Acolytes of Cthulhu

by Robert M. Price

  Similarly, the lover of what is despised by the run of lesser mortals must think twice before seeking respectability among the mundanes for what one loves. Some Lovecraftians are urgent that Lovecraft gain the same anesthetic acceptability among mousy schoolmarms and blockheaded academics that has sunk Poe into the soporific sea. One wonders if their goal can be to return to mundane existence and yet not have to leave Lovecraft behind. But this is all misguided: if one must leave Shangri-La behind, don’t drag HPL kicking and screaming through the enchanted portal with you, for Yog’s sake!

  We may be tempted likewise to defend Lovecraft against those who can never appreciate him (like the unregenerate mundane Wilson) by using the favorite trick of the freshman Anthropology major who embraces the ways of alien cultures only to gain a strategic position from which to take pot-shots at his own. In the case contemplated here, we must think of the intimidated Lovecraft fan who counters the criticism of the soulless mundane that Lovecraft must not be worth much if windbags like Wilson don’t like him. (This is like Lucy telling Schroeder that Beethoven can’t be so great or he’d be featured on bubblegum cards.) What is the response? The Lovecraftian apologist may reply that Lovecraft is more highly esteemed in Latin America and Europe, especially in France. But then, come to think of it, so is Jerry Lewis.

  The possibility of imitation proves, as it were, that every idiosyncrasy is subject to generalization. Stylistic singularity is not the numerical identity of an individual but the specific identity of a type-a type that may lack antecedents but that is subject to an infinite number of subsequent applications. To describe a singularity is in a way to abolish it by multiplying it.

  Gerard Genette, Fiction and Diction, 1993

  “I am His Messenger, “the daemon said

  As in contempt he struck his Master’s head.

  H. P. Lovecraft, “Azathoth,” Fungi from Yuggoth XXII

  Perhaps the greatest black mark against Lovecraft’s cults, Cthulhu’s acolytes, is that they try too hard (or is it not hard enough?) to follow the Old Gent in his writing. Their many pastiches smell like the seafood Lovecraft himself could not stand. So great is their enthusiasm, that, granted, many go off half-cocked to the fight. But have a little patience. Consider it a learning exercise. In fact, in the ancient Hellenistic world, it was a school exercise. Students would prove their understanding of Socrates, Diogenes, whoever, by composing anecdotes and sayings summing up what the great man would have said. That’s what pasticheurs are doing, and many of them are cutting their teeth doing it. They may one day go on, like Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, and Robert Bloch, to discover their own style.

  But it’s also entirely possible that the result may be a mature Lovecraft pasticheur, someone who will actually carry on the old legacy. Perhaps like the Theosophists ready to anoint Krishnamurti, we must still wait for the One Who Is to Come, though I think we have found him incarnated in Thomas Ligotti and a few others.

  But there remains something to learn from the youthful pastiches which constitute something of a right of passage for Lovecraftians (see S.T. Joshi’s “The Recurring Doom” in this volume). Suppose one reads such derivative tales and finds them wanting—do you blame HPL? As if only a poor magnet attracts such filings? Mustn’t a god who allows his servants to clobber him in this way be an idiot?

  I think not. It is important to keep in mind that parody and pastiche are kept separate only by a razor’s edge, like love and hate. The pasticheur seeks to grasp the distinctive marks of his model’s style, so to emulate it. The more deeply he grasps the original, the better the result. But if the would-be pasticheur sees no farther than the most obvious surface features (e.g., the Lovecraftian book titles and monster names, or the italicized story endings) one is going to lean too heavily upon them, ignoring the rest, the more complex texture of style and structure that works its magic subtly enough to bewitch even the adolescent reader yet without him being able to put his finger upon precisely what does the trick. It does the trick, all right, but like the amazed audience of Houdini, the adolescent pasticheur cannot figure out how to reproduce the feat, and if he tries, the result will be embarrassing. But eventually, this way, the kid may learn the tricks himself, if we will be patient with him.

