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SON OF CTHULHU
This article, its title notwithstanding,
is not another drop in the seemingly endless sea of "Cthulhu Mythos"
stories. Nor is this a critical analysis of Lovecraft's work; such things are
better left in more capable hands than mine. Instead, this is about a
Lovecraftian subject I both know and like: me.
December 25, 1971, was a cold, wet,
thoroughly miserable day in the seacoast town of Little Compton, Rhode Island;
but even this and a heavy head cold I had been battling for several days could
not dampen my spirits. For the day was not only Christmas, it was my thirteenth
birthday as well. I ran downstairs to huddle in the shadow of the tree in the
living room, and by the cold light of the bay windows, I inspected the various
packages set there. There were treasures indeed. I received a set of different
colored plasticene, a plastic model of the human body, complete with removable
organs, a book of the art work of M. C. Escher, and a package from my sister
Julie in New Jersey. When I opened this, it proved to be a paperback with bright
letters blazoned across a black background, proclaiming the book's author and
title:
H. P. LOVECRAFT
THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE
Every detail of that day is graven in my
memory. I recall with acute clarity my ascent to my bedroom, bearing a box full
of my new gifts up the stairs in the gloom. What followed were some of the most
chilling hours of my life. The gray afternoon faded away outside my curtains as
I lay reading. I finally emerged, ate dinner, and fell asleep soon afterwards,
weakened by my cold and the intensity of what I had read. And as I closed my
eyes, I could swear I saw things dropping from the skies and rising from aeon-silent
depths to shake down the proud cities of man. Nor was the effect temporary.
The calendar continued to change, and the
earth still veered precariously around its little star. I retained my visions as
time passed, though the book itself mysteriously disappeared for a couple of
years, some months after I received it. In the interim, however, certain
odious-looking books began appear ing on the shelves of the bookstores. The
titles alone might have sparked my imagination --- The Tomb, The
Lurking Fear, Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos --- but the words that
always brought my wallet to light and sent me scurrying back to my car with the
book clutched tightly to my breast, were simply "H. P. Lovecraft"
printed along the spine. My appetite, whetted long ago by that first book, was
now to be satiated --- for a while. Looking back, I cannot remember reading
anything else during that period, between my thirteenth and seventeenth
birthdays, except for schoolwork. I suppose that I did, but having started on
Lovecraft, other things faded in my memory. I was spoiled, but happily so. I
have since reread those stories innumerable times, and though that first,
magnificent horror and wonder never returns in full, I am never untouched by
them.
As I began to learn of Lovecraft the man,
I was at the same time happy but not very surprised to learn that the two of us
had much in common. He touched chords inside me that I hadn't even known
existed, and it was with delight and confirmation that I read more and more
about the gentleman from Providence. He was a quiet, studious child, much as I
had been; both Lovecraft and I were descended from very old Rhode Island stock;
we both preferred solitude to company during our teenage years. But these were
superficial similarities. What really coincided between us was our attitudes.
Much as he had taught himself the art of writing, I had taught myself how to
draw. HPL always considered himself a "gentleman writer", a man who
wrote not for profit or recognition, but for his own enjoyment and expression.
In the same way, I didn't care if anyone liked my drawings, because I drew to
make myself happy and to improve myself. One can feel the care and thought that
HPL put into his stories, and I try to take as much care in my work. I hope
someday to be worthy to illustrate his work.
Through my art and because of it, I
attended the Rhode Island School of Design. I enjoyed being in close proximity
to many of the places Lovecraft frequented during his life.
One day, a friend, knowing my interest in
horror and fantasy, clipped a want-ad out of the school newspaper for me. I'll
reprint part of it here:
I am looking for student artists who are
interested in doing pen and ink/black and white fantasy and Science-Fiction
illustration for publications.
Marc A. Michaud
Necronomicon Press
Marc had used the password. Anyone who
would name his press after the Necronomicon had to be deeply interested
in Lovecraft. I called the number and with my meeting Marc, another phase of my
involvement with Lovecraft began.
Naturally, it was exciting to meet someone
who was not only familiar with Lovecraft, but as much of a fanatic about it as I
was. A couple of months after meeting Marc, I met S. T. Joshi, editor of Lovecraft
Studies. During that year, I grew to know Marc, S. T. and several others who
would become some of my closest friends. Many a frozen East Side night, the
three of us would tramp around the various places Lovecraft had been apt to
haunt, as well as the many dubious eating places around Brown University, where
Messrs. Michaud and Joshi would treat me to nameless hamburgers and unwholesome
french-fries. We would huddle like refugees from Hell in the dark booths and
discuss the state of Lovecraftian studies. The two of them mumbled on dreadfully
and leered shockingly at me, as they hinted of yet more Lovecraftians, lurking
in the shadows of an otherwise uninteresting society. Through the agency of a
number of fantasy conventions, I was to meet some of these fabled creatures.
Mixed in among the several conventions
were our annual observances of Lovecraftian holidays: March 15, the anniversary
of his death; August 20, his birthday; and May Eve, Halloween, and the Yuletide,
the pagan festivals observed by cults in HPL's stories. Of these, the last
figures in "The Festival". To honor the tale, our group of ten or so
gathers in Marblehead, Massachusetts (the analog to the story's fictional
"Kingsport") each year on December 21, just as the story's narrator
does. This is typical of our gatherings. They are usually accompanied by much
eating of pizza, spaghetti, and ice cream, as per Lovecraft's taste. (We don't
really know about the pizza, but it's a good guess.)
There is a very strong tie which binds us
together, something which distance and spaces of time cannot break. We are in
almost constant correspondence with each other, but even more important, there
is a state of mind that runs through all of us. Talking with the others, I have
found that we all have been subject to influences similar to those working on
Lovecraft. If nothing else, we are joined by a common outsideness, a feeling of
distance from even our closest friends and families. Through our common bond of
Lovecraft, our very alienage has given us friendship and peace from loneliness.
If I sound almost religious in my tone, so be it. This is, in fact, as close to
religion as I get. H. P. Lovecraft is our spiritual "Grandpa". We are,
in a sense, the spawn of Cthulhu.
But even here the story does not end.
Daily, more people discover and appreciate Lovecraft's work. Yes, in truth it
seems that
"The blight is spreading --- little
by little, perhaps an inch a year."
Yet, through all these past ten years of
interest and devotion, I am a little ashamed to say that there is much by HPL
that I have not read. Uncounted letters, articles, and essays await my perusal,
but there always seem to be tasks demanding my attention. Besides, it is the
stories that have inspired me first and foremost. It was the images the stories
raised in my mind --- images not only of suffocating horror, but also of the
wonder of nature, the gaping expanse of cosmic space --- that inspired me truly
to open my eyes on the world.
"Beauty . . . is the only thing
of any real consequence in the universe. . . ."
--- H. P. Lovecraft
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