Review
of Essential Solitude: The Letters of H.
P. Lovecraft and August Derleth
What follows are comments, inquiries, and identification of typos in
this fine two-volume set. Unless otherwise indicated, the letters addressed are
those written by Lovecraft. I assume that what I've identified as typos are the
fault of the editors, rather than HPL or Derleth; if made by the authors, the
typos would have been identified or silently corrected. (I am an expert on
typos-as a perusal of my fanzine text makes clear.)
p. 165 It would have helped to identify "the defunct S & B" as
Selwyn & Blount. *** p. 167 In November 1928 Lovecraft's mention of "Old
Adolphe de Castro" getting the Century Co. to publish his book proved true. It
was called Portrait of Ambrose Bierce
(1929). *** p. 173 His intention to write The
Dragnet about Derleth is cross referenced in a later letter about it being
in the appendix (p. 771), where the letter has no date nor indication that the
magazine it came from was The Dragnet;
it should have been bracketed as an editorial intrusion. *** p. 177 In the
endnote "since he confessed HPL had not even read 'The Black Bag'" there is no
indication of who "he" is.
p. 178 Of "The Unnamable" he states that Wright "wouldn't have accepted
if he'd suspected what it was all about." And what was it all about? One may
gather that HPL had stated this in the story, where Whispers (i.e., Weird Tales)
is removed from the stands due to complaints. *** p. 183 Lovecraft states in
1929 "After all, I am a pure realist
in my tastes the moment I turn aside from the domain of phantasy," an echo in
"Pickman's Model": "Pickman was in every sense-in conception and in execution-a
thorough, painstaking, and almost scientific realist." Italics are in both. *** p. 245 An omission of a word,
which I've bracketed ".to cover such things [as] 'A Descent into Egypt.'"
p. 248 Typo: "I hope to enclosed annotations will be of some use." ***
p. 250 & 251 The bracketed date on letter #154 is "3 March 1930," but on
#155 the date is "late February 1930." The letters should be reversed. *** p.
268 A typo, which I've corrected with a bracket: "You[r] rate of production."
*** p. 269 Mention of a 1930 letter to Lovecraft from J. O. Bailey and his 1947
Pilgrims through Space and Time
reminds me that (in the 1960's) it was one of the first studies I read that
alluded to HPL, if briefly. *** p. 271
Typo: ".a greater substratum of truth that [than] we are commonly inclined." ***
p. 280 Grammatical slip with misplaced comma before parenthesis, e.g., "'John
Silence', (my only Blackwood)." *** p. 292 Typo: "You[r] theory." *** p. 322
Typo: ".habits of the people, but [both] overt & concealed, but." *** p.
327 Typo: ".hope that your [sic] can get around."
p. 338 Typo: ". the whole ground surprise alive with scaly." "Surprise"?
*** p. 339 As I remarked in my 2000 review (#30 of The Criticaster) of The
Annotated Lovecraft, the scientist Alfred Wegener was not a geologist (as
he is mis-identified here in a note), but a meteorologist. *** p. 354 Typo: "I
haven't read the magazine version yet, though [through] dread of the
misprints." *** p. 375 Identification of Frank Belknap Long's short story "The
Brain-Eaters" (1932) reminds me of a 1958 movie with the same title, based
(uncredited) on Robert A. Heinlein's The
Puppet Masters. *** p. 384 Missing
word: ".which Bre'r Farnie rather absurdly on the ground." *** p. 445 The
letter numbering jumps from 247 to 249. Eventually 248 appears on p. 538,
though in the correct chronology. *** p. 458 Superfluous article: "I'll send it
around a for a long spell."
p. 464 Apparently the empty brackets followed by "ess" (i.e., ".with all
this [ ]ess.") signifies that part of
a word is indecipherable. *** p. 479 Typo in the endnote: "The Dream in the
Witch House." *** p. 486 Typo: ".a letter form [from] the amiable." *** p. 498
Hugh B. Cave has the same sentiment as E. Hoffman Price when it comes to
writing calculatingly for money, and HPL argues with him. I think that Cave was
the first Weird Tales graduate that I
read, circa 1958. It was a story in Boy's
Life that I wished had been far more Gothic than what it delivered. *** p.
