Brian Lumley's stories: The House of the Temple

After reading a few of Clark Ashton Smith's stories i discounted other writers from having the same pull as Lovecraft. Lumley meets and supersedes my expectations. The House of the Temple follows a man who inherits a home from his uncle. In a letter, the deceased relative explains the history of the house and it's inhabitants the McGrath family. Bit the inheritance is on the codition that the narrator destroys the old house. Our narrator is joined to his journey to the house in by an uninspired artist friend. Once there the artist is struck by inspiration and sets in to canvas a new work. As the narrator reads into his uncle's notes, he discovers how his uncle died and the curse that affects the family. A pool sits outside that slowly unveals the creature that inhabits the water. In the end, the friend dies a horrific death and the narrator succeeds in blowing up the house only to be haunted by the thing in the pool.

Lumley cleverly inserts artistry into the tried and true Lovecraft formula. The usual tropes of family lineage and investigation are still present but the addition of the world seen from an artist's view adds to the story. In fact, it is the artist's final image that haunts the narrator as he awaits in a padded cell: the narrator face in the monster's bulbous form. The creature, described like a tick, absorbs souls, even seems to have a taste for McGrath souls. Our protagonist ponders if his face will mirror the one in the painting. It paints, pun intended, a horrific end that might wait him. Like Lovecraft's characters, the narrator wavers on what is real or fake. But there's always that part of him that can't let go of the idea that this is all real. That last thought, that painting, still haunts him. 

Lumley's works drew me in with his sharp narration and slowly guided me towards Lovecraft territory. This slow spiral into the impossible makes you believe in it. If you don't pay attention, it feels like a sudden jerk into the crazy. I look forward to reading more by Lumley.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finishing The King in Yellow: The Prophets' Paradise

The final story in Chamber's collection that has any connection to the King in Yellow. This story is made up of very short parts or chapters listed as: The Studio, The Phantom, The Sacrifice, Destiny, The Throng, The Jester, The Green Room, and The Love Test. I see a pattern of each story in Chamber's story of the themes around the King wanning away with each entry. This collection has the bare bones of what could be considered a reference.  For example, The Green Room mentions a character with a powdered face. This could be similar to a pale mask. But the analogies are so thin here that it's difficult to draw connections. 
Read more

A Forgotten Legacy, Nonfiction

Of course my interests in Lovecraft are for his Cthulhu stories but what about his non fiction? Lovecraft, being an amateur scientist, completed several books on astronomy specifically on the Moon and Mars and other heavenly occurrences. He kept a magazine for Rhode Island for nearly five years and for some reason had a book about smelting. It's easy to forget that there's more to Lovecraft than the stories he wrote. I wonder if he had any influence on the scientific world. It's more likely that this was akin to a youtuber making videos on their favorite subject. Or similar to what I'm doing with so few, if any, viewers. That's okay with me, this blog is by and for me.
Read more

Review: Hostile Dimensions

I thought I'd do something different today; a movie review. I hyped myself up for Hostile Dimensions. Found footage films are a dirty pleasure of mine and the concept of the film was interesting. Despite the obvious indie film vibe the film gave off, I still held hope for this film. I was wrong. This film is awful. It never manages to go deep enough to shake off the amateur feel in it. The story follows a film maker and her friend as they try to locate a missing girl who fell into another dimension via a door. Specifically, a door unattached. A threshold and a door without a wall. The pair team up with a professor, who looks younger than them, who explains that this is a wolf door, a portal to alternate dimensions. At no point  does the film establish our protagonists to the missing girl. Why do they care that a radom girl went midsing? What is their connection? It doesn't matter as the missing girl somehow finds her way out without their help. But that's the least of the s...
Read more