  * * *

  In what sense may the contributors to this volume be considered “acolytes” either of Lovecraft or of Great Cthulhu? A few were among the elite number to whom Wilson referred, disciples of Lovecraft during his lifetime, apprentices who sought his advice and wrote in his mode. Duane Rimel is one such. His “The Jewels of Charlotte” is an adjunct to his better known tale “The Tree on the Hill,” as well as to his poem sequence “Dreams of Yith,” both of which Lovecraft had a hand in. With the former story this one shares the protagonist Constantine Theunis, and like the latter, it mentions the far-flung planet Yith, his creation, along with Lovecraft. Likewise, Richard J. Searight was another correspondent of Lovecraft and accepted his ideas eagerly. Searight left two unfinished draft fragments of a story he planned to call “Mists of Death,” and his son, Franklyn Searight, a gifted weird fictioneer of the old school, has woven the dangling threads into a complete tapestry his father would have been proud of.

  Other writers, without consciously seeking to write in the Lovecraftian vein, nonetheless may be numbered among the acolytes of Cthulhu in that they seem to have been, like the mad sculptor Wilcox, sensitive to the R’lyehian Dreamer’s urgings. They were on the same wavelength as Lovecraft, even if they wrote independently of the Providence recluse. One such was Gustav Meyrink, whose novel The Golem, Lovecraft highly praised. But I am thinking of a different work by Meyrink, “Der Violette Tod.” An English version of the story, “The Violet Death,” appeared in the July 1935 issue of Weird Tales. Anyone familiar with the original German of Meyrink will recognize that the Weird Tales version is only a kind of loose adaptation, not strictly a translation of “Der Violette Tod.” Thus I have commissioned a new, faithful translation by Kathleen Houlihan, called “The Purple Death.” You will find it most revealing to compare the two English versions. Thanks to Professor Daniel Lindblum for locating the original for me.

  Earl Peirce was something of a literary grandchild of the Old Gent, being a protege of Lovecraft’s protege Robert Bloch. In “Doom of the House of Duryea,” Peirce takes a leaf from Bloch’s book. Which book, you may ask? A little volume you may have heard of: De Vermis Mysteriis.

  Henry Hasse was another Weird Tales contemporary of Lovecraft who, like Wellman, found the Necronomicon too fascinating a book not to check out of the Miskatonic Special Collections Room. He refers to the dreaded tome in “The Guardian of the Book” (in my anthology Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos) and in the present, admittedly more fannish tale, “Horror at Vecra,” which appeared, appropriately enough, in that premiere Lovecraftian fan magazine The Acolyte for Fall 1943.

  In his intriguing essay “Some Notes on Cthulhuian Pseudobiblia” (in S.T. Joshi, ed., H. P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism), Edward Lauterbach tried to call attention to a neglected Mythos text devised by scientifictionist Charles R. Tanner in his tale “Out of the Jar” (Stirring Science Stories, February 1941), the Leabhar Mor Dubh, or “Great Black Book,” a volume of Gaelic blasphemy. Lauterbach’s voice somehow failed to gain for Tanner the attention he deserved. I hope reprinting the story itself may help remedy that. My thanks to William Fulwiller, who doesn’t miss much, for directing me to the tale.

  Another case of novel Mythos tomes which remained obscure despite their inherent juiciness is Steffan B. Aletti’s hellish Mnemabic Fragments, which made a too-brief debut in Aletti’s “The Last Work of Pietro of Apono” (Magazine of Horror #27, May 1969). Aletti’s early work, a quartet of tales all appearing in Doc Lowndes’s magazines, made quite a stir among readers, who readily recognized and acclaimed him as a new standard bearer in the Lovecraft tradition. Until very recently, however, Aletti dropped out of the field, and it is high time his early tales be made available again, lest t
hey become as rare as the Mnemabic Fragments themselves. Three occur here, while the fourth, “The Castle in the Window,” appears in my Chaosium anthology The Necronomicon. I am indebted to Mike Ashley for introducing me to Steffan Aletti’s work.

  Another Lovecraftian writer whose reputation is narrower than it ought to be is Arthur Pendragon. This relative anonymity is easily understood, however, for two reasons. First, as far as I know, he wrote only a pair of tales, “The Dunstable Horror” and “The Crib of Hell” (which appeared in Fantastic, April 1964 and May 1965, respectively). Second, he hid behind a transparent pseudonym. As the learned Darrell Schweitzer points out, Pendragon’s secret identity was most likely Arthur Porges, who wrote for the magazine under his own (noticeably similar) name during the same period. Sounds good to me. Let me thank Fred Blosser for putting me onto the two tales of Pendragon/Porges.

