Bradbury Addendum
In the last issue of my ‘aster
I should have tidied up the Ray Bradbury article with some conclusive
statements. Here goes. His biographer, Sam Weller, had suggested that the
Lovecraft influence was gone by around the early forties. However, in the
latter half of the forties there was a flurry of references to Lovecraft and
his writing in several Bradbury short stories. In addition, one story,
“Jack-in-the-Box,” bears some provocative similarities with “The Outsider.” The
reasons for this can be guessed at. Bradbury was in obvious correspondence with
August Derleth, who was publishing Dark Carnival. Perhaps under
Derleth’s sway Bradbury renewed his enthusiasm for HPL, whose death had
prompted Derleth to found Arkham House. Or perhaps Bradbury was trying to
please Derleth. At any rate from around 1947, when “Jack-in-the-Box” appeared
in Dark Carnival, to1950, when Lovecraft was last mentioned in the short
story “The Exiles,” Bradbury was acknowledging HPL. The years of Lovecraft
interest or influence need not have filled the span, since they don’t
necessarily reflect when the works were written, but when they were
published.
In The Bradbury Chronicles,
Weller writes that Bradbury “does not read other science fiction and fantasy
writers,” then quotes him “‘I don’t want to inadvertently steal from them’” (p.
8). His recognition of this danger suggests he may have done this with
Lovecraft in the case of “Jack-in-the-Box.”
1
Several months after buying a DVD
player, I played my second pre-recorded DVD movie on it (the first was Les
Vampires). It was the rented Dagon (2001), a favorite of the
Burlesons. It included extras, such as a voiceover of director Stuart Gordon
and screenwriter Dennis Paoli discussing Lovecraft and other things as the
movie played. I learned that the late Spanish actor who portrayed the drunk
Ezequiel–Zadok Allen in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”–was considered in the
league of Laurence Olivier and was a Lovecraft fan who may have been lured to
the role because of the association; he and the director spent several hours
discussing HPL.
Another actor, it was also revealed,
that is a Lovecraft fan is the veteran genre star, Christopher Lee, whose roles
have included Dracula and Sauron, substantial parts in Sherlock Holmes and
James Bond movies, Star Wars, plus many horror and other genre works, as
well as big-budget films. He was in Horror Hotel, which I’ve heard has a
Lovecraft amibiance, and The Crimson Cult, who some say (but not I) is
based on “The Dreams in the Witch House.” (See imdb.com for a complete list of
his movies and shows, which number over 250!.) He owns two Lovecraft letters,
which he has promised to a university.
I watched the movie three times. The
first straight, and the second and third with commentary tracks, the second
just noted, and the third being by Stuart Gordon and main actor Ezra Godden, a
Brit who had nothing to say about HPL. However, it is the second that I’ll
address. Some of the commentary about Lovecraft is inaccurate–that he feared
fish and left a party when fish was served. Still, Gordon and Paoli have an
appreciation for the writing and make some generalizations that show their
knowledge. They make an observation that I hadn’t thought of; that the Gilman
House is a pun on the nature of the natives; yet they ignore that “Gilman” is
also the name of the protagonist in “The Dreams in the Witch House,” so I don’t
know what amount of credence to put there.1 However,
I think they overlooked a pun, especially considering that Dagon is a
European film. It could have concluded, not with the words “The End” (which it
doesn’t, anyway), but with “Fin,” which is “end” in Spanish and French.
As The Haunted Palace should
have been called The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, so Dagon should
have been called The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Paoli
maintained that some of the story, in its early part, was lifted out of
“Dagon”–the shipwreck (yacht against the reef), going ashore on an island (in
this case a town along the coast), and a temple with hieroglyphs (here, an
underwater structure with carvings, that I didn’t recognize on the first
viewing). This is rationalization. Based on such evidence, the story could with
equal logic have been called Moby Dick, which has a shipwreck, devil
worshipers, a monster with tentacles, etc.
Dagon is actually a
dramatization of “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” I’d call it good, and definitely
better than most horror movies. Other than the opening scene between the hero
Paul Marsh and his sweetie Bárbara, there is no normality; the rest of the
movie is at the service of the horror world portrayed.
I agree with the director that the
narrative comes closest to Lovecraft’s story when the protagonist is besieged
in his hotel room and tries to bolt the door by attaching a lock. Moreover, in
at least some of the movie the hero seems like a victim or toy of dark forces,
such as Lovecraft’s Innsmouth narrator. And much of the story, as in
“Innsmouth,” is a pursuit.
