Okay, so I’ve been on a bit of a horror kick lately, partially inspired by the Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals podcast and also by reading TTRPGs like Delta Green and Call of Cthulhu. The kick led me to check back in with the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. Before, I’d kind of bounced off of The Call of Cthulhu because of issues with how Lovecraft’s famous bigotry basically permeates all of his writing in that story.
And, honestly, that’s still true in The Shadow over Innsmouth. The basic themes are the horrors of immigration and miscegenation. But I think enough of Lovecraft’s horror storytelling shows through in spite of those that I can see a bit more of what friends of mine have seen in the Mythos stories.
So first off, there’s a lot I liked in The Shadow over Innsmouth. It’s got a creepy conspiracy that is looked into by an outsider who hears about this creepy town and just has to take a look. And then he gets caught up in the whole conspiracy and has to escape the town. (That may sound like spoilers, but that’s literally mentioned in the frame at the start). The narrator has an interesting voice that goes along with the outsider finding the creepier and creepier truth about an old seaside town in Massachusetts.
That outsider, naive narrator used by Lovecraft in this story does an excellent job of standing in as a Watson-type audience analogue. The narrator knows as much about what’s going on in Innsmouth as we do at the start of the story. The opening framing piece sets the stage for something so horrifying that the US Military gets involved and then the stakes get real small to allow them to build.
Where things didn’t work so well for me were really with the pacing as the story reached a first climax in the conspiracy portion and then swiftly rushes toward a second climax in the denouement. Like, the story ideas that are brought up in the denouement could have been a whole second story themselves. The end just feels rushed to get to the final reveal.
Overall, it was enjoyable and I can start to see a little more of what people enjoy with Lovecraft’s work. I think there’s definitely still a lot of baggage for me with the way in which H.P. Lovecraft being a total bigot is absolutely clear in the choices he makes for what the “horrors” of his stories really are. But, there’s some real horror there, and the setting is interesting enough for me to take a look at what later authors have done with the place. A friend has recommended Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys and Carter and Lovecraft by Jonathan Howard as likely next choices. I am actually part of the way through Carter and Lovecraft now and am enjoying it. The beginning seems to be more a riff on The Horror at Red Hook than on Innsmouth, but so far so good.
Leave a Reply