502 Typo: ".I have a godly [goodly] supply." *** p. 532 The editors bracket the
date of the letter "[after 25 December 1932]," but a P.P.S. on the envelope has
Lovecraft saying, "Shall have two Christmas dinners-one with my aunt here this
afternoon, & one at Long's tomorrow."; so the letter was completed on 25
December (or possibly Christmas eve).
p. 535 Missing period: ".sort at Sonny's[.] I saw the old year out." On
the same page a typo: ".a craved [carved] ivory handle." *** p. 543 Two typos
in a Derleth letter: ".these to [two] items." and "pointofview." *** p. 547
Typo: ".magic all [h]is own." *** p. 550 Derleth writes (March 1933) of
Wandrei's unpublished novel (Invisible
Sun), referencing earlier comments about "the superficial and false cosmic
attitude of Don's group at St. Paul." Could this have been a model for the "the
more 'advanced' college set" in "The Thing on the Doorstep," Wandrei being
Edward Derby? Perhaps HPL was influenced by his reading of the Wandrei novel.
*** p. 550 Derleth letter typo?: ".it become necessary." *** p. 553 Typo:
".neither new now [nor] moral." *** p. 560 Typo: "Buy [By] this time."
p. 564 Typo: "I wish I now [know] how people." *** p. 575 Derleth speaks
of his short story, "The Shuttered House," which would appear in Weird Tales. An interesting pairing
would be with "The Shuttered Room." *** p. 587 Writing of a park, Lovecraft
observes "The squirrels here are extremely friendly." I think in Ron Goulart's
parody of HPL, "Ralph Wollstonecraft Hedge: A Memoir" the title character was
famously afraid of squirrels. *** p. 600 I don't know how likely the truth of
"the revival of Astounding Stories (as a largely weird magazine)." *** p. 602
Derleth is prescient in 1933, hoping "that one of the gang has sufficient
prestige to force a collection of your stories on to the market . I suspect I
shall be the one to do it." *** p. 608 Typo (the "of" should be omitted):
".curl up & die of deprived." *** p. 648 Typo in Derleth poem: ".the
bees/Sand [Sang] in the wild."
p. 652 passim. A Lovecraft postcard (#366) postmarked 4 August 1934 states
he is at Buttonwood. This is followed (#367) by a 5 August letter where HPL
talks about snake and snake-charming and is answer-based on internal
evidence-to a 19 July (#366) from Derleth. A 6 August (#368) from Derleth asks
if Lovecraft is "taking a second vacation?" which must be in response to the
postcard. Derleth mentions reading Out
Went the Taper. HPL alludes to this in #369, bracketed as "after 6 August."
Derleth's 8 August letter (#370) contains a response to the topic of snakes and
snake-charming. Conclusions: Lovecraft's postcards were not part of the
back-and-forth of correspondence, which is to be expected. Super-energetic
Derleth was probably more prompt of a letter-writer than Lovecraft and would
answer postcards. The shortest interval between correspondence (East Coast to
or from Midwest) was likely 3 days, with the assumption that for at least 24
hours a letter had to be in transit. Thus, a letter written and sent out on the
same day would probably require all of next day to travel, arriving in let's
say early the third day. For letter #369, probably the earliest it could have
been written is 8 August, so a bracketed note might state "8 August or later."
(Since the 1930's the interval between sending off and reception has not
improved.)
p. 657 Probably not an error, but Derleth
writes, "Which is ko with me." It may be that this reversal of "ok" was common,
but I've found no confirmation of this. *** p. 694 The endnote begins "William
L. Crawford (b. 1911)," but this date convention is for someone still living;
Crawford died in 1984. *** p. 703 Brackets are used for editorial comments, but
they are put in the letter's text (".dinosaur bone [a large deposit.]") where
they ought to have been parenthesis. The same type of error appears on p. 731.
*** p. 708 A sentence ends with the name Leonard Cline followed by a
superscript for an endnote that simply reads "unidentified." However, the
sentence has two thoughts and should have been at the beginning, after
"article": "The article on changing presentations of the spectral in fiction.".
p. 711 An endnote refers to Machen's "The Lost Child" as appearing in Weird Tales (October 1935), but in the
book's bibliography-which contains a select listing of stories from Weird Tales-the title of the story is
"The Lost Club." Independent verification supports the latter title. *** p. 729
The note "See letter 417" should have added "note 2," which explains the
similar contents of both letters. *** p.
760 Typo: ".a very decent quote [quota] of prestige."
p. 771 passim. The various documents in the "Appendix" have titles but
no context for where they originally appeared nor cross references to the
letters where they are mentioned, as in the aforementioned case of The Dragnet. *** p. 785 A grammatical
slip under the identification of Alfred Galpin: ". French scholar, composer,
and protégé, then longtime friend, of HPL." The word "then" is problematic, and
should be replaced by "and." *** p. 821 In the Weird Tales bibliography there's a typographical slip-up, where the
name of the author, Robert E. Howard, is beneath the title of his story rather
than across from it. *** p. 829 In the general bibliography under Lord
Dunsany's name the title Alexander and
Three Small Plays is repeated at the beginning and end of the list of his
productions. *** p. 835 Also in the general bibliography, the alphabetical list
of titles under Arthur Machen puts The
Three Imposters before Things Near
and Far.
