"The Haunter of the Dark"

[TLO]

Category: Selections by Other Authors
Type: Story

Article Name: "The Haunter of the Dark"
Author: H. P. Lovecraft
Description: A Short Story by H. P. Lovecraft

>>Read Full Article (http://www.ligotti.net/integramod/kb.php?mode=article&k=52)

[Aetherwing]

Ah, THitD. One of my perennial HPL favorites. Hell, that first line "Cautious Investigators will hesitate to challenge the fact that Robert Blake died by lightning" had me hooked. As a side note, anyone who has ever played Chaosium's CALL rpg will find that line morbidly gleeful.

I once owned a cassette recording of HAUNTER, read by David McCallum (Man from UNCLE). During the summer of 1986, I went to sleep by it every night. The climax was handled very well, and inspired many a noxious dream upon my 16 year old mind.

If you haven't read the tale, be warned, :here be spoilers.

I have heard numerous criticisms over the years concerning the ultimate fate of Blake, and his final frantic scrawlings. They will say, "Why did he just sit and wait to die? Why did he bother writing as Illimitable Horror drew near?"

My answer is this. Due to his gazing into the abyssal depths of that infamous bauble that is the Shining Trapezohedron, there obviously existed a mental bond between Blake and the Haunter. Lacking the will and ability to act in his own self-preservation, he remained true to his character. He recorded the events leading to his own dissolution.

In fact, the idea of the frenzied, fear-mad Blake, transfixed in his garret room, awaiting the end, unable to do more than madly scribble the feelings and impressions he received via aforementioned link with that Black-winged Shadow from the Steeple evokes a horrified form of pity in me. Poor Blake.

Now, readers...I abjure you, if in fact you have not al;ready done so, to seek out and read the Bob Bloch prequel to this story, THE SHAMBLER FROM THE STARS, as well as his sequel to HAUNTER, THE SHADOW FROM THE STEEPLE. Damn good reading.

Azathoth Have Mercy--The Three Lobed BURNING EYE----!!

Keep Those Lights on,
Aether

[hopfrog]

I have heard numerous criticisms over the years concerning the ultimate fate of Blake, and his final frantic scrawlings. They will say, "Why did he just sit and wait to die? Why did he bother writing as Illimitable Horror drew near?"

When Lovecraft was dying in hospital and suffering great pain -- he kept a "death diary" in which he recorded his torment as Ye Grim Reaper drew nigh. Why didn't he just lay down and perish? Because he was Lovecraft. Why doesn't Blake just sit down and await destruction? Because he is Lovecraft. He lives in the rooms where Lovecraft lived when he wrote the story. Too, it makes for a wonderful ending. It is an artistic ending to a fantastic tale. It ends in pure poetry. Because Lovecraft was, above all, an Artist.

I usually claim this as my favourite Lovecraft tale. I'm trying to remember when I first read it -- but it's been too long ago. I may have found it in a paperback edition of TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS that I bought while serving as a Mormon missionary in Las Vegas, after I was transferred from Ireland (I was so homesick that I faked I was dying of emphysema due to Ireland's coal smoke -- instead of sending me home, the Church sent me to ye desert). I was pen-pals with Bho Bloch, and I remember how thrilled I was to discover that Lovecraft had dedicated the tale to him.

Some scholars/critics ignore the story. S. T. Joshi has written, in his biography of the old gent, "Although Lovecraft would write one more original tale..., his life as a fiction writer ends, and ends fittingly, with 'The Shadow out of Time'." Say what? And almost the entire introduction to Jim Turner's ETERNAL LOVECRAFT is his argument for "Shadow" being Lovecraft's finest tale (which it may be -- I've just listened to the REMARKABLE dramatization of it from The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society's DARK ADVENTURE RADIO THEATRE adaptation of it, and the tale's terrifying ending comes across with unequaled power). These gents, among others, like to stress that Lovecraft was turning away from supernatural horror and more toward an sf-tainted cosmic horror. Joshi likes to quote Lovecraft's statement, "The time has come when the normal revolt against time, space, & matter must assume a form not overtly incompatible with what is known of reality--when it must be gratified by images forming SUPPLEMENTS rather than CONTRADICTIONS of the visible & measurable universe. And what, if not a form of NON-SUPERNATURAL COSMIC ART, is to pacify this sense of revolt--as well as gratify the cognate sense of curiosity?" (pages 488/489 of H. P. LOVECRAFT: A LIFE, in ye chapter entitl'd "Non-Supernatural Cosmic Art [1930-1931]). Lovecraft wrote that in 1931, and then went on to pen such non-cosmic tales as "The Thing on the Doorstep" (1933), "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1932), "The Shadow over Innsmouth" (November/December 1931), and "The Haunter of the Dark" (1935). It is largely because Lovecraft failed to live up to his stated goals as an author that "The Thing on the Doorstep" and "The Dreams in the Witch House" are roundly abused as miserable "failures." Lovecraft never abandoned supernatural horror -- this was a panel discussion at WFC in Saratoga, and I was happy to see that S. T. actually agreed with me on this point (we discuss'd it before he participated in ye panel). I lean toward this opinion chiefly because my own "Lovecraftian" fiction is supernatural up ye arse, and I like to link my writer's life to Lovecraft's -- my soul sister in the realm of Literary Art.

