The time is right for a greater appreciation of this deeper, more serious aspect of Lovecraft’s fiction… The ground is particularly ready in Europe, where his works are held in highest esteem.
Dirk W. Mosig, “The Prophet from Providence,” 1973
Antediluvian-cyclopean ruins on lonely Pacific island. Centre of earthwide subterranean witch cult.
H. P. Lovecraft Commonplace Book #110, 1923
The exotic pungency of the secret cult of Cthulhu in Lovecraft’s fiction arises from the curious paradox of it being both widespread, worldwide, on the one hand, and yet secret on the other. It is conterminous with history, the bequest of the sleeping Old Ones to their dupes the human race (not that this is any different from the traditional Near Eastern religions, since in both the Babylonian Enuma Elish and in Genesis, humanity is created to serve as a slave race of grounds keepers). It covers the earth as the waters cover the sea; if one learns too much about it, “nautical-looking Negroes” will appear out of thin air to bump you off, and yet Western scholars seem never to have heard of it. The cultists of Cthulhu ply their rituals in lonely places, far from the ken of civilization.
And so with Lovecraft’s acolytes: we identify with the vague net of Lovecraftians spread abroad somewhere else, and though we would relish fellowship with kindred spirits, we dread it, too, lest we be forced to profane our dearest treasures by bringing them forth into the open air. The friendly interest of another Lovecraft fan well met is at once a relief (we’re not crazy—at least someone else suffers from the same obsession!) and a threat, since for us Lovecraft’s fiction is a Holy of Holies into which only the solitary soul may step. The gathering of the coven should be a sacred convocation, and yet it is somehow a trespass.
And perhaps this fact explains a shocking and horrifying feature of many fan conventions (even in those microcosms of the same known as comic book stores). When those who by themselves are esotericists as they tread the solitary path nonetheless come together periodically, they magically transform into a bunch of obnoxious, profane, mundane Racoon Lodge conventioneers. Their odd costumes, which seemed the mark of solitary devotion to Darker Mysteries, now by virtue of simple public accumulation, have become a new and public mundanity, like geeks in the audience of Let’s Make a Deal. Attending such a function one suddenly feels the force of the old joke that you wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have someone like you as a member. The Mysteries become pathetically profane by mutual revelation. Thus the esotericist requires secrecy even should one some day become the majority (and for the moment, in a convention, one is). As Macrobius said with reference to the ancient Greek Mysteries: “only an elite may know about the real secret… while the rest may be content to venerate the mystery, defended by… figurative expressions from banality.” In my estimate, the wonderful Necronomicons have perfectly walked the tightrope I am describing. No costumes are allowed, no weapons, except acid critical tongues.
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.