Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown Page #5

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even though it's being printed on horror paper, it doesn't matter, there is a market there, there are readers

and there was a place for you to start

at the best it was virtually a roll-call of the great pulp fantasy writers

and much better than "pulp" implies

many masters of the imaginative fiction got there start in the pages of "Weir Tales"

H.P.Lovecraft was no different

Lovecraft regarded "Weird Tales" as his single market base

it was one magazine he was, well relatively proud to write for even though it has to be said

that he believed that the average Weir Tale stories possibly below average Weir Tale stories was not that great

it took a great deal of convincing from Sonia and other friends

but Lovecraft finally relented and sent in a selection of stories

"Weird Tales" bought all 5 submissions, thus began a lifelong relationship

on March 3rd, 1924, Lovecraft embarked on another relationship:

after an aggressive campaign from Sonia

Lovecraft finally asked for her hand in marriage

41 33

the bride was nearly 41, the groom was 33

his aunts were outraged by this

you know, they thought the girl that he married was completely beneath him

at huge risk to a sense of security

Lovecraft would leave Providence to live with his new wife in New York

for a virgin reclusivepuritan moral standard

marriage promised to be an interesting experience

sometimes I feel like that she just must have been something just short of a sane

because what she married, was a guy who refused to work,

except on the stories

this is the one area which I think that Lovecraft really failed as a human being

I think she acknowledged in her own memiors at some point that she felt like she could change him

she couldn't change him

between 1922 and 1924, Lovecraft's narrative aplord was on another upswing

this included the creation of three reoccurring elements

of Lovecraft's gestating mythology

Miskatonic University

the dark town of Arkham

and literature's most dreadedgrimoire

written by an alter ego from Lovecraft's childhood

one inspired by his reading of the "Arabian Nights"

the mad Abdul Alhazared

the Necronomicon has become this strange sort of combination of

urban legend and bad joke

first of all it existed in the mind of Lovecraft, and then other people used it

it was one of the easiest things"The Necronomicon of the mad Arab Alhazared"

"Yes, this is the book of all of the forbidden things"

the Necronomicon was a book that collected all manner of summoning spells

spells that would cause the return of the ancient creatures from unknown worlds and dimensions

well the Necronomicon is yet another of those Lovecraftian concepts with, you know

never meant to be fully bodied force

it's a series of references that began imply this much larger tome

with more terrible secrets and Lovecraft couldn't even hint at

so then other people would use it, you got Fritz Leiber, you got Bloch

you got Manly Wade Wellman, and August Derleth

all these other writers putting it into their stuff

so now it feels a little truer, like maybe it ought to exist

another story from this period that can be seen as one of Lovecraft's early best," The Rats in The Walls"

"Rats in The Walls was one of two stories that I read when I was a kid

my father bought me a book called "Great Tales of Terror And the Supernatural" and it had

all sorts of stories, two from Lovecraft: "Rats In The Walls" and "The Dunwich Horror"

and he read them aloud to me when I was a kid, it was mind boiling

a gentleman of the De La Poer family

returns to his ancestralestate in England

there he and his black cat, N*gger-man

are disturbed by verminousslitheringbehind the walls

Lovecraft was great at depicting the moment of this

convey by sound or by a fleeting shadow and it really put you there

and made you almost empathically experience the moment where you heard the noise behind the woodwork

more than a lot of his stories literally embodies that sense of "Deep Time "

in the sense of as De La Poer is trying to investigate the source of the

of the phenomenon in the house begins to go through this sub-basement down into this

vast subterranean caverns beneath the house

that exploration into the depth of the castle is simultaneously

an exploration into the depth of the past and the horrors that comes out of the history

I seemed to be looking down from an immense height

upon a twilit grotto, knee-deep with filth

where a white-bearded daemon swineherd drove about with his staff

aflock of fungous,flabby beasts

whose appearance filled me with unutterable loathing

Then, as the swineherd paused and nodded over his task

a mighty swarm of rats rained down on the stinking abyss

and fell to devouring beasts and man alike

it's one of the stories where Lovecraft is playing with the classical gothic tropes

you know you have the family with the hidden things

you have all of this sort of early 18th century gothic elements to the story

all of these strange stuff about the "Exhume Priory"

and this lost world under the cliff there

and these squealingwhite flabby beasts

and the people are - the characters in the stories being descendants from different lines

of the bad guys, that bred these things

and the things having evolved, what a brilliant brilliant work

it's really creepy stuff, it gets under your skin

but I think it's kindda obvious if you turned down the walls ofof any kind of civilized person

behind there something is really abominable works

"Rats" was snatched up by "Weird Tales" in 1924

the first year and a half of Lovecraft's marriage was like a tonic

it was grand, it was a new adventure for him

umhe also made lots of friends there too Frank Long, for example being one of his best friends

works however, even Lovecraft's drive to find it, was limited

I think A:
he didn't want a job

and B:
He knew that any employment he could find in the city of New York or elsewhere

would be really bruising for him

the longer Lovecraft stayed in New York, the worse his xenophobia became

almost as a retaliation against the immigrant outsiders

flourishing around him

the unrevealingof the grog, so to speak, happened you know because of financial reasons

Sonia lost her hat shop and eventually had to look for work in Cleveland

a job offer was agreed with an enthusiasm by Sonia and lothing from Lovecraft

there was too far from Providence

Brooklyn was unbearable, but at least it was just a train right away

by the end of 1924 Sonia had no choice but to leave for the mid-west

alone

Sonia would be back and forth to support her husband

but her influence over Lovecraft's mood was waning

his ridicule of the melting pot that was the New York city

reach manic even racist levels

I certainly hope to see promiscuous immigration permanently curtailed soon

heaven knows, enough harm has already been done by the admission of limitless

hordes of the ignorant superstitious and biologically injurious scum

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