H. P. LOVECRAFT is one of the most influential science fiction authors of all time. Stephen King calls him “the 20th century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.” References to his works abound in pop culture. There’s even a satirical movement to elect one of his characters President of the United States.
H. P. Lovecraft died in poverty, unable to sell a story.
His death closed the book on a depressing life. In 1893, when Lovecraft was three, his father suffered a nervous breakdown, eventually dying in a mental institution five years later. His mother’s life would end in the same hospital in 1919.
Lovecraft in June 1934
Lovecraft suffered mental torture of his own, most notably when a nervous breakdown ended his high school education. Although he was a keen scholar who aspired to astronomy, he was rejected by Brown University. This devastated the young man. Many of his characters are students or professors at the fictional Miskatonic University, likely based on Brown.
Like other tortured artists—Vincent Van Gogh, for instance—Lovecraft channelled his mental anguish into the creative process. The results were twisted stories, perhaps too twisted for their time. His works festered in the pages of pulp magazines. They were never anthologized during his lifetime. Toward the end of his career, he turned to ghostwriting because he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—sell his own manuscripts. Impoverished, he died in 1937 from cancer of the small intestine. He kept a scientific journal of his illness until the end.
Lovecraft’s small cult following kept the author’s legend alive after his death. Over the years, his stories, essays and letters have been resurrected and collected. Now, his name is often mentioned in company with Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, Stephen King and other recognized horror and science fiction writers. The tentacles of his influence extend into in video games, music, film and literature.
Lovecraft does not rely on graphic descriptions or sudden shocks to create horror. He makes the skin crawl with subtleties and hints, with allusions to something darker and more dreadful than can be found between the pages of any book. His antiquated, almost ponderous writing style enhances the atmosphere by providing a sense of brooding and inevitability. It takes us, the readers, along at a sometimes uncomfortably slow pace. Lovecraft does not shove something in our faces to induce a scream. Rather, he slowly reveals it to us, unfolding corners, but never allowing a view of the whole. And, through it all, we are powerless to look away. He transfixes us.
Perhaps the most frightening thing about Lovecraft’s works is their unity. The setting is usually New England, which he dots with fictional locations. The monsters vary enough to be fresh but not enough to be unfamiliar. Most stories invoke a fictional handbook of black magic, such as the Necronomicon by Abdul Alhazred, the “mad Arab.” Lovecraft stretches our three-dimensional perception by referring to strange geometry that disobeys all natural laws—bizarre angles and prisms that provide gateways into other dimensions.
Lovecraft’s works are a logophile’s dream—or nightmare. His choice of obscure and often antiquated words only adds to the tension. Consulting a dictionary to decipher Lovecraft’s meaning only draws the reader deeper into the story. It’s like consulting a mathematical formula or a magic spell. To shun the dictionary will not leave one bewildered, however—quite the opposite. There is horror in the unknown, and so a sense of dread accompanies such words as “eldritch,” “antediluvian” and “palimpsest.”
Lovecraft is much like world-building fantasy authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien. Invented languages, a struggle of good against evil, and references to a history beyond the scope of the individual books are common themes. But Lovecraft takes those themes and twists them by inventing languages that transcend our human concept of syllables, creating worlds and creatures that obey bizarre geometry and extra senses, and shrouding them all in impending doom. As evil reigned in the past, so it will reign again. Fight as his heroes may, they can never triumph. They can only delay the inevitable and be forever haunted in the process—if they survive.
If you’re looking for some eerie entertainment this Halloween, pick up “The Shadow over Innsmouth” or “The Whisperer in Darkness.” You won’t be disappointed.