Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (100 page)

All was well with the plane, and we clumsily hauled on our heavy flying furs. Danforth got the engine started without trouble, and we made a very smooth takeoff over the nightmare city. Below us the primal Cyclopean masonry spread out as it had done when first we saw it—so short, yet infinitely long, a time ago—and we began rising and turning to test the wind for our crossing through the pass. At a very high level there must have been great disturbance, since the ice-dust clouds of the zenith were doing all sorts of fantastic things; but at 24,000 feet, the height we needed for the pass, we found navigation quite practicable. As we drew close to the jutting peaks the wind’s strange piping again became manifest, and I could see Danforth’s hands trembling at the controls. Rank amateur though I was, I thought at that moment that I might be a better navigator than he in effecting the dangerous crossing between pinnacles; and when I made motions to change seats and take over his duties he did not protest. I tried to keep all my skill and self-possession about me, and stared at the sector of reddish farther sky betwixt the walls of the pass—resolutely refusing to pay attention to the puffs of mountain-top vapour, and wishing that I had wax-stopped ears like Ulysses’ men off the Sirens’ coast to keep that disturbing wind-piping from my consciousness.

But Danforth, released from his piloting and keyed up to a dan gerous nervous pitch, could not keep quiet. I felt him turning and wriggling about as he looked back at the terrible receding city, ahead at the cave-riddled, cube-barnacled peaks, sidewise at the bleak sea of snowy, rampart-strown foothills, and upward at the seething, grotesquely clouded sky. It was then, just as I was trying to steer safely through the pass, that his mad shrieking brought us so close to disaster by shattering my tight hold on myself and causing me to fumble helplessly with the controls for a moment. A second afterward my resolution triumphed and we made the crossing safely—yet I am afraid that Danforth will never be the same again.

I have said that Danforth refused to tell me what final horror made him scream out so insanely—a horror which, I feel sadly sure, is mainly responsible for his present breakdown. We had snatches of shouted conversation above the wind’s piping and the engine’s buzzing as we reached the safe side of the range and swooped slowly down toward the camp, but that had mostly to do with the pledges of secrecy we had made as we prepared to leave the nightmare city. Certain things, we had agreed, were not for people to know and discuss lightly—and I would not speak of them now but for the need of heading off that Starkweather-Moore Expedition, and others, at any cost. It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth’s dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.

All that Danforth has ever hinted is that the final horror was a mirage. It was not, he declares, anything connected with the cubes and caves of echoing, vaporous, wormily honeycombed mountains of madness which we crossed; but a single fantastic, daemoniac glimpse, among the churning zenith-clouds, of what lay back of those other violet westward mountains which the Old Ones had shunned and feared. It is very probable that the thing was a sheer delusion born of the previous stresses we had passed through, and of the actual though unrecognised mirage of the dead transmontane city experienced near Lake’s camp the day before; but it was so real to Danforth that he suffers from it still.

He has on rare occasions whispered disjointed and irresponsible things about “the black pit”, “the carven rim”, “the proto-shoggoths”, “the windowless solids with five dimensions”, “the nameless cylinder”, “the elder pharos”, “Yog-Sothoth”, “the primal white jelly”, “the colour out of space”, “the wings”, “the eyes in darkness”, “the moon-ladder”, “the original, the eternal, the undying”, and other bizarre conceptions; but when he is fully himself he repudiates all this and attributes it to his curious and macabre reading of earlier years. Danforth, indeed, is known to be among the few who have ever dared go completely through that worm-riddled copy of the
Necronomicon
kept under lock and key in the college library.

The higher sky, as we crossed the range, was surely vaporous and disturbed enough; and although I did not see the zenith I can well imagine that its swirls of ice-dust may have taken strange forms. Imagination, knowing how vividly distant scenes can sometimes be reflected, refracted, and magnified by such layers of restless cloud, might easily have supplied the rest—and of course Danforth did not hint any of those specific horrors till after his memory had had a chance to draw on his bygone reading. He could never have seen so much in one instantaneous glance.

At the time his shrieks were confined to the repetition of a single mad word of all too obvious source:

“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”

First published in
The Silver Fern
, May 1930.
Reprinted in
Weird Tales
, May 1936

Over old roofs and past decaying spires

The harbour whistles chant all through the night;

Throats from strange ports, and beaches far and white,

And fabulous oceans, ranged in motley choirs.

Each to the other alien and unknown,

Yet all, by some obscurely focussed force

From brooding gulfs beyond the Zodiac’s course,

Fused into one mysterious cosmic drone.

Through shadowy dreams they send a marching line

Of still more shadowy shapes and hints and views;

Echoes from outer voids, and subtle clues

To things which they themselves cannot define.

And always in that chorus, faintly blent,

We catch some notes no earth-ship ever sent.