However, there are numerous and
obvious divergences. Whereas the Lovecraft story has the Innsmouthians the
result of breeding between humans and the Deep Ones, apparently the only one
who can beget in Dagon is the god himself (him is a key word),
hence the sacrifice of women (and shades of Cthulhu Sex). The character
of Dagon is a problem. Apparently he is not an alien but really a god who can
appear anywhere in the oceanic world. His appearance is heralded by ink in the
water, and when he makes a brief, late appearance he consists chiefly of a blur
of tentacles. Whether he is intelligent is never really addressed; he is
principally a boogie creature.
A characteristic of the half-humans
is nicely portrayed on screen–that they have an unblinking look. This adds to the sexiness of one of the half-humans, Uxía
Cambarro (Macarena Gómez) who is in love with Paul. Seen underwater in the
early and last part of the film, she has a remarkably eerie beauty. While
Paul’s early discovery that the beings don’t blink is presented through him
self-consciously and slowly winking one eye, then the other, I didn’t understand
this. It took the commentary to clue me in.
In the Lovecraft story the
Innsmouthians gradually turn into a kind of frog, and as a result hop, or
something along those lines. Gordon felt this would be inappropriate, and here
I agree. (I’m reminded that before Superman flew he locomoted by kangaroo hops,
which thankfully was replaced on-screen.) In Dagon they go the
tentacular route, though there is plenty of inconsistency. Uxía Cambarro has
tentacles for legs, but others seem to lack legs, or may have a Cthulhuoid
head. Gills are on the neck of one inhabitant, but Paul has them along his
abdomen. I’d have liked consistency.
Also, jarringly, there is a
mis-calculated fight scene where Bárbara kungs fu, which seems incongruous with
her character as represented, as well as rocking the Lovecraftian model.
The ending is sober. In the film’s
most excruciating scene the bound Zadok Allen character prays as his head is
skinned from the neck up. Then Bárbara is sacrificed, naked, to Dagon, first
being scarred with a knife by the half-human woman. In a scene rich with
suspense, as she is held on a derrick over a pit whose bottom is the sea, her
blood drips silently down into the water as bait for Dagon. However, when she
is wheeled (reeled?) back in and covered with Dagon’s ink (semen?), she looks a
bit silly. (It is curious how nudity–the nude scene with Bárbara–and horror–the
appearance of Dagon–share similarities. Suggestiveness is deliberate, and
over-exposure is avoided.. Showing the sex organs is typically taboo, so camera
shots are set up to omit or moderate them, while in horror the camera shouldn’t
show too much of the monster in order not to take away its power to scare, or
because the appearance may be too awful to bear.)
Though sparingly used, the music for
voices adds to the strangeness of the atmosphere, and as the story ends it
really heightens the sense of the alien as both Paul and Uxía Cambarro swim
into the entrance of the underwater world. A shortened version of the story’s concluding
sentence is used at the fadeout.
While the short story “Dagon” is at
best a marginal inspiration for the movie, a stronger case can be made for a
scene lifted from another short story, “Arthur Jermyn.” At the end of Dagon,
in a suicide attempt Paul pours a flammable liquid over himself and lights it,
while “Arthur Jermyn soaked himself in oil and set fire to his clothing one
night.”
The movie also shares similarities
with the aforementioned The Haunted Palace. This had mutants in it shambling
around instead of the amphi-people, and at the ending a woman is bound so that
an alien thing can mate with her, a scene (scripted by Charles Beaumont) less
true to the world of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward than to “The Shadow
Over Innsmouth”/Dagon.
2
Though its terror and sense of dread
dissipates half-way through, The Descent (2006) is a movie that reminded
me of another Lovecraft short story. In it some women friends go a-caving. I’ve
crawled through cave passages and found it frightening, for there is complete
darkness and a huge sense of claustrophobia. Therefore, I reacted personally as
the women went deeper into the cave, one getting stuck. Then there is evidence
that they are not alone, and one glimpses a white thing with the outline of a
human as it drinks. At this point the movie shifts gears as ruthless attacks
ensue, since the things are mindlessly voracious, and the movie becomes an
arcade game, with attack and fight back composing the rest of the story, as the
body count rises, while drama and suspense disappear.