  In a letter to his friend Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith griped as follows: Edmond “Hamilton, consarn him, has ruined an idea somewhat similar to one that I had in mind, for a tale to be called ‘The Lunar Brain’, based on the notion that there is a vast living brain in the center of the Moon” (March 1932). Does Smith mean that Hamilton, a favorite whipping boy for both CAS and HPL, had ruined the idea by a hackneyed development of it? Or that he had merely ruined the prospect for Smith’s using it, since now it might seem he was copying Hamilton? In any case, Hamilton’s story, included here, has much to commend it, especially from the standpoint of Lovecraftian cosmicism.

  Among the acolytes of Cthulhu we must certainly count Professor Dirk W. Mosig and his brilliant disciples S.T. Joshi, Donald R. Burleson, and Peter H. Cannon. All followed Mosig’s lead in their innovative scholarship and critical reinterpretation of Lovecraft’s philosophical outlook, as well as in his experimental attempts to write genuinely Lovecraftian fiction uninfluenced by the Derlethian tradition, some of it tongue-in-cheek, some deadly serious. And then there’s the delightful Derlethian pastiche “The Recurring Doom,” a youthful indiscretion perpetrated by the 17-year-old Joshi in 1975 and reprinted here from Ken Neilly’s premiere fanzine Lovecraftian Ramblings XV (1980).

  Robert M. Price

  Halloween 1997

  DOOM OF THE HOUSE OF DURYEA

  BY EARL PEIRCE, JR.

  ARTHUR DURYEA, A YOUNG, HANDSOME MAN, CAME TO MEET HIS father for the first time in twenty years. As he strode into the hotel lobby—long strides which had the spring of elastic in them—idle eyes lifted to appraise him, for he was an impressive figure, somehow grim with exaltation.

  The desk clerk looked up with his habitual smile of expectation; how-do-you-do-Mr.-so-and-so, and his fingers strayed to the green fountain pen which stood in a holder on the desk.

  Arthur Duryea cleared his throat, but still his voice was clogged and unsteady. To the clerk he said:

  “I’m looking for my father, Doctor Henry Duryea. I understand he is registered here. He has recently arrived from Paris.”

  The clerk lowered his glance to a list of names. “Doctor Duryea is in suite 600, sixth floor.” He looked up, his eyebrows arched questioningly. “Are you staying too, sir, Mr. Duryea?”

  Arthur took the pen and scribbled his name rapidly. Without a further word, neglecting even to get his key and own room number, he turned and walked to the elevators. Not until he reached his father’s suite on the sixth floor did he make an audible noise, and this was a mere sigh which fell from his lips like a prayer.

  The man who opened the door was unusually tall, his slender frame clothed in tight-fitting black. He hardly dared to smile. His clean-shaven face was pale, an almost livid whiteness against the sparkle in his eyes. His jaw had a bluish luster.

  “Arthur!” The word was scarcely a whisper. It seemed choked up quietly, as if it had been repeated time and again on his thin lips.

  Arthur Duryea felt the kindliness of those eyes go through him, and then he was in his father’s embrace.

  Later, when these two grown men had regained their outer calm, they closed the door and went into the drawing-room. The elder Duryea held out a humidor of fine cigars, and his hand shook so hard when he held the match that his son was forced to cup his own hands about the flame. They both had tears in their eyes, but their eyes were smiling.

  Henry Duryea placed a hand on his son’s shoulder. “This is the happiest day of my life,” he said. “You can never know how much I have longed for this moment.”

  Arthur, looking into that glance, realized, with growing pride, that he had loved his father all his life, despite any of those things which had been cursed against him. He sat down on the edge of a chair.

  “I—I don’t know how to act,” he confessed. “You surprise me, Dad. You’re so different from what I had expected.”

  A cloud came over Doctor Duryea’s features. “What did you expect, Arthur?” he demanded quickly. “An evil eye? A shaven head and knotted jowls?”

