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A review by redsg
The Haunter of the Dark: The H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus, #3 by August Derleth, H.P. Lovecraft
3.0
(2.5/4 upscaled to a 3/5)
I was admittedly a little worried when I began reading “The Haunter in the Dark”. It’s opening was reminiscent of “Pickman’s Model,” a tale that I was not the biggest fan of, and even if I was, I’ve always been apprehensive of rehashed approaches to storytelling- and given that this was the last piece of literature to ever be published by Lovecraft, it would be particularly inexcusable on his part.
To my delight, “The Haunter in the Dark” circumvented these warning signs and turned out to be an enjoyable enough thriller. It’s still got its fair share of problems though, and that begins with the premise and main character. The story is told via the flashback format, wherein the narrator discovers the diary of a recently-deceased artist named Robert Blake. Blake had been residing in the town of Providence, Rhode Island, during which time he grew fascinated with a haunted church in the distance. His consequent journal recounts what happened when he began to actively research and ultimately investigate the pious structure.
It's a simple exposition structure, but it has two flaws that tempered my interest, the first being the diary itself. The idea that this guy wrote down every single detail about every single thing that he did and thought is ludicrous, even by fiction standards. At least with Pickman’s Model, the narrator was present for the events described- here, the recollection of what transpired is so astute and spot-on that you might as well have told it in first person. I know some people will say I’m nitpicking here, but the foundational aspect of a story is everything, with each authorial POV providing its own pros and cons depending on the needs of the narrative, and let me say that there was nothing present in “The Haunter of the Dark” that warranted it needing to be specifically relayed in third-person omniscient. It is fully about Blake, his emotions, and his ultimate descent into madness, and that would’ve benefited significantly from a FP perspective.
The lack of development for Blake’s emotions, ironically enough, forms the basis for the second flaw, that being that I didn’t understand why he made the devil’s bargain in the first place (i.e. breaking into the church). He’s told repeatedly that the church has sinister aspects, yet continues to be drawn to it simply by the sight of it, which isn’t even made out to be all that visually-appealing. I get that Blake has a passion for all things occult, but he’s not an idiot like a teen character in a horror movie. He’s an intelligent guy who’s aware that there are real implications to even the craziest of mythos, but he continues to move forward with this plan to disrupt the town’s inhabitants. Lovecraft could’ve done a much better job depicting Blake’s thought process here, though, to my previous point, the limitations of doing a frame story may have played a part in why he was unable to achieve that.
It may seem like nitpicking, but good character motivations are the basis of strong characterizations. If you can’t understand why someone is doing something then you can’t get invested in their journey. Luckily, the writing kicks into high gear once Blake finally enters the church. Lovecraft’s descriptions of the interiors constantly emphasize the amount of dust and cobwebs, yet it somehow doesn’t come off as repetitive. You get a real sense that this building once housed true evil, and Blake’s movements through it brought back good memories of past video games and stories I played/read involving normal people gathering the courage to enter a dark netherworld.
Blake’s actions in the church trigger a series of events that, while I’m not going to go into heavy detail about, do result in the titular Haunter to come out of its eternal slumber. Like other Cthulu-type creatures, Lovecraft withholds details about it in order to let the reader’s imagination make it out to be worse than it is. Unfortunately, as he has done in prior tales, Lovecraft fails to provide enough baseline descriptors to make it seem like an epically frightening behemoth. Now, I acknowledge that here I may be going in with a smaller piece of the pie as “The Haunter of the Dark” is a sequel to another short story called “The Shambler from the Stars” by Robert Bloch, and in that tale the same monster may have existed and been better visualized. Even if that was true, I don’t buy it as a valid excuse since every story in the Cthulu mythos is treated as more spiritual in succession than narratively. And given that Lovecraft has consistently had this failing beforehand, I don’t think it’s fair to blame everything on what transpired in “The Shambler from the Stars.”
Anyway, the events that happen after the incident feel realistic in terms of the reactions from the populace, media, and Blake himself. Lovecraft does a good job balancing the rationality of a scientific community with the inherent mysteriousness of the supernatural, and how, even though some things can be explained, it doesn’t mean that they were the right explanation. I liked how Blake was treated as a normal human being as well, really wanting to do the right thing but ultimately letting his emotional fear get the better of him.
This culminates in a solid climax that didn’t fail the tense build-up. “The Haunter of the Dark” is not the powerhouse swan song that acolytes of the iconic author will have wanted as there are major issues that come up, but it proved to be a nice read, and sometimes that’s all we can ask of books, even from the greats.
