Two Post-humorous Novellas by H.P. Lovecraft

 

INTRODUCTION

I decided that, due to the different nature of this review, I would alter this week’s format. I decided to cover my most hated of my favorite authors, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. While famous in the weird fiction community, he could be called a socially awkward xenophobe with too much bigotry to count, but he still wrote moderately good existential horror that inspired many works. This week we will cover his four novellas/short novels.

Because of this decision, I will have to divide the parts up based on the works themselves as I am not really buying jumping across them, and of course, you would struggle to keep track of which one I am talking about. I always care about my readers' sensibilities.

Lovecraft was mostly a writer of short fiction, but he did write four stories long enough to be considered novellas. I will break this into two halves in order to digest it better and make it easier for me. Lovecraft had two of these works set aside due to his dissatisfaction with them, and personally, I find that he may of had a good reason to. While I cover these two this week, I will cover the two published during his lifetime next week. Now, let us go and see what these works have in store for us.

THE DREAMQUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH

“The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath” is the first novella Lovecraft wrote, believed to have been written around 1927, but Lovecraft declined any attempt to publish it, and it was not until around five years after his death, in 1943 did it get published.

The story details Randolph Carter, a quiet, introspective, and bookish man who had previously appeared in several other stories as he sets out across the “dreamworld,” a bizarre cross between the shared dreams of reality and an alternate dimension, in search of Unknown Kadath, a mountain palace where the “gods of earth” dwell. Carter is an experienced dreamer, someone who can move into the deeper levels of the dreamworld, yet he is stumped after he dreams of a beautiful sunset city. After praying to the gods, the vision disappears, so Carter decides to travel to Unknown Kadath to get answers, even though nobody in the dreamlands knows where it is.

Frankly, this book is a bit of a rollercoaster ride. The imagery, like classic Lovecraft, is lush and bizarre, yet opaque and undescriptive. It is a fantasy story with often surreal beings appearing and interacting with Carter, with very few of them getting a proper introduction and a few require you to be familiar with his work.

Unfortunately, the plot seems to go all over the place and it is really more out of luck and allies that gets Carter where he needs to be, and the meandering story with no chapter breaks makes it feel like it goes on forever. I feel this is probably a mediocre story, and it constantly features call-backs to other works. Essentially, it was badly paced, with no real drive and a lack of objectives beyond the overarching quest.

I like Carter, who is intelligent and knowledgeable, but I feel he suffers from being a mostly inactive protagonist. He has the know-how and the connections to go places, but when faced with threats such as the men of Leng, the moon-beasts, or the High Priest Not to Be Described, he really doesn’t have any way to fight back against threats.

Honestly, this book is really only for dedicated fans of Lovecraft, and this is more for the world building and descriptions rather than any entertainment value. Most of all, I feel it would be a mistake for this to be your first Lovecraft story.

THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD

The next work is Lovecraft’s second novella, and like the prior one, Lovecraft abandoned it and it was not published in his lifetime. This work, Lovecraft’s longest, addresses the recurring themes of ancestral taint and the dark past of New England found throughout his fiction.

The narrative first describes the mysterious disappearance of Charles Dexter Ward, a bookish young man with an interest in the occult and antiquity after being confined upon the advice of several alienists (an old term for psychologists who specialized in deviant behavior,) due to his aberrant behavior. The narration follows a family friend named Dr. Willet as he investigates Ward’s bizarre behavior which began with his fascination with Joseph Curwen, an ancestor of Ward who dealt in the supernatural and was hated as one who dealt with the devil, and Willet’s ultimate confrontation with the evil that surrounds Ward.

Honestly, this book is better than "Dreamquest," and is a good story, yet it tends to drag on far too long. Multiple plot reveals become obvious, yet Willet takes forever to discover. (The plot is a bit obvious and cliché to modern readers, I think.) Ultimately, I have to admit though that is due to us knowing he is in a supernatural horror story, so I can’t get too annoyed (yes I can.)

This book is relatively good if one is interested in Lovecraft, though it does drag on a bit, so I can only say that you should expect a slow burner with mostly a mystery style structure, with little action. This book is paced much better than “Dreamquest,” but that isn’t saying much. The book is interesting for those who like Lovecraft’s style, but can be off-putting to casual readers who expect a more tense or event-focused.

Thank you for reading, and I promise that the special review next week will be better, where we will be moving onto the much more famous (and better) “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “At the Mountains of Madness.”