Unlike what many people think, the progress of scientific knowledge has not eliminated the fear of unknown; yet it has caused new fears, due to the discovery of recent cosmic riddles with a possible and technical reaction against mankind where chaos, no more technologically controlled, ends up with merging with that same technological weapon created by man to defend himself. About this, the fascinating story “From Beyond” is to be considered. Here an elated scientist through an electronic device manages, at his own expense, to force his way to another space-time dimension infested by appalling and aggressive alien beings. As well as his horror Lovecraft describes the psychological trouble caused by contemporary man’s belief in a rational and comfortable world gained thanks to the rule of scientific progress over Nature, which unfortunately is not able to avoid the bewilderment of man towards adverse and unknown natural events, which become unforeseeably violent. We have a clear example of this in “Cool Air” with the horrible failure of a doctor, who has vainly tried to achieve immortality by means of an inadequate freezing device that eventually breaks down. Another terrifying example is given by “Herbert West, reanimator” where is described doctor West’s perverse ambition since he was at university to make dead live again. Thanks to the discovery of a particular serum, West manages to reactivate, after various and failed attempts, life from dead bodies, but with the tragic consequence that these creatures revolt and kill him. The horror caused by madly wandering zombies recalls impressive atmospheres of cosmic terror.
«[…] lumps of graveyard clay had been galvanized into morbid, unnatural, and brainless motion by various modifications of the vital solution.
One thing had uttered a nerve-shattering scream; another had risen violently, beaten us both to unconsciousness, and run amuck in a shocking way before it could be placed behind asylum bars; still another, a loathsome African monstrosity, had clawed out of its shallow grave and done a deed -- West had had to shoot that object.
[…]It was disturbing to think that one, perhaps two, of our monsters still lived -- that thought haunted us shadowingly, till finally West disappeared under frightful circumstances.»
What’s more astonishing in this story is the fact that, although the doctor repeatedly fails, he is not going to stop his experiments nor to think about what he is doing, for what is really important to him is to achieve his goal, with no merciful mediation. Doctor West even kills in cold blood to obtain suitable human guinea-pigs for his ferocious objectives.
With his clear declaration against the blind and fallible techno-scientific determinism we can undoubtedly reckon that the writer can be considered a scientific rationalist, who refuses positivistic scientism. The horrible corpses that deliriously revive can be seen as a metaphor representing the dreadful consequence of a science that is not humanistic but merely functional.
The colour out of space
In the science fiction story “The Color out of Space” chaos suddenly occurs due to the unexpected fall of a meteorite on a peaceful farm in Arkham and the consequent pollution, which entirely destroys environment balance and stability. It is just that chaotic and devastating nature, caused by the meteorite radiations, to crumble the power of human rationality before the inconsistency of an obscene reality, which is not peaceful and arranged anymore. Chemical contaminations of animals and plants and inexplicable events unexpectedly occur out of thin air with incredible and gruesome massacres, which sadistically look like a perverse ritual caused by a mad Nature, possessed by an iridescent alien force.
«So the men paused indecisively as the light from the well grew stronger and the hitched horses pawed and whinnied in increasing frenzy. It was truly an awful moment; with terror in that ancient and accursed house itself, four monstrous sets of fragments-two from the house and two from the well-in the woodshed behind, and that shaft of unknown and unholy iridescence from the slimy depths in front.»
The story symbolically describes several analyzed aspects complying with cosmic terror. The meteorite represents cosmic vitality falling heavily upon us from an oceanic and inexplicable universe. The peaceful farm that is suddenly upset represents chaos unpredictable interference. The physical annihilation of the farm owner, Nahum Gardner, reduced to a pile of putrescent shapeless flesh, symbolizes the total impassiveness of cosmic agents. The well exemplifies the unknown and the inexplicable and unnatural colorful glow, emerging from there, seems to be endowed with a “conscience and will” of its own, so that to the blasphemous theophany of the farmers it appears as a “mysterious creature”.