The index has a bracketed ellipsis as the first entry after "Argus
bookshop." This could be an overlooked placeholder for the mention on page 458.
The index also omits a reference to William Crawford on p. 642, where he is
only called "Brother Bill." It lists the house of Selwyn & Blount as
appearing on pages 10 & 13, but it is not there.
Some concluding thoughts. Whereas Lovecraft would give pet or fanciful
names to various correspondents, he was always careful with Derleth, going no
further than addressing him as the respectful "A. W."
Derleth comes across as full of confidence and resistant to being
corrected. He is a fine example of Oscar Wilde's "I am not young enough to know
everything." Perhaps he is right in making literary judgments on the salability
of works submitted to him from Lovecraft's correspondents, but he has no
scruple of doubt in his pronouncements. He is certain when he should be
cautious. On the positive side, he needed that confidence and an incredible
industry to co-create Arkham House.
In some ways he seems puritanical and moralistic in a manner that HPL
was not, though accused of being. He was credulous of phenomena where Lovecraft
was not.
Both volumes have different covers, atmospheric and Lovecraftian, but
not fantastic nor macabre. I liked them. In a way they have the same tone as
Frank Utpatel's dust jacket for Collected
Poems (Arkham House, 1963).
Famous Monsters 28 (May 1964)
Other than "The Dunwich Horror" being
scheduled for production, there is little else in this issue Lovecraft related.
Animation
Watch Cthulhu juggle in this short
claymation. *** The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu treats the
Mythos as a children's story.
Art
Propnomicon
subtitles itself as "Celebrating the creation and collection of curious
devices, intriguing documents, and forbidden artifacts, with an emphasis on
items inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos." An issue I've
recently looked at features some papercraft of Lovecraft creations. *** Artist
Adam Byrne (The Strange Adventures of
H.P. Lovecraft) is interviewed by the Los
Angeles Times. *** Tor's dedication of December to
Cthulhu includes examples of Cthulhuoid art.
Comics
The 1965 movie Die, Monster, Die-based on "The Colour out of Space"-spun off a
1966 Dell comic of the same title (via Cinebeats). *** Reinhard Kleist's graphic novel Lovecraft (1994) won in 1996 the Max & Moritz Prize for the
best German-language comic. *** Artist H. R. Giger provides the introduction to
the graphic novel by Michael Zigerlig, H.P.
Lovecraft`s Call of Cthulhu (Transfuzion Publishing, 2010).
Criticism
Bruce Baugh interviews "Ken Hite on
Lovecraft and Everything."
EOD
David Drake is interviewed.
Japan
This article by Jason Thompson shows how the Cthulhu Mythos has left its
mark on Japanese manga, anime, pinball, and dating sim games.
Letters
Perhaps of marginal interest since the letters have been reprinted (Crypt of Cthulhu), but in an editorial
from Magazine of Horror (November
1963) Robert A.W. Lowndes tells of writing to HPL near the end of 1936 and
criticizing the fact that his lead characters were typically driven to mad
terror. The response was that this must be, that human beings were secondary to
the phenomena, so his people were deliberately almost stereotypes.
Library Collections
Kansas State University's Hale Library acquired in 2006 David J.
Williams III Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Collection, which has more
than 3,500 books and magazines. Williams most notably collected titles by and
about Lovecraft as well as those by August Derleth, Robert Howard, Clark Ashton
Smith, and Robert Bloch.
Magazines
Planet Lovecraft has changed
its title to Strange Aeons!
(including the exclamation point).
Music
Nile front man Karl Sanders stated "Lovecraft is very much a part of
this band, even from the very beginning on our first record." His favorite
story is "The Nameless City."
Podcasts
Download some of his stories at the "H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast."
Politics
Now available on a t-shirt is Lovecraft's quote about Republicans, "a
frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers" etc.
Popularity
HPL and his associates have a pronounced presence on Wikipedia. According to LibraryThing's list of the "Top 100
Most-Frequently Cited Books in the English Wikipedia," no. 9 is The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Critical
and Bibliographic History; no. 20 is The
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy Through 1968 (Volume 1); no. 72
is Sixty Years of Arkham House: A History
and Bibliography; no. 78 is Arkham
House Books: A Collector's Guide; and no. 96 is The Arkham House Companion: Fifty Years of Arkham House.
