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Written by Azathoth
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Monday, 16 July 2007 |
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Page 4 of 7 Lovecraft felt that Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher” was one of the greatest stories ever written, in which “...one finds those very summits of artistry whereby Poe takes his place at the head of fictional miniaturists.” It is no surprise, therefore, that Lovecraft incorporated elements of “The Fall of the House of Usher” in his own “The Rats in the Walls.”“The Rats in the Walls” is generally regarded as Lovecraft's finest Gothic piece. Of course, he wrote other stories that can be safely classified as Gothic. One example would be “The Outsider”. “The Hound” also has Gothic elements. No other Lovecraft story in the Gothic tradition can be fairly considered the equal of “The Rats in the Walls.” The narrator of “The Rats in the Walls” acquires a dark and ancient Gothic ruin, his family seat from generations past. By inhabiting it, he inherits a forgotten family transgression. As in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the narrator is slowly drawn into the madness of the place. The element of a force, pulling down on the house, remains, though it is twisted so that the force pulls down on the house's rightful heir, that is, the narrator. The descent into madness is present,as is the explicit joining of the madness to the location. The element of unexplained sounds leading up to the climax is also present . The ending differs, and is noticeably more characteristic of Lovecraft than Poe. There are specific textual details that reveal Lovecraft's intended connection between the two stories, as well. For example, the word “house” refers, in both stories, to the physical building as well as the family that resides (or resided) there. The narrator's ancient family name in “The Rats in the Walls” is “de la Poer,” clearly intended to evoke Poe's name. “de la Poer” conceals the name “e. a. Poe.” The ending of “The Rats in the Walls” has given rise to much speculation. Joshi believes that the climax is “a scenario that could only have occurred to a writer who had accepted the truth of the Darwinian theory.” (Lovecraft, Annotated, 10) Initially, the climax does seem to be a deliberate inversion of a Darwinian process. This idea seems to be contradicted by the story's denouement, which appears to indicate that something else altogether was responsible for the events of the climax. By investigating Lovecraft's letters, however, we do learn that he had a Darwinian idea in mind when writing this story. In a 1923 letter to Frank Belknap Long, Lovecraft wrote, “About the anthropological background of “The Rats” - undoubtedly you are right, although all deductions concerning primitive man are too nebulous to permit of dogmatism of any sort. No line betwixt “human” and “non-human” organisms is possible,3 for all animate Nature is one - with differences only in degree, never in kind...” (Lovecraft, Lord, 122)
Lovecraft goes on to make comments about the transformation of gorillas into humans, which we now know is not the way it happened. The point is, Lovecraft probably did have Darwinian concepts in mind when writing this story. That said, if one were looking for a Lovecraft story involving his peculiar (and potentially offensive) ideas regarding Darwinian processes, one would be better advised to look at another of his somewhat Gothic tales, “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family.”
3 Recent research in biology indicates that this may not be the case. The interested reader is referred to the excellent and informative paper, “Human Uniqueness: A General Theory,” by the rather brilliant Dr. Paul Bingham. That said, in 1923, Lovecraft had every reason to believe that a clear line between humans and animals did not exist.
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Discuss (6 posts)
| hopfrog
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Out of Space, Out of Time
Apr 04 2009 05:12:27
This thread discusses the Content article: Out of Space, Out of Time
It should be pointed out that there are many in the academic world who dismiss Poe as a bad writer. Harold Bloom has been quite outspoken in condemning Poe's works (especially, it seems, the poetry). You wrote this essay in 2007, two years after the historic edition of TALES, edited by Peter Straub for The Library of America. That book herald Lovecraft into the mainstream of acknowledged American Literary Classics, and yet there were, at the time of the book's release, a number of snobs who considered it foolishness on the part of LoA to publish a volume of what they still consider pulp fiction. I have no idea if the book has, as I once suspected it would, legitimize Lovecraft's standing in the world of Academia. Now that S. T. Joshi is living here in Seattle again, I will try and remember to ask him about this. Some people dismiss the "value" of Lovecraft's being accepted by the Highbrows: for them, his true value is as a world-famous author of entertaining weird fiction, the value of which exists in itself rather than the opinions of old gents at universities. Lovecraft's appeal to young fans will never, one hopes, be vanquished by his being taken seriously in the academic realm. 
