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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 7, Summer 1945
Page 153
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 153 arise in our minds regarding what she experienced the laboratory that made her lose consciousness: why was it so urgent that her tongue be silenced forever? We We wonder dumbly, and we finally comprehend, to our horror. Compare these examples to the feelings aroused in our minds by Lovecraft in "At the Mountains of Madness" when the narrator tells how the clothing stolen from the bodies of the murdered explorers has been cut and altered in such odd ways---as though to adapt the garments for the use and convenience of beings with utterly unimaginable structures and appendages! Later, our dim feelings of horror are amply confirmed. In "The Shadow out of Time," when the narrator in his own time visits the eon-buried city he marvels at the height of the reading tables in the hall of archives: they tower far above his head. Yet when his mind awakes in the same city in its own time, these same tables have resumed a convenient height for him. A sick feeling envelops us, and we know why the narrator tries with a paralyzing horror to keep from looking down to see what manner of body he is now imprisoned within. Later, we see it all and are sorry it was revealed to us. Or take an instance from "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." After the reader knows that young Ward is dead, we are told that the Ward butler saw him come down the stairs from his room and leave the house. From the story thus far we can sense only the worst: the arch-fiend, Joseph Curwen, has been resurrected by Ward's meddling with forbidden lore and has now seized the body of the unhappy man for his own vile purposes. A classic example from "The Whisperer in Darkness" might be mentioned. After the narrator, Albert Wilmarth, has received many letters scrawled in longhand by Henry Akeley telling how his home in the Vermont hills is besieged by winged creatures from the Outside, his horror at their disgusting activities, and warning Wilmarth to stay away, Wilmarth suddenly receives a typewritten letter from Akeley signed in an unintelligible blot. This letter reveals a complete change of attitude: Akeley now understands and respects the creatures and he invites Wilmarth to visit him immediately. The letter also reminds Wilmarth to bring with him all the photographs and letters that he has been sent in order that the two may go over the whole story together. Is the reader taken in by so obvious a fraud? Not at all---he scents the approaching danger; but poor Wilmarth, although puzzled, follows the letter's directions. And with a tightening feeling in our throats we see Wilmarth go to an inevitable doom---powerless to save him. Many other parallel illustrations might be cited from the works of both authors. The similarity of method and purpose seems equally clear in each. Finally, we have the sinister atmosphere of impending doom and nameless evil which pervades both of Sloane's novels and almost all of Lovecraft's works. The tone is lighter in Sloane yet it is equally effective. Creation of this atmosphere is an elusive achievement almost beyond analysis. It depends upon selecting just the right word and putting it in just the right place in the narrative. Each of these writers has that unique ability: to chill and thrill us by the judicious choice of words and by their happy arrangement in the story. IV We must at last consider William Sloane on his own great merits, and particularly for those qualities in which he differs radically from Lovecraft. Here, it must be granted, we encounter a comparison in which Lovecraft comes out second-best. Sloane's world is a real world of everyday life in which we have such things as a typical university town with its familiar football crowd, and so
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 153 arise in our minds regarding what she experienced the laboratory that made her lose consciousness: why was it so urgent that her tongue be silenced forever? We We wonder dumbly, and we finally comprehend, to our horror. Compare these examples to the feelings aroused in our minds by Lovecraft in "At the Mountains of Madness" when the narrator tells how the clothing stolen from the bodies of the murdered explorers has been cut and altered in such odd ways---as though to adapt the garments for the use and convenience of beings with utterly unimaginable structures and appendages! Later, our dim feelings of horror are amply confirmed. In "The Shadow out of Time," when the narrator in his own time visits the eon-buried city he marvels at the height of the reading tables in the hall of archives: they tower far above his head. Yet when his mind awakes in the same city in its own time, these same tables have resumed a convenient height for him. A sick feeling envelops us, and we know why the narrator tries with a paralyzing horror to keep from looking down to see what manner of body he is now imprisoned within. Later, we see it all and are sorry it was revealed to us. Or take an instance from "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." After the reader knows that young Ward is dead, we are told that the Ward butler saw him come down the stairs from his room and leave the house. From the story thus far we can sense only the worst: the arch-fiend, Joseph Curwen, has been resurrected by Ward's meddling with forbidden lore and has now seized the body of the unhappy man for his own vile purposes. A classic example from "The Whisperer in Darkness" might be mentioned. After the narrator, Albert Wilmarth, has received many letters scrawled in longhand by Henry Akeley telling how his home in the Vermont hills is besieged by winged creatures from the Outside, his horror at their disgusting activities, and warning Wilmarth to stay away, Wilmarth suddenly receives a typewritten letter from Akeley signed in an unintelligible blot. This letter reveals a complete change of attitude: Akeley now understands and respects the creatures and he invites Wilmarth to visit him immediately. The letter also reminds Wilmarth to bring with him all the photographs and letters that he has been sent in order that the two may go over the whole story together. Is the reader taken in by so obvious a fraud? Not at all---he scents the approaching danger; but poor Wilmarth, although puzzled, follows the letter's directions. And with a tightening feeling in our throats we see Wilmarth go to an inevitable doom---powerless to save him. Many other parallel illustrations might be cited from the works of both authors. The similarity of method and purpose seems equally clear in each. Finally, we have the sinister atmosphere of impending doom and nameless evil which pervades both of Sloane's novels and almost all of Lovecraft's works. The tone is lighter in Sloane yet it is equally effective. Creation of this atmosphere is an elusive achievement almost beyond analysis. It depends upon selecting just the right word and putting it in just the right place in the narrative. Each of these writers has that unique ability: to chill and thrill us by the judicious choice of words and by their happy arrangement in the story. IV We must at last consider William Sloane on his own great merits, and particularly for those qualities in which he differs radically from Lovecraft. Here, it must be granted, we encounter a comparison in which Lovecraft comes out second-best. Sloane's world is a real world of everyday life in which we have such things as a typical university town with its familiar football crowd, and so
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