«No doubt it is still down the well - I know there was something wrong with the sunlight I saw above the miasmal brink. The rustics say the blight creeps an inch a year, so perhaps there is a kind of growth or nourishment even now. But whatever demon hatchling is there, it must be tethered to something or else it would quickly spread. Is it fastened to the roots of those trees that claw the air? One of the current Arkham tales is about fat oaks that shine and move as they ought not to do at night.»
The colorful light that at the end of the story goes back to the unlimited darkness of the universe, from where it has come, reminds us of eternal return.
Lovecraft’s work generally shows an alien and labyrinth-like situation within a cosmic and immanent chessboard fated, by a blind universal game, to sow dead people and repeated devastations sporadically, yet to cause mentally disturbed conditions continuously, making man sink into an inner chasm like an abyssal hole, which is due to an environment that is not peaceful anymore, but extremely unknown to us and eternally adverse rightly because of our limited comprehension.
Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth
The delirious animal spirit ferociously revolting against the Apollonian and Promethean spirit of the rational world recalls the awakening of instinctive and powerful Cthulhu, terrible messenger of a cruel law dominated by chaos and violence, which generates a mad and perverted world stricken with pleasant orgiastic rites and sacrificial crimes.
«That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy.»
In a certain sense it is as if Lovecraft wanted us to be totally undeceived by the pretention to live in a benevolent cosmos, only apparently healthy and rational, by using the “unknown” as a door towards the real world where «everything a-rottin' an' dyin', an' boarded-up monsters crawlin' an' bleatin' an' barkin' an' hoppin' araoun' black cellars an' attics every way ye turn.» Yet the door is kept by Yog-Sothoth, the terrible guardian of the intelligible, representing the psychological impossibility to contemplate reality without running the risk to die or be driven mad.
We can eventually end our analysis by considering that cosmic terror arises from the ability to express a certain atmosphere of arcane and inexplicable destructive flog in particular environments dominated by the eternally repetitive existence of anonymous and intangible diabolic ultra mundane or strange forces or presences. They surprise and deceive our natural defenses or scientific knowledge quickly or skillfully so as to drive our mind into the abyss of a chaos without a way out. As those last words of dying Nahum's clearly recall: «Can't git away - draws ye - ye know summ'at's comin' but tain't no use…»
Bibliography
Carlo Pagetti, Cittadini di un assurdo universo, editrice Nord, 1989, Milano.
Gianfranco de Turris & Sebastiano Fusco, L’ultimo demiurgo e altri saggi lovecraftiani, Solfanelli, Chieti, 1989, p. 153.
H.P. Lovecraft, Collected Essays, Vol. 5, Hippocampus Press, 2006.
H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural horror in literature, in H.P. Lovecraft’s book of horror, edited by Stephen Jones and Dave Carson, 1994.
Leo Marchetti, Apocalissi, Métis editrice, Chieti, 1995.
Pietro Trevisan, Il
paganesimo di H.P. Lovecraft, in the website: http://utenti.lycos.it/politeismo/lovecra.htm [Or. Title: Sources for The color Out of Space, in Crypt of Cthulhu, n. 28, 1984, Copyright © Robert M. Price]
Massimo Berruti’s graduation thesis, H.P. Lovecraft e l’Anatomia del Nulla – Il Mito di Cthulhu.
Il Terrore Cosmico da Poe a Lovecraft – by Sandro D. Fossemò –
Special thanks to Mr. Walter D’Ilario, manager of Roseto degli Abruzzi public library, for providing me with the books I needed for this short essay.
Sandro D. Fossemò lives in central Italy, right in Roseto degli Abruzzi(TE), a small town of the Abruzzo region. His main occupation is running a stationery-bookshop for freelancers and business people, though in the spare time he is much dedicated to fantastic literature.
