"From Beyond" (a book review post)

First, yes, I am still working my way through these; I just haven't read any in a couple of months. The one thing I'm discovering about Lovecraft is that all of his stories are only of a few varieties. Over time, it makes them all blur together. The break was not purposeful; it was because every time I opened the book I found I didn't feel like reading Lovecraft at that moment, knowing exactly what to expect. I don't know if it was having had a break from him or if this was a better story than the average, but I enjoyed this one more than the last few that I read (ones I didn't bother to review individually because of a lack of things to say about them).

"From Beyond" has a slight twist on most of the stories I've read by Lovecraft so far while still having the same basic foundation. It's a story about a man, Crawford Tillinghast, who has developed a way to see the hidden worlds all around us. In this, it is very similar to most other Lovecraft stories but, in execution, it is most like "The Terrible Old Man."

This is not a new thought for me, but it's one I don't believe I've stated before in any of the Lovecraft reviews I've done:
Lovecraft seems to owe a lot to Robert Louis Stevenson and his Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Not that I know that Lovecraft read Stevenson, but I find it difficult to imagine that he would not have considering the similarities between the two authors in their physical conditions (both sickly) and the similarity in style of most of Lovecraft's short stories to Jekyll & Hyde. That style being an unnamed narrator telling a story about a friend suffering the consequences of, usually, some sort of insatiable curiosity. This one, "From Beyond," is closer to Jekyll & Hyde than most.

Back in the early 90s, there was a comic book, Dark Dominion, which dealt with the idea that there was a world of demons that overlapped our own. One man, Michael Alexander, was able to see these demons as they coexisted with us. It was a darkly interesting idea that ended way too soon. I don't know if Jim Shooter, the creator of the series, read Lovecraft, but you can see those same ideas in "From Beyond." I don't know of anyone earlier than Lovecraft writing about these kinds of things in this kind of way. This is not the only of Lovecraft's stories dealing with this idea, but this is the most direct, at least so far. It's short enough that I'm willing to say you should just read it.

"The Terrible Old Man" (a book review post)

"The Terrible Old Man" might be the most normal of Lovecraft's stories, the most "normal" one I've read, anyway. Which is not to say that it's not a horror story, but it's not a weird, tentacled monster horror story.

This is going to be all spoilery, by the way, because the short story is quite short, and there's no way to talk about what I want to talk about without giving it away. But you should still read it because 1. it's short, and 2. it's that good.

I'm not saying that Lovecraft invented this type of story, but this is certainly the earliest example that I know I've read of this type, the type where the perpetrators become the victims.

So...

There's an old man, an ex-sea captain, who lives alone and is rumored to have vast stores of treasures. Or something. No one really knows because the old guy keeps to himself and everyone is afraid of him. But, then, three new guys arrive into town, hear about the guy, and decide that they will rob the old man. They'll torture the location of the hidden treasure out of him if they have to.

Except one of the guys, the driver, isn't too keen on the torture part, so he tells his two buddies to go easy on the old guy. And that's the last he sees of them as they head to the house and he waits in the car. Not long after, he hears screams coming from inside the house and assumes it's the old guy... until he finds the old guy staring at him from the gate with a wicked grin on his face.

Seriously, go read it.

Now, one of the things I read about this story is that it's a prime example of Lovecraft's racism... wait! What?
I'm sorry; I just don't see it.
Yes, the men from out of town are "foreigners" in that they are not from the small town where everyone knows about the terrible old man. You have to outsiders come in who don't know any better. I think you have to read awfully deep between the lines to turn this into some kind of warning to outsiders to stay out.

Or maybe I just don't know enough about Lovecraft.
However, not knowing more than I do, I say this is a really great read.