[Joel]

Hopfrog, I'm delighted to see that your Anglophilia extends to saying 'arse' rather than 'ass' – the latter has always sounded flat to me.

I think 'The Haunter of the Dark' is a concentrated weird nightmare with some powerful moments – not a negligible work by any means However, it does feel a bit rushed. It's rather lacking in back-story, for example, and there are a couple of minor glitches.

When the church is described as 'almost eldritch', I always re-read the description of it trying to work out on what criterion of eldritchness it falls short. One imagines HPL walking past the church and thinking "Nice try, but not quite..."

And while I agree that the final scene of writing is in character and reflects HPL's own attitude towards journal-keeping, I've never been convinced that the final paragraph is not a mistake. How many words can you write in a fraction of a second before a violent death? Would those words include the adjective 'three-lobed'? Also, shortly before then, is Blake really so scrupulous as to place an umlaut over a vowel while jotting blindly and feverishly in the dark?

Finally, coming back to the arse theme, my favourite bit of unintentional humour in Lovecraft line is from the opening of 'The Lurking Fear': "I had with me two faithful and muscular men..." Lucky old narrator, is all I can say. Some people have yet to find one.

[Odalisque]

I have heard numerous criticisms over the years concerning the ultimate fate of Blake, and his final frantic scrawlings. They will say, "Why did he just sit and wait to die? Why did he bother writing as Illimitable Horror drew near?"

My answer is this. Due to his gazing into the abyssal depths of that infamous bauble that is the Shining Trapezohedron, there obviously existed a mental bond between Blake and the Haunter. Lacking the will and ability to act in his own self-preservation, he remained true to his character. He recorded the events leading to his own dissolution.

Keep Those Lights on,
Aether

A shorter answer would be:

Why not write as as Illimitable Horror draws near? You've got to do something. And where's the point in gibbering or screaming?

Writing, as Mr Hopfrog points out, is what Lovecraft would have done.

Which of us, I wonder, would post to the TLO in such circumstances? :confused:

[hopfrog]

Today -- April 5 -- is Robert Bloch's birthday. How I wish some nice publisher would bring forth a wonderful hardcover edition of Bho's finest weird fiction. It's a crime to see all of his books go o.p. Happily, Chaosium will be bringing out a new third edition of THE MYSTERIES OF THE WORM, featuring all of Bloch's Cthulhu Mythos tales -- with the exception of his novel, STRANGE EONS. Happy Birthday, Bob -- and thanx for your encouragement when I was a young writer. Your support has paid off and brought me great joy.

[Steve Dekorte]

Now, readers...I abjure you, if in fact you have not al;ready done so, to seek out and read the Bob Bloch prequel to this story, THE SHAMBLER FROM THE STARS, as well as his sequel to HAUNTER, THE SHADOW FROM THE STEEPLE. Damn good reading.


Couldn't find the text to THE SHAMBLER FROM THE STARS but I did find this:

Browse By Author: B - Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/b#a31575)

If someone has a digital copy of the text for THE SHAMBLER FROM THE STARS, can they post it? I think the copyright should be expired.

[Joel]

As Bloch died in 1994, copyright will not have expired. While I like sometimes finding hard-to-obtain texts online, I don't think in a case like this they should be. Your best bet is probably to track down a cheap second-hand copy of the paperback reprint of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos or of a Bloch collection with the story (I think it was in The House of the Hatchet).

[Steve Dekorte]

As Bloch died in 1994, copyright will not have expired. While I like sometimes finding hard-to-obtain texts online, I don't think in a case like this they should be. Your best bet is probably to track down a cheap second-hand copy of the paperback reprint of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos or of a Bloch collection with the story (I think it was in The House of the Hatchet).

Thanks for the pointer. I'll see if the Kindle iPhone app can dig it up when I get a chance.