The Lovecraft short that this most
closely compares with is “The Beast in the Cave,” though the story has only one
devolved human, whereas the beings of The Descent are like the Martenses
of “The Lurking Fear,” since in both instances there appear to be generations
of souls who have lived underground and adapted to it. As a result of the movie
I re-read the story written by a teenage Lovecraft. However, it may be a
coincidence that the Lovecraft story is in
Two non-movie things struck me about “The Beast in the Cave.” The first is that the narrator makes a point of not panicking upon finding himself lost in the cave system, but keeping an “unimpassioned demeanour.” This is in direct contrast to creating fear by portraying the frenzy of the principal character in a horror story.
Then there is the line, “Perhaps, I considered, the Almighty had chosen for me a swifter and more merciful death than that of hunger.” Even at the age of 14, when he wrote the work, Lovecraft was, I believe, a materialist and atheist. His creation of a character with different beliefs than he would be less pronounced when he returned to fiction in later years. That is, his narrators, one may gather, were scientists, skeptics, and non-believers, though background characters–as in “The Dreams in the Witch House” and “The Haunter of the Dark”–were persons of faith. However, the religious aspect of Lovecraft’s work should be further investigated, as it is in a thesis on Christianity I’ve mentioned in The Criticaster 35.And So to Read: 132 Hallowe’en
Fred: I had never before heard the
word “apahacking.” I presume that means writing for an apa. *** I’d be
interested in discovering the list of book titles that you discovered when
visiting your Fordham friend.
Ben: Re your “Other Imprints
of August Derleth” article: You state April Derleth continued Arkham House
after AD’s death. In the 1980's I attended a World Fantasy Con where Arkham
House received an award and the person who was there to take it was Walden
Derleth, the son; so I presumed that he was equally important in continuing
Arkham House. *** You don’t know the origin of the “Moran” in the publisher
name Mycroft and Moran, which shows you’re not a dedicated Sherlockian. Colonel
Moran was described by Holmes as “the second most dangerous man in
Ken: Here is another of many examples
where you make available source material–copies of original documents–that
researchers can use as ammunition for their writing.
Willum: Thanks for the rundown on the
2005 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, its program, and for sharing your
enthusiasm. Unlike you I’ve never attended. That it is held in
Kennett: Both the Scarecrow Festival
and Pumpkin Festival sound of great interest, and I regret that I may never get
to see either. *** Your reprint of an ad for Shadow of Death, an HPL
collection, mentions as one story “The Tomb That Came to Sarnath,” which sounds
inspired. *** I mentioned in an earlier issue that James Sallis (whose article
on HPL you reprinted) knows his Lovecraft, and I was impressed enough to read a
book he wrote about some of the top noir writers (Difficult Lives).
*** There’s a quote from Andrew Migliore that unlike HPL, Edgar Poe’s works get
“serious treatments and period pieces.” This overlooks that so many Poe
adaptations are schlock, sensationalistic, or low budget. *** The author of
“Church of Monsters” goes along well with the facts until she mistakes Machen,
et al. as fellow UAPA-ers.
John G.: You reveal that you don’t
like King’s introduction to the Michel Houellebecq essay because he got his
facts wrong. I, on the other hand, found the intro very readable and liked it
because of his appreciation for HPL. Your complaint that in the Houellebecq
text the quotes attributed to HPL lack source citations is valid; however it
must be a task to find the English-language original when working from a French
translation, and I can’t blame the translator for not doing it, though at worst
it makes the quotes suspect. Moreover, I’ve read that Houellebecq may have
played fast and loose with the quotes he attributes to HPL. I’m less
sympathetic with your antipathy about the inclusion of familiar Lovecraft
stories in the book by Houellebecq. Call it a marketing ploy. *** I think
you’re mistaken that Lovecraft acknowledged The Thing in the Woods as an
influence on “The Dunwich Horror.” Also, according to Stefan
Dziemianowicz the author of the book, “Harper Willaims,” was a woman
whose great claim to literary fame was writing the children’s classic, The
Velveteen Rabbit!
Gavin: Beyond the Wall of Sleep
sounds like a typical yahoo horror movie designed for a yahoo audience. Any
touch of HPL must be purely accidental. When all the characters in a movie are
repellant, you may start rooting for the monster in its murderous pursuits.
Also, I would recommend that your Kornflake Killer Konfidential page be
stapled so that it appears as the cover rather than at the end,
especially since in it you are introducing the review by your friend.