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#319 |
| hopfrog
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Re:Out of Space, Out of Time
Apr 04 2009 05:41:22
In response to page three of this essay -- Lovecraft called Poe his "god of fiction," and yet at times he seems to have regretted Poe's titanic influence on his work. But it must be remembered that Lovecraft was influenced by all of literature, from his wide and extensive reading. He was highly influenced (for a brief period) by Dunsany, and by Decadent literature (which resulted in "The Hound"  -- and, indeed, he was influenced by the early science-fiction of the pulp era, his reaction being to compose tales in which the entities were truly "alien," not just humans with purple skin and antennae. Late in life he strove to create non-supernatural horror fiction, and yet I find his final tale, "The Haunter in the Dark," almost Gothic in some of its horror touches -- and I say this as compliment. Lovecraft's fiction is delicious and unique because of its blend of fantasy, science fiction and horror; it was a combination that resulted in something new and refreshing that we now call "Lovecraftian horror." 
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#320 |
| hopfrog
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Re:Out of Space, Out of Time
Apr 04 2009 06:09:55
One of the reasons for Lovecraft's decline in productivity was that WEIRD TALES editor Farnsworth Wright rejected more and more of Lovecraft's latter fiction, due to length or extreme originality -- and because Wright was worried less Lovecraft's fiction come across as too gruesome, as happened when HPL and C. M. Eddy Jr.'s "The Loved Dead" resulted in the issue that carried that story being pulled from stores who found the tale's theme of necrophilia offensive. It is one of the great tragedies of Lovecraft's life that he went to his grave thinking himself a "failure" as a writer because so much of his best work had been rejected, because he had been unable to sell a collection of his stories to a publisher, &c &c. Lovecraft blamed a lot of his "failure" as a mature writer on the "bad influence" of pulp writing standards, of writing for "the herd" of unsophisticated readers who bought the pulps. Some of his late stories, too, have been roundly criticized by modern scholars as being bad fiction -- stories such as "The Dreams in the Witch House" and "The Thing on the Doorstep." (I found it interesting and baffling that S. T. Joshi, when he edited the fiction for the three Penguin Classics edition, chose those two tales as the title pieces for the second and third volumes. I would have used, for the second volume, "The Music of Erich Zann" or "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"; and for the third volume I would have chosen to call it THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES -- it being the first time that the recently-discovered handwritten draft of the stories manuscript had been published in a collection of Lovecraft's works.
I wonder, though, if writing for WEIRD TALES did have such a "bad" influence on Lovecraft's style? Lovecraft seemed determined to write exactly the kind of tale he wished to, and as much as he wanted to see his work published by WEIRD TALES, he never rewrote his tales to conform to any sub-literary pulp standards. Whatever faults we find with WEIRD TALES and its editors, I for one am thankful that they gave Lovecraft his one major professional market -- a market that gave him the encouragement to continue to write fiction. 
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#321 |
| jlv61560
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Re:Out of Space, Out of Time
Mar 11 2010 05:51:30
In the end, the lack of interest in a seminal author (one credited by such luminaries as Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell as being major influences on their writing topics and style) by Academia reflects more on the prejudices and preconceptions of Academia than it does on HPL's work and abilities.
The problem with Academia, indeed, is their inability to fully follow through on the promise of "free and independent inquiry," instead, all too frequently, seeming to prefer to follow the herd and praise those who are being praised and ignore those who are being ignored.
It is clear from the increasing sales of his work, that Lovecraft's, well, craft, is finally being appreciated by the wider public. As perhaps it would have been could he have published more during his lifetime. While I agree that much of his early work is uneven in quality, I rather imagine the same can be said for most authors who are now routinely published merely because of their name, and perhaps have somewhat lost the "fire" that originally inspired them to create worlds of words.
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#391 |
| hopfrog
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Re:Out of Space, Out of Time
Mar 11 2010 06:03:15
I used to want Lovecraft "accepted" by Academia, but now, especially with the publication of the Library of America edition, such acceptance seems beside the point. I have not investigated the academic reaction to that book, but I assume it wasn't warm. I suppose I could ask my neighbor, S. T. Joshi, about this -- but he seems to feel as I do that Academia is boring and of little consequence compared to keeping Lovecraft's fiction and correspondence in print. That, for me, is the most important thing -- to keep Lovecraft popular, so that legions more can discover the dark wonder of his Works.
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#392 |
| jlv61560
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Re:Out of Space, Out of Time
Mar 11 2010 06:06:06
Now there's something I can really get behind! I agree 100%.
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#394 |
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