[matt cardin]

I, too, love "The Haunter of the Dark," although I am sympathetic to the criticisms you mention, Joel.

For some reason this story is just one that, especially in memory, stands out as quintessentially Lovecraftian, as one among the handful in which the essential Lovecraftian mood and vision (as I perceive it) shine through the best.

I'll gladly sign onto Jimmy's explanation of why the narrator continues writing as his monstrous multi-dimensional doom approaches. Nicely done, sir.

Tangentially, one of my favorite scenes in Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's ILLUMINATUS! is the one that echoes the climactic scene from "The Haunter of the Dark." It's been a few years; I recall that Robert Blake himself appears as a character in the trilogy, but I don't think he's the one who suffers that extra-dimensional doom. Anybody recall?

[Steve Dekorte]

My answer is this. Due to his gazing into the abyssal depths of that infamous bauble that is the Shining Trapezohedron, there obviously existed a mental bond between Blake and the Haunter. Lacking the will and ability to act in his own self-preservation, he remained true to his character. He recorded the events leading to his own dissolution.


I found this bit of the story strange, but not so strange as the real life examples of this phenomena. Why do people who can leave continue to live in war zones? Why do battered spouses stay with their partners even after death threats? Why do soldiers fight in wars they know are unjust and don't serve the interest of themselves or their country? Or indeed, why do nations enter into unnecessary wide scale conflicts knowing the likely cost to their populations? If the answer to each is that at some unconscious level "hope springs eternal" then the human optimistic impulse may well be it's greatest source of tragedy and suffering.

From this perspective, the trapezohedron and more generally the Lovecraftian theme of occult sources of power which turn against their users could be seen as metaphors for the human instinct for hope - when we give in to the impulse to live in hope, we accept a faustian bargain.

[Evans]

If I may throw my interpretation in. I was of the opinion that Blake did not run because he soon realised distance would be no barrier. Some aspect of the Haunter was in him and some aspect of him in the Haunter. That's why he was seeing the inside of the Steeple and having visions of far off worlds. Hard to run from what was essentially a piece of himself.


From this perspective, the trapezohedron and more generally the Lovecraftian theme of occult sources of power which turn against their users could be seen as metaphors for the human instinct for hope - when we give in to the impulse to live in hope, we accept a faustian bargain.

It would be interesting to recall that the Starry Wisdom group were able to use the Shining Trapezoid's power without that effect. I am sure it could be turned to some allegorical use if the reader was so inclined.

[Odalisque]

I found this bit of the story strange, but not so strange as the real life examples of this phenomena. Why do people who can leave continue to live in war zones? Why do battered spouses stay with their partners even after death threats?

There may be something of "better than the devil you know..." A feeling that, in fleeing, one may expose oneself to greater (perhaps all the more terrible for being unknown) danger.

I also think of the three 'F' responses to danger -- freeze, fight, flight. Personally, my involuntary response to seeing a car bearing down on me as I cross the road is usually to freeze. Perhaps that may, one day, kill me. Perhaps it's actually helpful, allowing the driver to more easily avoid a non-moving target. Who knows?

[hopfrog]

Lovecraft has, at times, his narrators become one with the horrors, or they accept their horror-nature. We find this in "The Shadow out of Time," "The Outsider" and "The Shadow over Innsmouth" -- and, I think, we find it here. Who is speaking when, at the climax, he writes "Yaddith grant it will keep up!," "I remember Yuggoth, and more distant Shaggai..."? Those memories could not possibly belong to Blake. The essence of his being, the very fiber of his personality, had melded with the Haunter of Darkness. "...far is near and near is far..." "...I am it and it is I..." Thus, it's not Blake who is sitting and writing those final words, but the entity with which he has been supernaturally conjoin'd. This melding must be, in some form, physical as well as mental, and thus when the creature is destroyed by the cosmic bolt of lightning, Blake's heart stops as well, as utterly destroy'd as the daemon of which he was now inexorably a portion.

[Harksen]

Thought I'd throw in a few coppers of opinion...

I think that "the 3 Fs" as well as the "becoming one with the horrors" theories both have a lot going for them. However, since, obviously Blake is sort of taken over by the unspeakable entity, the latter theory in my opinion is what explains the most within this context.

But, just as clearly, Blake desperately tries to write. Even if it's the last thing he ever does, as his own essense is evaporating. And he knows it is. Horror indeed.

A truly great story.

~Henrik, hplmythos.com

[Mr. D.]