In his relatively brief life, Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937) attracted little attention from the reading public, and even in the emergent niche of science fiction/fantasy writing, he was known only to a small group of other writers, usually young, aspiring ones, who found his work profoundly attractive. In the early twentieth century, their work signified a break from the older forms of fantasy found in the works of Hawthorne, Poe, James, and other nineteenth-century writers who dealt with psychological terror of the supernatural in the forms of demons, ghosts, vampires, and other unnatural creatures. The horrors the Lovecraft Circle created were strikingly new—monsters from other dimensions or from outer space. These works served as something of a bridge between the genre of fantasy and the emerging genre of science fiction. In fact, in this early period of interest and publication opportunity in magazines such as
Weird Tales
, these works were classed as
scientifiction
(Williamson, 12) and commonly occurred alongside works that would later be classed as science fiction.

Though Lovecraft was something of a recluse, refusing opportunities to travel, he was an extremely generous correspondent and editor, spending a great deal of his time reviewing and editing manuscripts and encouraging the young writers who appealed to him for help. This group of writers included August Derleth (1909–1971), Frank Belknap Long (1903–1994), Robert Bloch (1917–1994), Clark Ashton Smith (1893–1961), Donald Wandrei (1908–1957), and Robert E. Howard (1906–1936). All, in a sense were disciples of Lovecraft, though later, most developed their writing careers in their own directions. As with other literary circles, they shared a common interest, a dedication to works of the imagination focusing on the myth of Cthulu and on other-dimensional terrors established in the works of Lovecraft. In some cases (especially that of Derleth), they extended the work of Lovecraft using names and concepts from his fiction. In others, they followed the spirit of his work in their own imaginative creations.

As the heir of Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft built his fiction on fear. Like Poe, Lovecraft created characters, usually narrators, who were examples of abnormal psychology, the victims of phobias. While for Poe, the phobia seemed topical, as in “The Premature Burial,” the fear of being buried alive, in “Berenice,” the fixation on teeth, or in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” on the diseased eye, Lovecraft’s phobias are much more psychologically deep-seated and complex. As Lovecraft put it himself in his famous essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Elaborating on this statement in a letter to Robert E. Howard, he wrote “The basis of all true cosmic horror is always
violation of the order of nature
[Lovecraft’s italics].” (Lovecraft, Tales, 819)

His fear is cosmic: what if unknown forces have the power to destroy everything we know? The creatures are so overwhelmingly alien that words often fail him, and following Poe’s technique for dealing with unspeakable horror, he lapses into italics, dashes, all capitals, and an extremely formal literary style, using words such as “eldritch” to approximate a description of unspeakable horror. Creatures such as Cthulu and the Dunwich Horror are beyond science, even beyond science fiction. If they are allowed to enter our world, they will destroy every semblance of civilization and perhaps even the human race. In Lovecraft’s work, it is usually only the rarest of individuals, normally scholars of the arcane, or obscure cults, who discover this terrifying knowledge. The mass of humanity normally remains blissfully ignorant of the cosmic terror.

From a Freudian perspective, Lovecraft’s fears seem to stem from his abnormal childhood, the untimely death of his father, a failed businessman and victim of syphilis, when Lovecraft was only eight, a neurotic mother with her own “monsters,” and the unloving environment of his relatives’ home where he had to live after his father’s death. Although the focus is on cosmic fear, Lovecraft’s narrators suffer a much more personal fear in the prospect of a loss of identity to the “other,” sometimes described as a cannibalistic being (Smith, 463) whether an alien as in “The Colour Out of Space,” a demonic being as in “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” or another race of beings as in “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” The fear of losing one’s identity is a particularly modernistic concept, the concept of alienation, as seen in the extreme in Kafka’s Metamorphosis, in which the mind of the victim remains intact although he is trapped in the form of a giant insect. Another form of irrational fear from a Freudian perspective is the “bogeyman,” most notably brought to life in Stephen King’s fiction, an irrational, incomprehensible creature that victimizes children and follows no laws of human nature.

His disciples—Bloch, Derleth, Long, Smith, Howard and others—followed Lovecraft’s lead, focusing on the fear factor. Much of their work, along with Lovecraft’s, appeared in
Weird Tales
, first published in 1923.

Of this group, August Derleth most directly followed Lovecraft’s lead in attempting to extend and enlarge upon the Cthulu Mythos. He portrayed a cosmic struggle between the Old Ones over control of Earth, with the same fear of a destructive outcome that would plunge humanity into a savage, prehistoric chaos. However, critics, including Robert Bloch (“Heritage of Horror,” xix), took him to task for inserting a moralistic, good vs. evil, theme into the struggle, an element that violates the amoral portrayal of the Old Ones Lovecraft promoted and imposing a rational element that undermines the essential fear of the unknown precious to Lovecraft. Derleth does deserve credit, though, for his bringing Lovecraft to public attention through establishing Arkham House Publishing in 1939.

