I’ll throw out a few ideas for you to consider as you read “The Moon-Bog” (1921) by H.P. Lovecraft… (text and audio for the story)
1. I’ll admit, I get a kick out of this story. One of my favorite elements of the tale is the Gothic theme of tainted ancestry. This has appeared in the work now considered the first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, and countless Gothic and Gothic-inspired works since then, from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables to – drum roll, please – J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. (Think of Harry fearing he was the Heir of Slytherin, or Sirius brooding over his family tree, etc.)
Lovecraft revisited this concept in other works, from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” to “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” “The Rats in the Walls,” and “The Dunwich Horror.” (Speaking of “The Dunwich Horror,” am I the only one who thinks of the “decadent Whateleys” when I read of the Gaunt ancestors of Tom Riddle?) What do you think of this theme and how it plays out in the story? Why do you think this is such a powerful concept in literature?
2. Lovecraft chose Ireland for the setting of this tale because he intended to share the story at the St. Patrick’s Day meeting of his amateur fiction circle. Despite this, he chose not Celtic but Greek myth to use as the source of his Elder Horror (not unlike other writers we know – hint, hint – who employ ancient mythology while creating contemporary fantasy and horror). How does the setting contribute to the story? What about the use of historical mythology?
3. Not all of Lovecraft’s narrators are neurotics alienated from society or uber-dedicated researchers/scientists/scholars willing to brave any peril to learn the truth. Some are just ordinary people forced into extraordinary situations. (Think of “Dagon,” “The Temple,” and “The Nameless City” as other examples of this.) How do you think our narrator’s Everyman status affects our view (through his eyes) of the unfolding events of the story?
Can’t you just hear the frogs piping in the swamp (looking, no doubt, rather Umbridge-esque)…?
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The text of the story can be found at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Moon_Bog
Haven’t had a chance to read it yet, though.
I’ve also been meaning to ask, Amy, do you have any references you could recommend to those of us who are Lovecraft novices to help in understanding his work? Thanks.
The story could be very useful to the green movement as a teaching tool: mess with the environment and suffer mutation and death. Lovecraft was ahead of his time.
On the other hand, I think he’s a little fuzzy on his Greek mythology. He seems to be confusing three goddesses: the moon goddess (Rhea, Selene and later on Artemis), the mother goddess (Rhea, Gaia, Cybele and later on, Hera and Demeter) and the harvest goddess (Demeter)
I did enjoy the story: very atmospheric, and it had a happy ending – at least for someone who opposes draining marshes. But a little unfair to the cook, I thought. Bet you he won’t be serving frogs legs again in a hurry.
I couldn’t get through this story without thinking of Lake Inferi. Because I’m always prepared for Lovecraft’s protagonists to end up becoming like the evil they’re trying to avoid, I thought of the protagonist as someone who might just get dragged to the water, and it reminded me of Harry’s experience at the lake in the cave.
Sure thing, revgeorge! Are you looking for online sources or hard-copy works? As for online sources, I listed several articles here, and the one I definitely recommend starting with is S.T. Joshi’s excellent introductory essay “H.P. Lovecraft.” It’s perhaps the best first window into thinking about his work. The other review articles, and the lecture and DVD documentary, also may be useful. I hope this helps!
Let me know if you’d like some book recommendations, too, and I’d be happy to list those I suggest as the best places to start. Thanks so much for being interested!
PS. On a related note, there’s also a fascinating online article at The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies: “Baroque Intensity: Lovecraft, Le Fanu and the Fold” by Patricia MacCormack.
Thank you for the further references, Amy. I guess my main problem is finding time to read them all.
Some book references would be helpful, too. I think there’s a Lovecraft biography out. Any idea as to how good that may be? Is there more than one biography?
Thanks again.
RE: The Moon Bog
I don’t think Lovecraft believed in Naiads or faeries but rather he poises the question: how weird would the world be if, despite the progress of positivism and empiricism, that these things are still actually true and exist. Then we have to adjust our view of reality and realize that we know little or nothing but the true nature of the universe. He poises the same sort of speculation when addressing witchcraft and all the religions of indigenous and ancient peoples. I think Lovecraft thought that this sort of paradigm-shattering stuff was out there yet not necessarily accesible on demand, at least not yet.
There is, I think, a great significance to the fact that in this story (as well as The Music of Erich Zann and others) there is only a single protagonist observer who confronts the supernatural without corroboratory witnesses. This leaves the person alone with the awful cosmic truth of accountable weirdness. Everyone else gets to sleep easy and live in the regular world but the person who encounters the paranormal forever lives in a world of monsters.
“Truly, there are terrible primal arcana of earth which had better be left unknown and unevoked; dread secrets which have nothing to do with man, and which man may learn only in exchange for peace and sanity; cryptic truths which make the knower evermore an alien among his kind, and cause him to walk alone on earth.” (The Diary of Alonzo Typer)
I think Lovecraft saw himself as the person with this burden because he saw himself as one of the few that could think critically about man’s place in the cosmos and be honest about it.
Travis, what’s your new gravatar? I thought you were channelling literary godfathers. I can’t quite make this one out – a winged reptile with the head of an octopus?
Red Rocker, It’s Cthulhu.
So it is. Must confess, not having the patience to sift for the solitary noun in a seemingly endless sea of adjectives, I frequently skip over Lovecraft’s turgid descriptions and go straight for the verb.
My pleasure, revgeorge! There are several biographies of Lovecraft available. The best and most respected of these is S.T. Joshi’s H.P. Lovecraft: A Life. It’s quite a weighty tome; luckily, he also produced a more streamlined version that focuses mostly on his thought/works, and it’s called A Subtler Magic: The Writings and Philosophy of H.P. Lovecraft.
I also recommend Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters by Lovecraft, which is edited by Joshi and Schultz. Joshi and Schultz also edited An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, which is very handy.
For the best one-stop shopping to get a sense of the width and breadth of Lovecraft scholarship over the years, I recommend H.P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism (which includes classic essays by Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith, and others) and An Epicure of the Terrible: A Centennial Anthology of Essays in Honor of H.P. Lovecraft.
These are just the tip of the iceberg, but I think they’re good starting places.
Thank you, Amy. That should be enough to make a good start.
I had seen the Joshi biography as one of my recommendations on Amazon & wondered how helpful it might be. I might try your second suggestion first, though.
Thanks again.