  “Please, Dad—no!” Arthur’s words clipped short. “I don’t think I ever really visualized you. I knew you would be a splendid man. But I thought you’d look older, more like a man who has really suffered.”

  “I have suffered, more than I can ever describe. But seeing you again, and the prospect of spending the rest of my life with you, has more than compensated for my sorrows. Even during the twenty years we were apart I found ironic joy in learning of your progress in college, and in your American game of football.”

  “Then you’ve been following my work?”

  “Yes, Arthur; I’ve received monthly reports ever since you left me. From my study in Paris I’ve been really close to you, working out your problems as if they were my own. And now that the twenty years are completed, the ban which kept us apart is lifted for ever. From now on, son, we shall be the closest of companions—unless your Aunt Cecilia has succeeded in her terrible mission.”

  The mention of that name caused an unfamiliar chill to come between the two men. It stood for something, in each of them, which gnawed their minds like a malignancy. But to the younger Duryea, in his intense effort to forget the awful past, her name as well as her madness must be forgotten.

  He had no wish to carry on this subject of conversation, for it betrayed an internal weakness which he hated. With forced determination, and a ludicrous lift of his eyebrows, he said, “Cecilia is dead, and her silly superstition is dead also. From now on, Dad, we’re going to enjoy life as we should. Bygones are really bygones in this case.”

  Doctor Duryea closed his eyes slowly, as though an exquisite pain had gone through him.

  “Then you have no indignation?” he questioned. “You have none of your aunt’s hatred?”

  “Indignation? Hatred?” Arthur laughed aloud. “Ever since I was twelve years old I have disbelieved Cecilia’s stories. I have known that those horrible things were impossible, that they belonged to the ancient category of mythology and tradition. How, then, can I be indignant, and how can I hate you? How can I do anything but recognize Cecilia for what she was—a mean, frustrated woman, cursed with an insane grudge against you and your family? I tell you, Dad, that nothing she has ever said can possibly come between us again.”

  Henry Duryea nodded his head. His lips were tight together, and the muscles in his throat held back a cry. In that same soft tone of defense he spoke further, doubting words.

  “Are you so sure of your subconscious mind, Arthur? Can you be so certain that you are free from all suspicion, however vague? Is there not a lingering premonition—a premonition which warns of peril?”

  “No, Dad—no!” Arthur shot to his feet. “I don’t believe it. I’ve never believed it. I know, as any sane man would know, that you are neither a vampire nor a murderer. You know it, too; and Cecilia knew it, only she was mad.

  “That family rot is dispelled, Father. This is a civilized century. Belief in vampirism is sheer lunacy. Wh-why, it’s too absurd even to think about!”

  “You have the enthusiasm of youth,” said his father, in a rather tired voice. “But have you n
ot heard the legend?”

  Arthur stepped back instinctively. He moistened his lips, for their dryness might crack them. “The legend?”

  He said the word in a curious hush of awed softness, as he had heard his Aunt Cecilia say it many times before.

  “That awful legend that you—”

  “That I eat my children?”

  “Oh, God, Father!” Arthur went to his knees as a cry burst through his lips. “Dad, that—that’s ghastly! We must forget Cecilia’s ravings.”

  “You are affected, then?” asked Doctor Duryea bitterly.

  “Affected? Certainly I’m affected, but only as I should be at such an accusation. Cecilia was mad, I tell you. Those books she showed me years ago, and those folk-tales of vampires and ghouls—they burned into my infantile mind like acid. They haunted me day and night in my youth, and caused me to hate you worse than death itself.

  “But in Heaven’s name, Father, I’ve outgrown those things as I have outgrown my clothes. I’m a man now; do you understand that? A man, with a man’s sense of logic.”

  “Yes, I understand.” Henry Duryea threw his cigar into the fireplace, and placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.

  “We shall forget Cecilia,” he said. “As I told you in my letter, I have rented a lodge in Maine where we can go to be alone for the rest of the summer. We’ll get in some fishing and hiking and perhaps some hunting. But first, Arthur, I must be sure in my own mind that you are sure in yours. I must be sure you won’t bar your door against me at night, and sleep with a loaded revolver at your elbow. I must be sure that you’re not afraid of going up there alone with me, and dying—”