I was admittedly a little worried when I began reading “The Haunter in the Dark”. It’s opening was reminiscent of “Pickman’s Model,” a tale that I was not the biggest fan of, and even if I was, I’ve always been apprehensive of rehashed approaches to storytelling- and given that this was the last piece of literature to ever be published by Lovecraft, it would be particularly inexcusable on his part.
To my delight, “The Haunter in the Dark” circumvented these warning signs and turned out to be an enjoyable enough thriller. It’s still got its fair share of problems though, and that begins with the premise and main character. The story is told via the flashback format, wherein the narrator discovers the diary of a recently-deceased artist named Robert Blake. Blake had been residing in the town of Providence, Rhode Island, during which time he grew fascinated with a haunted church in the distance. His consequent journal recounts what happened when he began to actively research and ultimately investigate the pious structure.
It's a simple exposition structure, but it has two flaws that tempered my interest, the first being the diary itself. The idea that this guy wrote down every single detail about every single thing that he did and thought is ludicrous, even by fiction standards. At least with Pickman’s Model, the narrator was present for the events described- here, the recollection of what transpired is so astute and spot-on that you might as well have told it in first person. I know some people will say I’m nitpicking here, but the foundational aspect of a story is everything, with each authorial POV providing its own pros and cons depending on the needs of the narrative, and let me say that there was nothing present in “The Haunter of the Dark” that warranted it needing to be specifically relayed in third-person omniscient. It is fully about Blake, his emotions, and his ultimate descent into madness, and that would’ve benefited significantly from a FP perspective.
The lack of development for Blake’s emotions, ironically enough, forms the basis for the second flaw, that being that I didn’t understand why he made the devil’s bargain in the first place (i.e. breaking into the church). He’s told repeatedly that the church has sinister aspects, yet continues to be drawn to it simply by the sight of it, which isn’t even made out to be all that visually-appealing. I get that Blake has a passion for all things occult, but he’s not an idiot like a teen character in a horror movie. He’s an intelligent guy who’s aware that there are real implications to even the craziest of mythos, but he continues to move forward with this plan to disrupt the town’s inhabitants. Lovecraft could’ve done a much better job depicting Blake’s thought process here, though, to my previous point, the limitations of doing a frame story may have played a part in why he was unable to achieve that.
It may seem like nitpicking, but good character motivations are the basis of strong characterizations. If you can’t understand why someone is doing something then you can’t get invested in their journey. Luckily, the writing kicks into high gear once Blake finally enters the church. Lovecraft’s descriptions of the interiors constantly emphasize the amount of dust and cobwebs, yet it somehow doesn’t come off as repetitive. You get a real sense that this building once housed true evil, and Blake’s movements through it brought back good memories of past video games and stories I played/read involving normal people gathering the courage to enter a dark netherworld.
Blake’s actions in the church trigger a series of events that, while I’m not going to go into heavy detail about, do result in the titular Haunter to come out of its eternal slumber. Like other Cthulu-type creatures, Lovecraft withholds details about it in order to let the reader’s imagination make it out to be worse than it is. Unfortunately, as he has done in prior tales, Lovecraft fails to provide enough baseline descriptors to make it seem like an epically frightening behemoth. Now, I acknowledge that here I may be going in with a smaller piece of the pie as “The Haunter of the Dark” is a sequel to another short story called “The Shambler from the Stars” by Robert Bloch, and in that tale the same monster may have existed and been better visualized. Even if that was true, I don’t buy it as a valid excuse since every story in the Cthulu mythos is treated as more spiritual in succession than narratively. And given that Lovecraft has consistently had this failing beforehand, I don’t think it’s fair to blame everything on what transpired in “The Shambler from the Stars.”
Anyway, the events that happen after the incident feel realistic in terms of the reactions from the populace, media, and Blake himself. Lovecraft does a good job balancing the rationality of a scientific community with the inherent mysteriousness of the supernatural, and how, even though some things can be explained, it doesn’t mean that they were the right explanation. I liked how Blake was treated as a normal human being as well, really wanting to do the right thing but ultimately letting his emotional fear get the better of him.
This culminates in a solid climax that didn’t fail the tense build-up. “The Haunter of the Dark” is not the powerhouse swan song that acolytes of the iconic author will have wanted as there are major issues that come up, but it proved to be a nice read, and sometimes that’s all we can ask of books, even from the greats.