Radio
On the radio show Hour of the Wolf
host Jim Freund discusses with Ellen Datlow and Richard Bowes the book Lovecraft Unbound, along with other
subjects. In the most interesting section, the host mentioned receiving a call
from Willis Conover, which led to a meeting with Frank Belknap Long and Sonia
Greene. Too much of the Lovecraft discussion is a compound of ignorance,
inaccuracy, disrespect, and forced humor. *** The
Agony Column interviews S. T. *** Stephen Hogan played HPL as a narrator of three
(non-Lovecraft-penned) stories on Britain's Radio 4.
Talks
The Mohr Library (Johnston, RI) hosted events in honor of Poe, Lovecraft,
and Clifford M. Eddy, whose grandson discussed his own books as well as the
relationship between Eddy and HPL.
Television
He is the subject of a newscast.
Theatre
Hallowe'en in San Diego saw "Dreams in the Witch House" adapted by
Welton Jones III for DangerHouse Productions.
Influence
In the Hartford Courant Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz praised "the public library, where he
became a fanatical reader, especially of sci-fi tales, from X-Men comics to
works by Lovecraft, Tolkien and other fantasy and horror masters."
*** Stephen King's recent, mammoth novel Under the Dome has a reference to
"Great Cthulhu." *** In Conversations (University
Press of Mississippi, 1998), Richard Burgin interviews Jorge Luis Borges, who
speaks of an anthology, where there was "a very disagreeable and rather bogus
story by Lovecraft. Have you read Lovecraft?" Burgin's answer was no, so Borges
continued "Well, no reason why you should" (p. 40). He goes on to say "I don't
think anybody would think that Lovecraft wrote the finest story in the world,
if the phrase the finest story can have any meaning" (p. 41). The title of the
anthology was El Libro de los Autores
(1967), and of the six stories selected by Argentinean authors, M. Mujica Láinez
chose a translation of "The Dunwich Horror." *** In Fritz Leiber's "Diary in
the Snow" the writer narrator states: "I began to see myself crawling back in
defeat to the grinning city." Compare with the poet narrator of "He": "and
still refrained from going home to my people lest I seem to crawl back ignobly
in defeat."
HPL's Candor
How honest was HPL about himself in his letters? S.T. has observed that
he omitted any mention of his marriage to some correspondents. Nor was he
(understandably) forthcoming about the reason for an aunt's hospitalization.
Yet it appears that he has also contradicted himself. In Letters to Alfred Galpin HPL misleadingly says, "I left high school
certified in physics & chemistry" (29 August 1918; p. 39)-the inference
being that he graduated. Earlier he had stretched the truth further: "so many
things do interest me, & interest
me intensely, in science, history, philosophy, & literature; that I have
never actually desired to die, or entertained any suicidal designs, as might be
expected of one with so little kinship to the ordinary features of life" (27
May 1918; p. 18). In a 1934 letter to J. Vernon Shea he writes of an episode
from 1904: "It seemed like a damned futile business to keep on living. Why not
slough off consciousness altogether?" Quoting this in H.P. Lovecraft: A Life (Necronomicon Press, 1996) S.T. responds,
"Was Lovecraft actually contemplating suicide? It certainly seems so" (p. 60).
Ken: Having read a collection of Jean Ray stories in French, I've
aspired to translate them. The problem is (1) finding a publisher, and (2)
getting permission from the copyright holder. It is highly unlikely such will
come to pass. While I enjoy them for their weirdness, I identify several flaws
in Ray's storytelling. He likes to give his characters funny or outlandish
names, and likewise one never knows when he will descend into humor. Too often
there is more promise of something frightening than what eventuates, for
pertinent questions related to the supernatural go unanswered. *** The most
intriguing aspect of "Lovecraft in the 1930 Census" was the description of
"occupation: writer-poetry." Did HPL identify himself chiefly as a poet rather
than a fiction writer? I think of "His Own Most Fantastic Creation" where
Winfield Townley Scott emphasized Suzy Lovecraft's relentless perception of her
son as a poet. Also worthy of remark-he was one of seven people rooming at 10
Barnes, but going by the letters one thinks only of him and his aunt. I wonder
how he got on with the other boarders, and what they thought of him. We'll
never know, since their age means that probably all were deceased by the
1950's.
John N.: Thanks for the Famous
Monsters memories from your youth, with the "Ackolyte" pun worthy of FJA. FM #31 was also the first copy I bought
off a newsstand, previously only getting back issues. That anecdote of your
reaction to the burglar was funny, and understandable. *** The name of the
macabre character "Chicken Itza" appears to be a pun on the Yucatan
archaeological site of Chichen Itza, though I would have no idea the reason for
this. *** As for the first Lovecraft comic where Lovecraft is a credited
source, maybe that distinction goes to the 1966 Dell comic adaptation of Die, Monster, Die, based on "The Colour
out of Space," a fact repeated elsewhere in this issue. *** The comic book code
standards would make an interesting comparison with The Motion Picture
Production Code (cf. its "Methods of crime (e.g. safe-cracking, arson,
smuggling) were not to be explicitly presented" with "No comics shall
explicitly present the unique details and methods of a crime").