Scott: To keep your pages sturdily bound
you need a bigger stapler or print on both sides of a sheet (getting less text
from your zine is not an option).*** Although I also read Beyond Belief
(I have the book somewhere, and can vaguely recall the cover) when I was in
high school, I didn’t think a lot of “
John H.: In a reply you state, in
part, that “nothing crept in [HPL’s writing that] he didn’t intend.” I think
that you need to amplify on this, for in my opinion, any artist puts in
unconscious meanings that are not deliberately intended. It is no discredit to
Lovecraft or any artist that this is a truism, something inevitable that
contributes to greatness. *** As for you agreeing that popularity should not
dictate taste, and thereby determine what is literature (i.e., writing that is
substantive)–a critic worth his/her salt should look at what remains popular
through generations and accept its endurance. As a case in point, Edgar Rice
Burroughs remains popular, though not a critical success; and while I’m
indifferent to his writing, I think it is very near, or maybe is, canonical.
And why not? Pamela has been around for several centuries, and what a
awkward classic that is. *** I agree that answering letters does contribute to
brainstorming, or spontaneously taking thoughts to places they otherwise
wouldn’t go. I discover my own thinking in this way. *** You complain of Stephen
King’s mis-information in his introduction to the Houellebecq volume; King is
valuable for his insights and opinions and should be forgiven his factual
errors.
S.T.: You have elasticized the word
“supernatural” (as in your edited American Supernatural Fiction) to
include Bradbury’s “The Fog Horn.”
Next you see/ Mailing 133 (February 2006)
Fred: Re your reading Shadows Over
Baker Street: The parallel betwixt the worlds of Lovecraft and Doyle has
been acknowledged as far back as Edmund’s
Ben: You mention the word “spinster”
being used in 1805. In Dickens Bleak House (1853) the word denominates
an unmarried woman, namely the character Caddy Jellyby, who appears to be in
her twenties. *** Unlike you, who knew where every book you owned was located,
I know I don’t, if I ever did. With the number of books accumulated through the
years, it takes me many minutes at times to locate a title, and sometimes I
fail. *** You ask, who is China Miéville? In
jest? He has written Lovecraftian fiction, and his stories and novels have
received various award nominations, some of which he has won. *** You note
anti-Semitism in a Fitz James O’Brien story. Ironic, in that he was Irish and
there was a high tide of anti-Hibernicism at this period in the
Ken: You observe that a mathematician
has written a Lovecraft-like passage where he speculates that
Henrik: You mentioned you might
review Stephen King’s From a Buick Eight and identify its Lovecraft
connections. I hope you do. *** Is the photograph of the bow-tied man on your website Thomas Winther? I’ve been
told that the Danes are big readers, which makes it a shame that Lovecraft has
been so poorly represented in Danish translations, even in the 1990's. *** You
reprinted the
Don & Mollie: In your
“Cryptogram” why don’t you repeat the previous cryptogram along with the
answer?; that way, one sees both the problem and the solution. *** Re your
review about the sins of religion, I am not aware that people actually are
stoned to death in
A. Langley: You note that the reason
you pulled through your sepsis ordeal was due to your health--that you had
never smoked, drank but wine, had pets, was married, etc. That reminds me of a
Mark Twain anecdote. Twain noted that he along with others fell sick, and so
for a time he gave up smoking and drinking. As a result he was cured. However,
his companions didn’t have these vices to begin with, so they had nothing to
give up, and were sick much longer.
John G: The carving or sculpture of
Cthulhu on your cover looks India Indian, perhaps related to the elephant god
of good fortune, Ganesha. *** I agree with your analysis that (to paraphrase)
HPL did not exhaust his concepts, but opened up new veins that readers could
discover for themselves. *** Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth is a title
derived from a 1940s Lovecraft collection (The Weird Shadow Over Innsmouth),
which was strictly Lovecraft stories.
Scott: In discussing Benson and
David: For not the first time I’ve
thought about the peculiarity of reading just the footnotes without having the
stories that accompany them, like attempting to judge parents through their
orphans.