What we consider to be life is only something like the crust on a pie. Underneath the crust all is mystery. Lovecraft is the first writer that I know of to understand the human need to act as if life was orderly, sensible and somehow "normal" in spite of all of the evidence. In how many of his stories do we have someone who, as all of the evidence to the contray keeps growing all around him, still act as if nothing is wrong. In this story Blake keeps acting against his experience. That is such a human trait. However, if one of Lovecraft's characters acknowledges that things are not as he and everyone else thinks that they are, then he is cut off from all of humanity and has to live his life in a very different way. The knowledge that a creature from another world can strike him at any time is the last thing that he will admit, though he knows it in his very bones. The unresolvable problem drives him near to madness and then he dies still trying to do the "normal" things that he did before he gained knowledge. I think most of Lovecraft's characters fight against the alienating knowledge that usually destroys them. Wouldn't we do the same?

[Aetherwing]

As an aside, the knowledge that the Haunter is "an avatar of Nyarlathotep" would not really reassure me. I mean, c'mon, Blake. That would increase my personal "Oh, F***" factor a thousand fold. But that's just me.

-J

[G. S. Carnivals]

This is a homemade THANK YOU, Jimmy.

[Steve Dekorte]

From this perspective, the trapezohedron and more generally the Lovecraftian theme of occult sources of power which turn against their users could be seen as metaphors for the human instinct for hope - when we give in to the impulse to live in hope, we accept a faustian bargain.

It would be interesting to recall that the Starry Wisdom group were able to use the Shining Trapezoid's power without that effect[SIZE=3]. I am sure it could be turned to some allegorical use if the reader was so inclined.

If by effect you mean the effect of turning against the user, I thought the group was destroyed by the creature(?)

Looking on wikipedia:

"Summoned from the black gulfs of chaos, this being could show other worlds, other galaxies, and the secrets of arcane and paradoxical knowledge; but he demanded monstrous sacrifices, hinted at by disfigured skeletons that were later found in the church."

That sounds like a faustian bargain to me and I would be surprised if Lovecraft let mortals get away with access to such power unscathed. Is there any magic user in Lovecraft's universe that doesn't end up paying the severest of prices?

[Evans]

From this perspective, the trapezohedron and more generally the Lovecraftian theme of occult sources of power which turn against their users could be seen as metaphors for the human instinct for hope - when we give in to the impulse to live in hope, we accept a faustian bargain.

It would be interesting to recall that the Starry Wisdom group were able to use the Shining Trapezoid's power without that effect[SIZE=3]. I am sure it could be turned to some allegorical use if the reader was so inclined.

If by effect you mean the effect of turning against the user, I thought the group was destroyed by the creature(?)

Looking on wikipedia:

"Summoned from the black gulfs of chaos, this being could show other worlds, other galaxies, and the secrets of arcane and paradoxical knowledge; but he demanded monstrous sacrifices, hinted at by disfigured skeletons that were later found in the church."

That sounds like a faustian bargain to me and I would be surprised if Lovecraft let mortals get away with access to such power unscathed. Is there any magic user in Lovecraft's universe that doesn't end up paying the severest of prices?

I was to assume the Starry Wisdom group payed the price through mob retribution hinted at when the church was forcefully disbanded on the death of its founder. The skeletons were likely connected with the “monstrous sacrifices” the group practised and occasional unfortunate that stumbled into the church. (If a metaphorical analogy is wanted I suppose it could be said that in order to archive hope it is necessary to crush others hope)

EDIT: Not that it makes much differance but here follows massive spoilers

As for magic users I all thought Lovecraft seemed to deal with it in an extremely neutral manner – it was no special force with an innate forbiddinness to it. It just happened. If you stand to close to a flame you could get burnt, if you called something up stronger than yourself it may destroy you. Happily he didn't get for the rather old fashioned Faustian bargain sort of thing very much. The theme of ancestral evil seemed his pet topic.

Allso its interesting to note that most of the mages seem to suffer not so much from their magic but from the meddling of the main characters. Keziah Mason died because Gilman attacked her when trying to escape. Old Whatley surcommed to old age. Ephraim Waite was doing very well for himself before Dan Upton interfered by shooting his current host.
Joseph Curwen was the only one who was really unlucky as he was killed both times as a result of magical misfire. The first by something he knew he couldn't control but called up as a last ditch attempt at destroying his attackers and the second by the doctor who found the formula to put him down again.

[Proteus]

Nice thread. Makes me want to reread the story. Always loved the mounting horror of the idea that the Haunter can only move about in the darkness. The passage noting Blake's hysterical phone calls to the electricity company is a clever piece of work as it nicely captures the futility of struggling against his predicament. Made me smile. As if a public utility could save you from that.