Chad, Chris, Me, And The Cat That Cannot Be Named
I forget exactly why I didn't post this last month. Oh, right, I was at Dundracon. Anyhow, while I was at Dundracon I somehow managed to come unmoored in time and space enough to appear once more on The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, this time discussing "The Rats in the Walls" with my genial hosts Chad Fifer and Chris Lackey. We had so much fun that they had to cut it into two parts. I perhaps over-reacted when invited to pile onto Warren G. Harding, a much underrated President, but that's what makes a podcast magical, I suppose.
I also neglected to mention how very Machen-y "Rats in the Walls" is. For all that it's obviously Lovecraft's manque of Poe's "House of Usher," he wrote it right after reading Arthur Machen for the first time, and he read Machen right after writing "The Lurking Fear." You can just see HPL slapping his forehead in irritation -- "So that's how to write a devolved underground race!" And in "Rats in the Walls" he's eager to unload everything he's taken onboard from Machen: a rural British setting, invisible monstrous portents, medieval legendry, a proper devolved underground race, and Celtic mystifaction in general. Note that even in "The Moon-Bog," which is set in Ireland (and written pre-Machen) the horror is essentially Classical, the goddess Diana. While in "Rats," the horror is "Cymric," or worse. Not even Dunsany could apparently make Lovecraft care about faeries, but Machen sets off the train that runs from the vague "white, shambling" horrors here all the way to the pure Lovecraftian Fair Folk on display in "Whisperer in Darkness."
But reading "Whisperer" as a Faery Abduction story -- complete with changeling! -- is probably a matter for another post, or even another podcast. Maybe Chad and Chris will invite me on that episode, too.
I also neglected to mention how very Machen-y "Rats in the Walls" is. For all that it's obviously Lovecraft's manque of Poe's "House of Usher," he wrote it right after reading Arthur Machen for the first time, and he read Machen right after writing "The Lurking Fear." You can just see HPL slapping his forehead in irritation -- "So that's how to write a devolved underground race!" And in "Rats in the Walls" he's eager to unload everything he's taken onboard from Machen: a rural British setting, invisible monstrous portents, medieval legendry, a proper devolved underground race, and Celtic mystifaction in general. Note that even in "The Moon-Bog," which is set in Ireland (and written pre-Machen) the horror is essentially Classical, the goddess Diana. While in "Rats," the horror is "Cymric," or worse. Not even Dunsany could apparently make Lovecraft care about faeries, but Machen sets off the train that runs from the vague "white, shambling" horrors here all the way to the pure Lovecraftian Fair Folk on display in "Whisperer in Darkness."
But reading "Whisperer" as a Faery Abduction story -- complete with changeling! -- is probably a matter for another post, or even another podcast. Maybe Chad and Chris will invite me on that episode, too.