S.T.: Voltaire is at least in one
sense still a dicey subject–his anti-Semiticism. You plan on translating these
sentiments? It is notable that your interests include both he and Mencken,
quintessential disturbers of the peace. *** In your “witchcraft and unbelief”
article you state that during the early medieval period people believed witches
could cast spells, etc. as a result of folklore and paganism. This begs the
question of how the beliefs originated. I guess the real source is the fears
and hopes of the human imagination. Also, you explain that the majority of
witches were women because the gender was considered “morally and
intellectually weaker than men.” This cause-and-effect reasoning is highly
suspect–for example, why weren’t all women considered witches?–and
suggests that a man who was demonstrably morally and intellectually weaker than
other men would likely be tarred as a witch. Moreover, since this view of women
is still held by some, some of the some must retain this witch prejudice. I
hope you had the article vetted by an expert in this area. *** I wish you had
dug deeper and stressed the “unbelief” part of both the Voltaire and witchcraft
entries, rather than giving generic ones, especially for the latter.
“Imagination Runs Wild”
Early articles that mention HPL
interest me. Here is my summary and annotation of one I ran across in The
New Republic (17 Jan 1949, p. 15-18), “Imagination Runs Wild” by Richard B.
Gehman, previously an editor of the official weekly for the atom-bomb project.
It begins by noting the high
price ($60) paid for The Outsider and Others, which had sold for $5 some
ten years earlier. Then it goes on to report about the genres of science
fiction and fantasy, mentioning what must have been an unfamiliar term, “fanzines”
(in italics), and it notes Fantasy Commentator—where “fanzine”
may have first seen print—as “perhaps the best of the fanzines” (p. 16). In
them it states that one may find such a phrase as “Love that Lovecraft!” or
come across something about Bradbury. Of the few critical titles that deal with
the genre, Supernatural Horror in Literature is included. Among popular
“science-and-fantasy” writers are A. Merritt and Lord Dunsany, while Weird
Tales and Amazing Stories are referenced.
The HPL section begins “Howard Phelps
[sic] Lovecraft was the first notable modern practitioner of
science-and-fantasy in this country. A shy, sensitive recluse who lived alone
in an old dark house in Providence” (p. 17). Gehman refers to his
“tremendous influence” through “the Cthulhu Mythos, a series of legends
concerned with cosmology and prehistoric races,” a tidy and perceptive summary.
The article explains that August Derleth and Donald Wandrei started Arkham
House, and there is something on the activities of the former. Several genre
anthologies are listed, in which, coincidentally, a few have Lovecraft stories.
A search on Google for just “Library
of America” brings Lovecraft’s Tales up as the second entry. That’s
popularity.
Among the commentators on Tales is
Nick Mamatas, who questions that
the purpose of Library of America is canonization. Fair enough. (I’ll interject
that he makes some comments on HPL that don’t wash, as well as offering some
judgments masquerading as substance, but that’s another several paragraphs.)
However, he suggests that Lovecraft got canonized through the large publisher
Penguin, without realizing the irony, since he had described Library of America
as “a grab bag,” which is much truer for the titles that Penguin has published
through the years.
But enough of this prolegomenon. I
want to talk a very little about the text of LoA. I have shown in earlier
issues that S.T. allowed some Lovecraft typos in the Arkhams. Now he is on the
receiving end. If you thought LoA used these pristine texts, or that they were
without typos, think again.
This tale begins with my re-reading of
“Pickman’s Model.” I figured that I would select it from Tales. I was
pleasantly going along until my brow wrinkled, perhaps figuratively, at the
following, which I will join in mid- sentence: “... arches and wells leading
nowhere in this or that old place as it comes down–you should see one near
Henchman Street from the elevated last year” (p. 201). “You should see
one”? I checked my 1984 corrected Arkham House version, and it logically has
“you could see one.” Yet on page 822 (“Note on the Texts”) the Peter
Straub-edited volume states “these tales have been taken... from... The
Dunwich Horror and Others” (1984).
Why is there a variation from the
text? Maybe there was a bug in the software (or humanware) that transferred to
the print. Even more pungently, if it happened once, it may have occurred a
number of times. Surely this is not text to teach from, however respectable the
brand and its package.
Preface for an Alphabetical Subject Listing of News and
Websites
As a change I am putting in alphabetical
order brief information on subjects that deal with HPL; before, I followed the
subject sequence of the Library of Congress classification system, which
allowed some related subjects to be close to one another (as “Theater” and “Movies”), an
arrangement that sometimes made sense. However, this new arrangement is more
obvious and simple, though still somewhat arbitrary. Note that the heading, “Contemporaries”
is not in alphabetical order, since it does not deal directly with HPL.
Art
While this may be for Poe rather than
Lovecraft, I will note that the artist Archie Musick has a painting on exhibit
at the State Historical Society of Missouri called “The Haunted Palace,” with a
suitably fantastic atmosphere. (For something else about Poe, see “Nevermore,”
an online exhibition of his works).