Henrik: A problem I find with Bloch's praiseworthy stories is his
fondness for punch lines that give a black-humored laugh rather than a frisson.
John H.: I suppose that "magic" had several functions in the fiction.
Its presence questioned underlying concepts of a comfortable reality; for if it
is real, humankind must be wrong about what constitutes the world of
experience. Magic also explains how alien entities, supernatural or
extraterrestrial entered this world. It provides atmosphere. Likewise, it is
such an established concept and so widely recognized that it helps invoke a
suspension of disbelief.
Fred (Dorothea): Unlike you I have seen a cow in Mumbai, and I was
impressed because it was standing woebegone (I supposed) on a traffic island
like some timid pedestrian; how representative this was of other bovine civic
presences, I cannot attest. And in the city of Agra (of Taj Mahal celebrity)
I've seen mahouted elephants mingling with cars as they walked in a stately way
round a traffic circle. *** I can think of two spots in India that would have
intrigued HPL. One is Sarnath, a deserted site of building ruins. The other is
the 18th-century Jaipur observatory, where structures are a
combination of astronomy and architecture in intriguing geometric shapes.
Leigh: Congratulations on receiving your degree, which I trust that you have
by this time. Also, I enjoyed watching you and the other discussants over the
internet on that TV show ("Monsters and Bloodsuckers"). *** Unfortunately, the
small photographic reproductions you supply are poor, and I cannot make out
much about them, despite the captions. *** Thanks for the alert about Scribd; I
note your own article there. *** The use of names in HPL certainly lent an
exotic distinctiveness. Think of names in two categories-those that were names
already established and actually meant something to the reader, adding exotic
color. Then there were the Lovecraft-originated names (Cthulhu, et al.) that
could suggest the exotic and forbidden through their context. The first time I
heard of one was via "The Rats in the Walls," with the line "those grinning
caverns of earth's centre where Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls
blindly in the darkness to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players."
Just before this there was a mention of "a winged Egyptian god." The result was
a hybridization of mythologies, the Egyptian giving credence to the made up,
which suggests a real infernality, with Satan replaced by a monstrosity that
intensifies the irrational. *** In contrast to you, I feel that the narrating
of a story so that it can be interpreted as either real or a dream makes it
more interesting and requires more skill and sophistication on the part of the
artist. I would find fault were a story to end unambiguously as "it was only a dream." True, a variation of this
can be powerful, as when the story is shown to be concocted or perceived by a
madman (say, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari),
for the mad can be said to be captured by their own dreams.
Dan O'Bannon
This screenwriter has died. His most immediate associations with
Lovecraft was through his script of Alien;
and he brought in artist H.R. Giger, who also has Lovecraft associations. He
was also the director of one of the most faithful Lovecraft adaptations, The Resurrected (i.e., The Case of Charles Dexter Ward).
The 1920's
The following are gleaned from
America in the Twenties by Geoffrey Perrett (Simon and Schuster, 1982). "I
was able to carry very few things in my Spirit
of St. Louis but I took special care not to forget my Waterman pen"-from an
ad quoting Charles Lindbergh (p. 283) *** Though I can't find the
documentation, I've read that HPL was known for overwhelming his coffee with
sugar. This might not be quite so unusual. "Sugar had traditionally been a
luxury. Now everyone ate it; on average, 115 pounds a year-three times what
their grandparents had consumed (p. 433). *** Years ago I observed the
incongruity of people tippling in "Pickman's Model" (published 1927), since it
was the decade of Prohibition ("Let's have a drink before we get any deeper"
says Thurber). According to Perrett (p. 176), "During the Twenties there were
places where Prohibition did not even exist. In Harlem, in Boston, in San
Francisco, throughout Rhode Island, the Volstead Act was a joke and the
Eighteenth Amendment had been repealed." If HPL (a "dry") was not acknowledging
this fact, maybe the Boston club of the tale was serving stockpiled booze, or
possibly drinking was legal in private clubs.
I was reminded of some of Lovecraft's views from the comment about "the
crisis of belief that colored the entire life of the Twenties," this being
"large numbers of educated people were now ready to accept what only a handful
of advanced thinkers had formerly countenanced-that all belief is rooted in a
desire to believe, not in nature; that all ethical systems are based on custom
and imagination, not on divine sanction" (p. 147). *** Somewhere in his letters
HPL reflects this view of the future: "Serious journal were meanwhile filled
with articles on the inevitability of another war in Europe and the absolute
certainty of eventual war with Japan" (p. 183).