I have attached my face photo for Biography
In the youth he published two brief anthologies of tales : "Uomo Moderno" (Modern Man)," La Maledizione di Prometeo" (The curse of Prometheus), having as subjects terror and sociological sci fiction, published by Solfanelli. He has contributed to the prestigious magazine Mystero, run by director and writer Luigi Cozzi. He boasts a large library on fantastic literature and human sciences , in general. Sociologically, he is very close to the Frankfurt School. His favourite writers are: Franz Kafka, E.A.Poe, Philip K.Dick and G.Orwell. He is very fond of digital art: in fact he has created a cover for a sci fiction magazine and also graphic processings based on Poe tales. He manages his own blog called "Metropolis" (http://blogmetropolis.myblog.it/), where he posts thoughts of general culture and writes articles, particularly on the angloamerican fantastic.
Story illustration by Lee Copeland.
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Cthulhu Does Stuff is a monthly comic strip by Ronnie Tucker and Maxwell Patterson. Visit their website, Max and Ronnie do comics.
Maxwell Patterson is a freelance writer, available for parties, corporate events and Bat Mitzvahs. You can contact him at [email protected].
Ronnie Tucker is an artist who plies his wares (eww, gross!) at http://ronnietucker.co.uk/. You can contact him at: [email protected].
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Echoes from Cthulhu’s Crypt #3
A Tale of the Kalem Club
by Robert M. Price
I believe you are acquainted with the basic facts of the Kalem Club, a group of Lovecraft’s bachelor pals, most of whose last names began with the letters K (Kleiner), L (Lovecraft, Long), or M (Moe). They used to meet in one or another’s apartment in Brooklyn for gabfests during Lovecraft’s New York Exile. Oh to have been there! But there is a next best thing.
In the mid-eighties I used to gather, one Saturday a month, at the Strand Bookstore in New York City with a few fellow fans of HPL and the Weird Tales writers. We would prowl the bookshops and have lunch at the Silver Spurs (great burgers!) and talk over various editing and publishing projects. Great friends, great fun! I had recently become acquainted with the great Lin Carter (wotta character!) through a book I was writing on him (Lin Carter: A Look behind his Imaginary Worlds). He decided to join us one Saturday and invited us back to his apartment to continue the salon. Lin christened the group The New Kalem Club and sent out announcements. Just sitting around in that wonderland would have been enough to dazzle us. He had some years earlier moved out of his Hollis, Queens, house (pretty much kicked out by his girlfriend’s drug-dealing thug pals) and crammed as much as he could of his astonishing collection of weird art originals, posters, rare books, and relics into a small East Side apartment. “Their house is a museum when people come to see ‘em.” (You could almost overlook the pungent litter box odor that permeated the place.)
The group included S.T. Joshi, Peter Cannon, Steve Mariconda, Marc Cerasini, Chuck Hoffman, Eileen McNamara, Carolyn Boyd, Donna Death, a couple of Crowleyites whose names I now forget, and occasionally Frank Belknap Long, who would, incredibly, shamble across town for the meetings. I made a point of not quizzing the venerable and nearly spectral Long about his old friend Lovecraft because I felt he deserved respect and interest in his own significant body of work. Some years later, one of the very highest points of my ministerial career (now thankfully over) was to give the eulogy at his graveside. I always felt that Frank’s presence at our gatherings forged a link with the past and legitimatized our calling ourselves the New Kalem Club.
Well, I moved to North Carolina to take up a teaching post, and I’m sorry to say that the group kind of fell apart without me. But I moved back to the NY metropolitan area five years later and took up where we had left off, except that Lin had died in the meantime. And the New Kalems had evolved. ST, Peter, Steve, Miroslav Lipinski, often joined by T.E.D. Klein, took to meeting for supper and drinks at a pub in Manhattan. I just could not make it into the City but a couple of times, and so I started a branch office. The Third Kalem Club began as the second one had, with a trip to the Strand and the Silver Spurs, but then we would retire to my home in New Jersey. The merry crew was now comprised of Joe Pulver, Rod Heather, Brian McNaughton (at least a couple of times), Michael Cisco, Tom Brown, Mike Fantina, and sometimes C.J. Henderson (though I soon found it was dangerous to get him and Pulver, both alpha bulls, together in the same room!). My daughter Victoria soon became a full member, too. We would read new stories or poems to each other, show off new art, etc. It was great! But great things come to an end (have you noticed that?). Carol, Victoria, Veronica, and I returned to North Carolina in 2001. Kalems kaput!