Audio
Hear podcasts of a reading based on
the Lovecraft wikipedia article as well as of “The Nameless City.”
There is also an adaptation of “The Outsider” by Sound Stages. Find these by
searching “lovecraft” at podzinger.com.
Comics
In her comic book incarnation Xena,
the Warrior Princess, will be meeting something from the world of Lovecraft.
*** His work is to be given a modern day treatment in Haunt of Horror: H.P.
Lovecraft, from Marvel, under the MAX imprint.
Conferences
With lectures and films, a first
“Lovecraft in
Criticism, etc.
Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist
Monsters in American Pop Culture (Duke University Press, 2006) by Annalee Newitz discusses him, colonialism, and
The Birth of a Nation in a chapter on the undead. *** In his
review of stories by Conrad Aiken (The New Republic, 28 Nov 1960), John
Updike rather dismissively calls HPL a “spook-monger.” Funny, how often HPL is
disparaged by comparison with writers who inevitably fade from readers’
consciousness, while the Old Gentleman remains. Updike’s work, too, may one day
depend on the life-support of literature classes. *** Some unnamed person
refers to “the superlative and often-overlooked stories of a
Education
A forward-looking teacher? In The
Teacher of English, His Materials and Opportunities (A. Swallow, 1956),
James Edward Warren advises “I have often recommended Wodehouse, Haggard,
Lovecraft, Farnol and others not on required lists and have found them
excellent for certain students” (p. 89). *** School Library Journal (1
July 2006) recommends The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
(Penguin, 1999) for adult and high school readers.
Fans
A 2005 honors thesis from
Genealogy
I’ve reported in the past about a
distant relative, Frederick A. Lovecraft, who committed suicide in 1893. Here
is a bit more, though I have only been able to find just this sentence.
According to The Daily Review (October 28, 1893; Decatur, Illinois) “Mr.
Lovecraft had for some time been suffering from incipient paresis.” As I
reported in Critica’ 35, a Joshua Lovecraft was confined for the same
cause in the 1890’s. Here, then, along with Winfield, is possibly a third
Lovecraft to be afflicted in this decade. Despite coverage from other
newspapers, this is the first mention of
Also, in 1875 “Fred A. Lovecraft” was
a witness to a payment related to a theatrical performance. See volume 2, p.
285 of A History of the
(See under the heading “Name” for
more about this Lovecraft.)
Hallowe’en
The oldest “show cave” in the
Influence
Several reviews I’ve read of The
Ruins by Scott Smith suggest that there are Lovecraftian echoes; though the
idea of an evil plant growing in Mayan ruins seems more like another Smith,
Clark Ashton. Scott Smith wrote the book, A Simple Plan, on which the
movie of the same name was based, and was directed by Sam Raimi, whose The
Evil Dead has some Lovecraftian echoes. *** Secret agent Bob Howard is back
to deal with eldritch horrors in The Jennifer Morgue (Golden Gryphon
Press) by Charles (The Atrocity Archive) Stross (see Critica’
41). It seems likely that the villain with the last name of Billington is a
simple coincidence rather than an acknowledgment of The Lurker at the
Threshold. *** At the Molehills of Madness by Rhys Hughes is
available from Pendragon Press.
This should not be confused with the essay in The Cimmerian (2005), “At
the Mammaries of Madness” by Rick McCollum.
The September Rue Morgue
magazine has an article, “Lovecraft in Japanese Literature,” which is concerned
with Japanese fiction writers influenced by him. Several past issues (e.g.,
October 2005) have had articles on him. Perhaps it should be no surprise that
one of the editors has a Lovecraft tattoo.
Movies
While director Guillermo del Toro is
still trying to do an adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness, it
appears that his next film will be a Hellboy sequel. Furthermore,
according to the site “Comic Book Resources,” “del Toro makes a comparison
between comics fans and Lovecraft fans. Comics fans are upset at small things
that are changed in movies, but it's almost impossible to please Lovecraft
fans, they're ‘10 times worse.’” Among the director’s past movies with Lovecraft associations have
been Mimic (based on a short story by Donald A. Wollheim) and Hellboy.