Frank Belknap Long’s contribution to the Cthulu Mythos, the creation of the Hounds of Tyndalos, is truer to the Lovecraftian spirit. Following the fourth-dimensional mathematical logic of “Dreams in the Witch House,” Long portrays the hounds as more bat-like than canine. “‘The Hounds of Tyndalos’…is a thoroughly effective tale of monstrous creatures from beyond normal time and space breaking through the ‘angles’ of our universe.” (Smith, 458.) Like Cthulu, Nyarlathotep, and Yog-Sothoth, these creatures are otherworldly, beyond the comprehension of humanity. And like these monstrous beings, they prey on the very essence of humans, sucking away their identities in a vampire bat-like manner. Also, their origin and presence in the universe are obscure, not following normal scientific laws. They “evok[e] a sense of non-Euclidian dimension.” (Smith, 458.) Also true to Lovecraft’s spirit, they evoke an irrational, hopeless fear, a fear that can drive their victims to insanity.

Although the bulk of Robert Bloch’s career seems devoted to ironic dark fantasy, he was a great admirer of Lovecraft and a loyal editor of his work. He described himself as “primarily a writer of fantasy and mystery-suspense fiction…on the peripheral edges of science fiction proper—fantasy, weird horror, and suspense.” (Smith, 193) His early career was heavily influenced by Lovecraft, and he was among the many younger writers who sent his manuscripts to Lovecraft for review. In fact, he and Lovecraft rather playfully created characters to represent themselves, each of whom the other killed off in their fiction. Bloch’s mature career included screen writing, most notably for Hitchock’s Psycho, based on his own novel, and for three Star Trek episodes. Certainly, Psycho focuses on fear, the fear of an unknowably diseased mind and the danger of becoming a victim, the threat once again of destruction of the self, either through insanity or through falling prey to such an alien mentality.

Other writers who pursued Lovecraft’s theme of fear of the unknown include Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard. The fantasy worlds they create echo the unknowable cosmic worlds Lovecraft hinted at in his “Call of Cthulu” and in “The Dreams in the Witch House,” worlds older than humanity or settings before historical time. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian encounters ancient godlike beings and evil magicians in his adventures of bravery and swordmanship. But perhaps the strongest echo of Lovecraft occurs in Smith’s “The City of Singing Flame,” published in 1932. The subterranean setting of this story and the weird, ancient creatures who inhabit it certainly evoke scenes from
At the Mountains of Madness
as well as the fascination/repulsion factor that characterizes many of Lovecraft’s narrators. However, Smith’s characteristic utopian view comes in with the promise of an ideal world beyond the City of Flame, a world in which humans can maintain a sense of identity in an alien paradise, if willing to extinguish themselves in the flame. This is a happier fate than that of most of Lovecraft’s characters who lose their identities to an evil, alien force. However, in Smith’s story, circumstances do not allow the characters to remain in this other-dimensional utopia.

As pointed out in much of the above discussion, the work of the Lovecraft Circle shares a common ground in dealing with
what if
questions that provoke horror. In doing so, they deal with possible futures, with utopias and dystopias, with fear and wonder. These works have been remarkably durable, frequently appearing in movie form, television programs, in the popular culture even in such an unlikely place as
The Simpsons
. In all cases, they seek to take the world we live in and stretch our imaginations to force us to ponder the frightening consequences of the unimaginable. Like Poe before them, these writers were able to tap into our most primal fears and have therefore earned their place in the realm of fantasy/science fiction.

* * * *

LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED

Lovecraft, H.P.
The Dunwich Horror and Others
. Selected by August Derleth with texts edited by S.T. Joshi and an introduction by Robert Bloch. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1985.

Lovecraft, H.P.
The Horror in the Museum and other Revisions
. With texts edited by S.T. Joshi and an introduction by August Derleth. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1989.

Lovecraft, H.P.
Tales.
New York: The Library of America, 2005.

Smith, Curtis C., Ed.
Twentieth Century Science-Fiction Writers
. Second Edition. Chicago: St. James Press, 1986.

Williamson, Jack. Foreword to
The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy
. Edited by Garyn G. Roberts. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003.

* * * *

Dennis H. Barbour is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of English and Philosophy at Purdue University Calumet in Hammond, IN. He received his PhD in American literature from Auburn University and his MA and BA in English from Indiana State University. He has published articles on the pedagogy of business writing and on topics in American literature. He has also published an article on the
Mad Max
trilogy and is working on a book on heroism in the apocalyptic film. In addition to a lifelong interest in science fiction/fantasy, he also teaches courses in popular culture, the Bible as Literature, and seminars on special topics. From an early age, he has been a huge fan of Poe and of H. P. Lovecraft. He is married to an editor, Nancy, has two adult daughters living in Chicago, a dog, and a cat.