his collaborations, revisions, and ghost writings for other authors. I feel now as I did after completing my first reading of “Haunter,” which is that literature was robbed of something irreplaceable in that Lovecraft never got to do such work with other protégés. Robert Bloch himself would go on to write Psycho, along with innumerable other works, and passed away in 1994 at the age of 77.

 

What Lovecraft would have produced if he had another thirty years granted him is a subject for another post, and is ground which has been trod by countless others. I can’t help thinking about when Stephen King was nearly killed in 1999, nearly twenty years ago now; would Lovecraft have been as prolific as Uncle Steve has been during his potential extra years? I get the feeling we would have more collaborative works to enjoy. I want you to imagine a world where young Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov could potentially have had direct interaction with Lovecraft, either as their friend and mentor, or even as a rival author.

 

In our world, and without a coveted Ur-Kindle to give us glimpses of stories from other timelines, this sadly remains the end of the fiction Lovecraft produced during his lifetime. As mentioned above, there is one more volume to consider, and one which I am particularly excited about. I am also happy to report I have begun the necessary readings for my analytical posts once this “Table of Contents” series wraps up next week. Perhaps, as Simon Pegg pointed out when David Bowie died, I should just be glad that in the 4-5 billion years the Earth has existed, I’m lucky enough to be alive in a time when Lovecraft’s works exits at all.