Various authors on Lovecraft have generally bemoaned that he died too
soon, at 46. Yet did he? The average life expectancy for a white male born in
1890, in the U.S., was 42.5 years (had he been born in 1900 it would have been
48). Therefore, he actually lived longer than the average. Also, despite the
affectation in his referring to himself as an old man, in a way he was correct,
looked at from a relative life span. Even taking into account that Lovecraft
was not among the working class-who had a shorter life span-it still may be
that he was average. (Life expectancy data is from Infoplease, and elsewhere verified.)
Frequent Words in "The Call of Cthulhu" and
"The Dunwich Horror"
"Wordcounter ranks the most frequently used words
in any given body of text" (excluding articles and prepositions). I have used
this application for "The Call of Cthulhu." Here are the first 25 results, the
number following the word indicating its frequency: dream-45; one-36; men-34;
cult-32; professor-32; old-29; great-29; thing-29; Johansen-27; uncle-25;
Wilcox-24; man-24; Legrasse-23; Cthulhu-23; strange-22; told-21; found-21;
very-20; time-20; city-19; stone-18; earth-18; come-18; said-17; came-17
For "The Dunwich Horror": Whateley-90; one-73; hill-56; seem-52;
Armitage-51; old-50; Wilbur-48; thing-42; Dunwich-37; came-37; great-32;
time-32; did-30; know-30; men-28; come-28; though-28; glen-28; o-28; dr-27;
down-27; say-27; place-27; horror-26; through-26
This tool could lead to all sorts of interesting analysis of HPL. For
example, the frequency of the word "dream" in "Cthulhu" establishes the
presence and the importance of this theme. Is the story a dream narrative
rather than an external report, and does it bear a close kinship with The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, etc.?
Writers born in 1910 with HPL connections were John W. Campbell, (8
June), Hugh B. Cave (11 July), and Fritz Leiber (24 December).
Hallowe'en Not in a Suburb
At the librarian conference I attend in Monterey, California one invited
speaker is a former member of the EOD. Since the conference ends on the day
before the World Fantasy Convention, and is in San Jose, I have decided to be
there.
I learn a public bus goes to San Jose for $12. This beats the shuttle
that charges $35 to take me to the San Jose airport, where I will need to get a
taxi to downtown. I carry my luggage several block to the bus stop, the bus
arrives ahead of time, and I board. The trip takes me on a road I've never been
and I watch with pleasure new scenery. I see a blimp or dirigible-there is
surely a difference-with the boast, MetLife. I never see that in Missouri, so
it must be endemic to California.
The trip is a little shy of 2 hours. Near noon I unboard the bus a block
from the hotel. At first I have trouble finding it. I ask. In the distance I
see a sign, and when I come close I discover its entrance requires a guest card.
I walk, hunting for a public way in. This may be obvious, but not if you've
never visited a locale. I find another-not the main, it turns out-but this one
is open. To my pleasure, the room is ready for me. I go up, put myself in
order, and go to registration.
There I receive program literature, about 3 pieces. Impressive and
ponderous, also comes a cloth sack bearing the WFC logo and filled with books.
It is heavy reading. I heroically carry it to my room. Later I weigh it on a
scale and find that it is 20 pounds. I cannot take this to the plane. My
luggage is small, and could burst under such a strain, even were it able to
contain the books. I sort them, keeping a few to give away: a Ramsey Campbell,
a Leigh Brackett, an audio book titled Tender
Morsels; this goes to my library, which collects children and young adult
literature. I later add a science fiction novel by one of the speakers. The
other 19 pounds I will loose on Saturday.
The illustration on the program book is a pleasure, and I'm sorry that
no t-shirt is sold with that depiction. However, I have brought appropriate
t-shirts to wear, one with "Halloween" on it, another with the portrait of Poe
along with quotes from his poems.
I will go to wall-to-wall panel discussions in the days ahead. Since the
first deals with Poe, I am warm about it. But it is several hours ahead. I go
out walking to get an idea of the area. It's a large, sunny, and summery city,
its atmosphere unlike the dull fall weather back home. Yet the city lacks a historic
ambiance, in contrast with Monterey.
I attend the Poe panel, "Poe's Influence." As will be with all the
panels, the people on it prove intelligent and glibly use that intelligence.
However, I will seldom recall what was said on any panel, the worse for me,
perhaps. I go to the opening ceremonies with its ritual of introductions. The
guests of honor provide small, pro forma speeches. Next I attend a reading by
Donald Sidney-Fryer. Sitting on one side of the room I recognize S.T. and Wilum
on the other. The poet reads his own and Clark Ashton Smith's poetry. I am
indifferent to it. A few nights before I had seen and liked very much the movie
Bright Star, about the romance
betwixt John Keats and Fanny Brawne. The reciting of Keats' poems reminded me
how much I enjoyed his work. That is fresh in my mind when I hear the Smith
work. Other than his precocity, how could he have earned the soubriquet of
"Keats of the Pacific"?
