[Tour de Lovecraft] The Temple
A fine little tale, and another entry into the "Lovecraftian Otherworld/Underworld" series that runs from "Dagon" through (among others) "White Ship," "Celephaïs," "Festival" and "Dream-Quest" through the Johansen narrative in "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," in which a dreaming, hallucinating, mad, or otherwise unreliable narrator travels across (or, often, explicitly under) the ocean to the Other/Underworld, usually through a stretch of phosphorescence or other witch-light, usually with fatal or near-fatal consequences.
An early Lovecraftian attempt at character study, too; and I suspect the cursed figurine (like the one in "The Hound") is a Lovecraftian attempt to recreate (structurally, at least) M.R. James' "Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad," maybe with a little help from "Casting the Runes."
But the real question is this -- this story was written in 1920. Is it the first literary "haunted submarine" tale? (I'll bet ratmmjess knows.) If not, it's darned close to it. People often think of Lovecraft as a quaint, period-piece, pulp writer, but at the time he was writing, he was writing some cutting-edge techno-horror.
NEXT: "The Quest of Iranon"
An early Lovecraftian attempt at character study, too; and I suspect the cursed figurine (like the one in "The Hound") is a Lovecraftian attempt to recreate (structurally, at least) M.R. James' "Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad," maybe with a little help from "Casting the Runes."
But the real question is this -- this story was written in 1920. Is it the first literary "haunted submarine" tale? (I'll bet ratmmjess knows.) If not, it's darned close to it. People often think of Lovecraft as a quaint, period-piece, pulp writer, but at the time he was writing, he was writing some cutting-edge techno-horror.
NEXT: "The Quest of Iranon"