I envy my Science Fiction students, for they are about to encounter the one and only H. P. Lovecraft. Their homework for the weekend is to read the first three chapters of Lovecraft’s novella Herbert West – Reanimator.
There will never be another moment like this (I guess we could say that about a lot of things, of course). The same is true for young students who encounter Hemingway. Or Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” or Poe or the poem of Frost and Dickinson.
There is something about Lovecraft’s style, which is not easily digestible, that interests kids.
Here is a sample of Lovecraft’s prose (you be the judge on how easily digestible it is)
“The leather, undeteriorative, and almost indestructible quality was an inherent attribute of the things form of organization, and pertained to some paleogean cycle of invertebrate evolution utterly beyond our powers of specuatlion” – from At the Mountains of Madness.
But the thing about Lovecraft, and what makes him a hit with most kids, is that he tries to describe the undescribable. In all of his works, he uses the belief that “if you could have seen the monster, horror, scene, creature that I saw, you would be driven insane.” Lovecraft is a master of the power of suggestion. King has a famous analogy in his nonfiction analysis of the horror field Danse Macabre in which he tackles this subject.
Some authors want to throw the door open and show you the monster behind it.
However, most times the audience will laugh because it is totally unbelievable or fake. If it’s a film, the audience won’t buy the monster (as when Spielberg’s shark leaps onto the Orca and starts chomping away) because it looks ridiculous – or worse – they spot the zipper running up the monster suit (as in all of those old Godzilla movies I loved as a kid). Now King says he’d rather throw the door open wide – and risk the audience laughing – because while they might chuckle 99 out of 100 times, there is always that one time when they will be truly scared.
Other authors want to just open the door a crack and maybe let a tentacle creep out or maybe show show a gaping snout full of yellow teeth and a vicious growl.
Here most times the audience has to do the work themselves. What does the rest of the beast look like? I think the ultimate example is in Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs when agent Starling is going to interview Hannibal in the asylum. The warden hands her a picture of a nurse who was attacked by Hannibal when he faked a heart attack. The warden tells Starling that they were able to save one of her eyes and reconstruct her face; however, Hannibal did manage to rip out her tongue with his teeth and swallow it whole! Brilliant. I’ve been playing that scene over and over in my mind ever since I read that. How exactly did Hannibal do that? What does the poor victim look like? My mind is full of different versions. And that are all more horrific that way.
This too is what Spielberg does masterfully for most of Jaws. He knows he has one gaint and utterly fake looking shark. There’s no getting around that. So he uses the power of suggestion brilliantly to scare the crap out of the audience.
Then there are writers, like Lovecraft, who don’t even open the door. Instead they just describe the horrors that could be behind the door. Maybe the show it bulge horribly inward. Maybe there is a wretched stench drifting through the keyhole. Maybe there even is some sick looking slime pouring out from beneath the door. Maybe there is a sickening thud . . . thud . . . thud against it (think of Jacobs’s brilliant short story “The Monkey’s Paw” – another possible image I am still working over in my mind – ever since I saw a movie version of the film in sixth grade).
In Lovecraft’s case, his narrator has either just snuck up to the door and peaked through the keyhole and caught or a glimpe or he ran and just before the door caved in, he took a momentary glance behind him. It is that one little glimpse that has ruined his life and driven him mad and caused him to narrator (or write) the story that we are now reading.
It is Lovecraft’s power of suggestion that kids love. Sadly, for many it might be the first time since elementary school that they get to really let their imaginations run wild with possibilities.
Can’t wait to hear what they think of those first three chapters now.
3 comments:
Just be prepared to deal with any fallout from Lovecraft's racist comments. Remember, in the third chapter, he describes Buck "The Harlem Smoke" Robinson as "a loathsome, gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms which I could not help calling fore legs, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon." It's a miracle that Lovecraft didn't actually use the "N-word"...
Thanks. I warned them about Lovecraft's racism. I've read several critics that interpret much of his cthulu mythos in terms of racism. If you ever read his classic "The Rats in the Walls," he actually names the protagonist's cat "N*&^%%man."
In addition, Lovecraft may have actually owned a cat with that very name. His racism is far more prevalent in his letters than his fiction. His only saving grace may be that he never seemed to act on his racist views, treating those of other ethnic groups with respect and even marrying a Jewish woman.
Speaking of "The Rats in the Walls", did you happen to see Tim Uren perform it at the Bryant-Lake Bowl recently or last year at the Fringe Festival? He did a fantastic job, memorizing the entire story.
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