I stay for most of the reading, leaving a little early to dine before
the 8 p.m. panel about "The Google Books Settlement." This panel has 5 angry
authors, one falling into obscenity. They savage the settlement, finding that
their works are taken out of their control, reprinted without their permission
in digital format by Google. One panelist later acknowledges that this benefits
the public, and only some authors lose. Maybe they do, but it is hard to be
sensitive to them, for I am the public. An author comments about the mainstream
disdaining genre fiction while at the same time it gives awards to books about
(sarcastically) divorce among Minnesotan academics. I have before heard this
attitude from genre authors. Yet how happily would they surrender to transports
of joy should the mainstream award them? Lurking sour grapes, I think.
The last event for the evening is a poetry reading by a number of
published poets, maybe eight. Poe is the inspiration, but the recitations go
beyond his subject matter. Sometime while they are speaking I suddenly recall
the Poe parody I had written decades before. It was published in an early 'aster.
Friday. I go to as many panels as I can fit in, only taking time off to
eat. Most of the participants I have not heard of. My knowledge of the genre is
slight after the 1970's. One panel is "Canonical Fantasy - Genre Fiction and
The Library of America." First understand that Library of America is a triumph
of marketing over substance. Many people and media are convinced it is the
authoritative definer of what is literature. I don't. The text is corrupt, as
witness the Lovecraft volume. This is my preceding editorial.
On the panel Peter Straub talks about his tribulations in putting
together LoA's American Fantastic Tales.
He had a lot of unwanted help from administration, so he was unable to get all
the writers he wanted, nor particular stories from writers that were included,
and some writers were pushed on him. He
compromises. (I think of this collaborative editing process as a bloodless counterpart
to Julius Caesar: "ANTONY: These
many, then, shall die; their names are prick'd. OCTAVIUS: Your brother too must
die; consent you, Lepidus? LEPIDUS: I do consent-- OCTAVIUS: Prick him down,
Antony. LEPIDUS: Upon condition Publius shall not live, Who is your sister's
son, Mark Antony. ANTONY: He shall not live.")
For LoA inclusion S.T. (on the panel) says he would nominate Smith's
poetry (with perhaps a selection of his short stories) and the work of Fritz
Leiber, though he had doubts about the ready acceptance of either. (Listen to
this panel from the Agony Column at
tinyurl.com/ylesgr7; AC has other discussions.)
During the day I visit the booksellers' room. I enjoy looking at the
pulps available and the books related to HPL and the earlier eras. I also learn
what is being published in the field for contemporary writers. I see The Outsider and Others advertised as
having Lovecraft's autograph. ? I turn over the pages. The bookseller knows
what I'm thinking and enlightens me. The autograph is torn from a book by a
Latin author in his library. HPL had
practiced his name several times in the volume, which had been in such dire
shape someone felt it alright to rip it asunder for the signatures.
The panel "Overlooked Early Writers of the Supernatural" has some
obscure but familiar names, but also authors totally unknown to me. Of the
former I think one was James Branch Cabell, whose name also crashed another
panel. My memory of this and other events is so slight that when weeks later I
listened to a webcast of one discussion it was mostly over before I could be
convinced that I heard it in real time. Where do all these facts go? As I go
from panel to panel, I become aware that Poe is not in much evidence, even
though he is the chosen theme of the con.
I go to eat, and return. The single event of the evening is an autograph
session. In great wallflower apprehension I force myself to enter the room and
walk by every row of tables. There are members of the EOD among the authors. It
is a fearful experience, and after a few minutes am relieved to be gone.
Outside the room hors d'oeuvres and refreshments are available. I pass them.
Saturday morning I return the books. There are tables for a place to
leave them. I suppose one reason I choose this uninhabited time is not to be
seen by the authors of the rejected volumes. How would you feel if people will
not accept your books even if they are free? Yesterday on a nearby table for
announcements I had discovered an invite to a Hippocampus Press party for
Saturday at 10 p.m. Why not?
Following the pattern of yesterday I attend the discussions. They feed
the mind. At the end of the talks time is set aside for audience questions and
comments. Conventionally, people raise their hand for questions. One person,
with a nod toward the unkempt, doesn't follow this convention. In several of
the meetings he either bursts in or hijacks the talk, turning it into a
somewhat personal conversation. The meetings are well-attended, with perhaps an
audience average of 40. In the Popular Culture meetings attendance had been
much lower, say 8 as an average. However, there were many more simultaneous
tracks. At World Fantasy the choice is between one of two panels or some
readings.
