The Whisperer in Darkness really is a tool. Huh.
Now I know what jatrina meant when she said that the dramatic irony in some of Lovecraft's stories gets a bit much. "The Whisperer In Darkness" has been entertaining until now, but now I want to shout, "BITCH, DON'T GO IN THE BASEMENT!" I mean seriously, here's the deal:
Two dudes are exchanging wild correspondence about the weird occurrences in the hills in Vermont. Dude in the hills writes these progressively more shocking accounts of how the bad guys are getting closer and closer to him. He tells his scholar correspondent all about these wild gunfights at night, and the thing that landed on his roof, and the threats, and the dead watch dogs and all sorts of stuff. Scholar is getting worried. One letter from dude suggests that it's too late to escape, surely they'll come for him that night and take him to Pluto (which is called something else, but blessedly is still a planet).
The next day, scholar gets a letter from dude which is typed instead of handwritten. Even the signature is typed -- scholar chalks that up to dude being a new typist and just being excited about using the typewriter. The letter says, "Oh, I've been silly all along. These aliens don't mean us any harm! They want to give us presents and the cure for cancer and color TV and they're awesome. We stayed up all night talking, and took long walks holding hands, and I think we're in love. The aliens have lots to offer humanity and we were silly to ever question them! Nevermind everything else I've said in the past few months. Everything is fine. You should come meet the aliens, they're very excited to meet you. Oh, why don't you bring those letters, photographs, and the recording of their speech while you're at it? We can show those things to the aliens and have a good laugh about it together. Please make sure you bring every shred of proof of this invasion with you so we can pass it around and compare notes."
Scholar even goes so far as to note that the whole cadence and style of language in the letter is different from the norm. How does he react to that? He says to himself, gee, dude must be really excited about these new findings if it even changed the way he writes!
D'oh!
When I put down the book before bed last night, scholar was packing up all the proof and records and heading off to Vermont on a ski trip with his awesome new alien friends.
I want to brain H.P. Lovecraft! I can accept Things From Below and aliens and extradimensional beings and all the occult nonsense on which his wonderful stories are based. This suspension of disbelief is getting stupid, however. I'll read to the end of the tale, but I won't like it! I can't bear to see any character be so willfully stupid!
T$
Two dudes are exchanging wild correspondence about the weird occurrences in the hills in Vermont. Dude in the hills writes these progressively more shocking accounts of how the bad guys are getting closer and closer to him. He tells his scholar correspondent all about these wild gunfights at night, and the thing that landed on his roof, and the threats, and the dead watch dogs and all sorts of stuff. Scholar is getting worried. One letter from dude suggests that it's too late to escape, surely they'll come for him that night and take him to Pluto (which is called something else, but blessedly is still a planet).
The next day, scholar gets a letter from dude which is typed instead of handwritten. Even the signature is typed -- scholar chalks that up to dude being a new typist and just being excited about using the typewriter. The letter says, "Oh, I've been silly all along. These aliens don't mean us any harm! They want to give us presents and the cure for cancer and color TV and they're awesome. We stayed up all night talking, and took long walks holding hands, and I think we're in love. The aliens have lots to offer humanity and we were silly to ever question them! Nevermind everything else I've said in the past few months. Everything is fine. You should come meet the aliens, they're very excited to meet you. Oh, why don't you bring those letters, photographs, and the recording of their speech while you're at it? We can show those things to the aliens and have a good laugh about it together. Please make sure you bring every shred of proof of this invasion with you so we can pass it around and compare notes."
Scholar even goes so far as to note that the whole cadence and style of language in the letter is different from the norm. How does he react to that? He says to himself, gee, dude must be really excited about these new findings if it even changed the way he writes!
D'oh!
When I put down the book before bed last night, scholar was packing up all the proof and records and heading off to Vermont on a ski trip with his awesome new alien friends.
I want to brain H.P. Lovecraft! I can accept Things From Below and aliens and extradimensional beings and all the occult nonsense on which his wonderful stories are based. This suspension of disbelief is getting stupid, however. I'll read to the end of the tale, but I won't like it! I can't bear to see any character be so willfully stupid!
T$