*** See the trailer for The Eldritch Influence: The Life, Vision, and
Phenomenon of H.P. Lovecraft (2003 title from IMDB.com). Among the interviewees are Ramsey Campbell,
Neil Gaiman, S. T. Joshi, and Brian Lumley. *** H. P. Lovecraft’s Road to L
(whose original Italian title is Il Mistero di Lovecraft and translates
as The Mystery of Lovecraft) was nominated for (but lost) the Golden
Méliès film award given to the best European genre film. The ceremony was in
Music
A concert entitled “Echoes of the
Dreamtime” to be held in
Name
In 1902 “Lovecraft” appeared in
a translation of the poet Pindar. In the “Ninth Pythian Ode” a Centaur
states “Secret are wise Lovecraft's keys unto love's sanctities” (see
p. 332, The Universal Anthology: A Collection of the Best Literature,
Ancient, Mediæval and Modern, by Richard Garnett, Léon Vallée, Alois Brandl
(1902)). *** “The Love Craft (for Mother’s Day)” is a poem published in the Oakland
Tribune (13 May 1934). *** “Love Craft” is the moniker of a horse in a race
at Brooklyn’s
Politics
In talking about Islamist extremists
inciting the West to attack, a columnist for the “New York Post Online Edition”
(on 20 August, yet) warns them with the phrase, “Do not raise up what ye cannot
put down”; though the accurate quote (from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)
is “do not call up any that you can not put down."
Radio
“The Dunwich Horror,” “The
Wizard of Oz,” and “The Horla” are a few of the programs to hear at “Old Time
Horror Radio.”
“The Rats in the Walls”
In August as part of the Minnesota
Fringe Festival there was a one-man reading of the story at the
Science
On the back cover of Blue Planet
(Summer, 2006; published by the Ocean Conservancy) I was surprised and
gratified to find a quote by Lovecraft: “Ocean is more ancient than the
mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of time”; “Time” is mistakenly
not capitalized, and there is no attribution to the story, “The White Ship,”
but both lapses are minor-minor.
Theatre
“The Thing on the Doorstep,” “The
Colour Out of Space,” and an original piece inspired by HPL, “Strange Magicks,”
has been brought to the Open Circle Theater in
Toys
Game miniatures based on the
imagination of Lovecraft and others have been manufactured as Horrorclix by
WizKids.
Contemporaries
Here’s a question that might one day
appear in some genre Trivial Pursuit: What two major weird writers (both
admired by Lovecraft) died within twenty-four hours of one another within the
same year? The answer is: Robert E. Howard & M.R. James, 11 & 12 June,
1936. *** Speaking of James, audiobooks of his work (Ghost Stories of an
Antiquary) as well as that of Ambrose Bierce, Bram Stoker, and others are
available free for downloading from Librivox.
(And speaking of HPL, see the “Audio” and “Radio” sections above.) *** From the
Duluth (Minnesota) News Tribune site: “Mara Kirk Hart will read from her
new book, Lovecraft’s New York Circle: The Kalem Club 1924-1927,
Saturday, Sept. 16, at 1 p.m. at Barnes & Noble.” *** Though thoroughly
garbled, there is an online article in the Appleton Post-Crescent (14
April 1937) which I take to be about the visit of August Derleth and Donald
Wandrei to Alfred Galpin concerning the publication of a memorial volume to
HPL. Both Derleth and Wandrei were also guests of Maurice W. Moe. *** Blackwood
on Lovecraft (Murqui Press, 1999) has a bookseller’s price tag of $45.
According to the seller, it is a reprint of a letter (“2-5-1945”) from Algernon
Blackwood to a Mr. McElfresh, in which AB states HPL’s stories don’t scare, but
repulse. *** The same
catalog lists a reprint of a Lovecraft parody by Robert Bloch that originally
appeared in the April 1932 of The Quill, Bloch’s Lincoln High School
literary magazine. The cost for the signed item is $750. *** The Cordwainer
Smith Rediscovery Award was given to William Hope Hodgson at this year’s
Readercon. The award is for “a writer worthy of being rediscovered by today's
readers.” One of my favorite works of this author is The Ghost Pirates. In
its climax a ship raises itself out of the ocean with ghost pirates aboard.
This scene has been sort of filmed, uncredited, in the second part of The
Pirates of the Caribbean, subtitled Dead Man’s Chest.
Arthur Machen
In doing an online search for mention
of Lovecraft in books, the title The Heptameron: Tales and Novels of
Marguerite, Queen of
This has been the 50th (50th!) issue of The Criticaster
(Hallowe’en 2006, mailing 136) by Stephen R. (aka S., S.R., Steve, etc.)