Down here I rejoice every time I can snag Mark Rainey, Stephen Stiles, and Joe Pulver for a get-together, but since Joe moved to Germany, that’s kind of put a crimp in the schedule! So these days I content myself with the occasional Lovecraft Film Festival, NecronomiCon, and Mythos Con, where I see so many of the old gang. Maybe I’ll see you there! In the meantime, why not organize your own local Kalem Clubs? Go ahead! You have my permission.
Robert M. Price is an American theologian and writer. He teaches philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute, and the author of a number of books on theology and the historicity of Jesus, including Deconstructing Jesus (2000), The Reason Driven Life (2006), Jesus is Dead (2007), Inerrant the Wind: The Evangelical Crisis in Biblical Authority (2009), The Case Against the Case for Christ (2010), and The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul (2012).
A former Baptist minister, he was the editor of the Journal of Higher Criticism from 1994 until it ceased publication in 2003, and has written extensively about the Cthulhu Mythos, a "shared universe" created by the writer H. P. Lovecraft.
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And They Did Live By Watchfires
by Evan Dicken
I had a dream that was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space.
~Lord George Gordon Byron, Darkness
The secondary hatches cycled shut, sealing the two astronauts into their tiny tomb. The low thrum of the reality furnace provided an unwavering bass accompaniment to the measured beep and whir of the machines that drained the fluid from Petra's lungs. Grant checked the straps that bound his wife into bed one last time before engaging the jump sequence.
Petra lifted waxy fingers to touch Grant's cheek as he adjusted the blue hospital blanket that had fallen askew during the loading routine. He knew the chill in her hand was the result of her body shunting blood away from the extremities to keep the core functioning, but it didn't make the caress any less jarring.
He held her hand tightly, as if to will warmth into the dying flesh. Petra grimaced at the strength of Grant's grip, stirring in the invisible cocoon the morphine drip wove around her frail body. He looked to the rear viewport, and watched the blue grey eye of Earth wink out as the reality furnace engaged. Their destination was preprogrammed, far away, but not too far. Earth didn't
want to lose contact with them, like it had with all the others.
Humanity's brilliance had been a beacon. Outgrowing its cradle, mankind reached for the stars, spreading to nearby systems with the vicious arrogance of youth. Great minds stared into infinity, searching for answers, and finding only more questions. Just as the human race began to believe it was truly alone, a message came from afar.
It was old beyond belief, having crawled across the vastness of space at sub-light speeds. Ships traced the signal to its source, but found only fields of stone and bone, desiccated planets hanging in the starless void, cities without even the echo of life, the corpses of sprawling civilizations, their first and last message to us, which, when deciphered, was found to be only three words, repeated over and over.
Do not move.
Then, one by one, the stars went dark. Increasingly panicked communications to colony worlds met with no response. Earth focused powerful orbital telescopes on its lost children, and the observatory crews went mad, immolating the facilities and themselves in a pyre of superheated fuel plasma. Those who ventured into space were lost, the night swallowing them up as if they had never existed at all. At last, mankind could do nothing but watch as darkness flowed towards earth, drowning the stars.
Then Petra was diagnosed with lung cancer.
At first the cancer seemed dreamlike when weighed against the creeping dread of inexplicable desolation, but as weeks bled into months Petra's agony became more real to Grant than the terrified babble of video pundits. Both she and he were among the scientists begged to examine the phenomenon, but where Grant couldn't seem to focus on the rising tide of dark energy, Petra thought of nothing else. Even as her health failed, her dedication grew, but she'd always been zealous in the pursuit of answers, and Grant content to be carried along in her wake.
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