The elevators here are quick. I'm on the 2nd floor and wait to catch one
to go up to my room. The first car to open is going down. Then the second one
comes and opens, and it is going down. Then the third one, and it is headed
down. Is the hotel saving money by turning off the power and letting all the
elevators go down?
Several moderators suggest that conversations between speakers and
audience may be pursued afterward at the bar. The phrase "at the bar" is a kind
of secret handshake, like mention of HPL. "At the bar" conveys conviviality,
let-the-good-times-roll, sophistication, a real hard-drinking, man's man writer
and brotherhood-of-the-bottle. (The anthology Muse in the Bottle: Great Writers on the Joy of Drinking snares
HPL.) As for HPL as a mark of someone in the know-his name would popup here and
there, but as with Poe there was too little about him at the con, for my taste.
The panel "What We Read Just for Fun" discloses the preferences of the
participants. Of them, only guest of honor Zoran Zivković mentions writers
I identify with, long accepted mainstreamers. I reflect that I spend my fictive
or poetic reading on "high" culture chiefly-the older canonicals taught in
colleges-and older "low" culture, such as Lovecraft (and his kith) and Raymond
Chandler. Both writings have their stigmas. The former, for being dead, white
males, the latter for being escapist and not "real" literature.
Another Saturday panel: "What Makes a Good Monster." During the talk the
question arises, need a monster be evil? Nobody says it, but an obvious example
is from "The Outsider."
A reading of "The Raven" has three authors, each one reciting the Poe
poem from start to end. While I do not wish the poem longer, I enjoy the
repetitions in different voices. In the evening "Publishing and Bookselling in
10 years" features booksellers, none especially optimistic about the future of
independent bookstores, in effect bullied and undersold by the chains,
including non-booksellers (e.g., Wal-Mart).
I gather my intestinal fortitude for the 10 p.m. shindig. I had recently
sent a check to Hippocampus Press for the Lovecraft/Howard letters and I figure
I might get a little return on my investment.
I predict I will show up for a few minutes, be quickly enough
discomfited that I will then leave. I go in and find an empty seat. I am near
where drinks are served and a man asks me if I wish something to drink. I say
no. I am too tense to drink or eat. I soon observe the room. At various times I
see S.T. and Wilum, and identify through name tags Scott and Derrick. I don't
speak to them. They don't speak to me.
A woman sits down beside me. She will be the only person I converse with
during the con. She asks me if I write, and I tell her. I find out that she is
working on a science fiction novel. (Days later I will look her up online and
find she has published some stories.) Other topics develop. A man comes over,
who I later learn is hosting the party. He describes to the woman his science
fiction novel in progress and the problem of describing an overpopulated earth
while a ship fleeing it worries about under population aboard. He leaves, and
she leaves. Pizza has arrived, and the place has many people, some standing out
in the hall. I have been here over an hour, and I depart.
Sunday is the last day. "Bad Food, Bad Clothes, and Bad Breath" talk
about discomforts of the pre-industrial age. I am surprised to hear that hunter
societies, without any fixed location, were superior so far that health is
concerned; people that stayed in one spot were subject to lack of hygiene and to
diseases that roving hunters escaped.
I arrive early for the awards banquet in order to find a seat. But there
is nary anybody in the vast hall. I could have dawdled. The meal is good, if
overcharged. After the dessert some man comes in, sits at my table, scoops up
an abandoned dessert. He looks for a spoon, sees mine, takes it and asks if it
is clean. I say "yeah." Before the awards there is introductory comments.
Groups representing various interests are asked to stand. I reluctantly get up
when fans and readers are called on. I quickly glance round. Maybe a mere
one-fifth have stood. One lifetime recipient is not there; the con's change of
dates has caused her to miss it due to a conflict.
A final session, "Awards Postmortem," brings in a number of fans. The
award judges describe what they face in their responsibilities, reading
beaucoup books, and the boxes that arrived. Then it is over, and I am glad to
be away from the crowd. To paraphrase, their presence did not supply me
company, nor was I allowed solitude. I escape, out of the hotel, to tour the
nearby San Jose University. I feel the melancholy that comes with the end of
any conference and all the potentials that have not been realized ("the last
protest against a destiny that might have made them happy-and has
not"-Saki). Returning to the hotel, I
walk the floor where the con has been. A few dismantled fragments remain of the
dying past.
This should be my last con. Despite intellectual pleasures, the
emotional cost is too high. Fortunately, I'm a minority in outlook.
Thanks
for reading the 63rd issue of The
Criticaster (January 2010, mailing 149) by StephenWalker. Eventually
published on the Net as The Limbonaut
(no 34).