Review of “The Color Out of Space” by H. P. Lovecraft: Halloween Countdown

3) “The Color Out of Space” by H. P. Lovecraft

Plot:

Our unnamed hero has a job surveying land west of (fictional) Arkham, Massachusetts, for a new reservoir. The locals tell him the place is evil. While making his way through the dense, overgrown forest and deserted farms, he gets spooked. Nothing prepares him for what he’s been told is “blasted heath,” a five-acre area of dirt and ash where nothing grows.

Near it are the remains of a chimney, but the farmhouse and any outbuildings are gone.

The townsfolk tell him the “strange days” occurred in “the [18]eighties,” not all that long before. People don’t like to talk about them. But if our hero really wants to hear about it all, he can listen to old Ammi Pierce’s crazy tales.

When the surveyor locates Ammi, he finds not a lunatic, but an educated man. Ammi tells him it all started with “that great rock that fell out of the sky and bedded itself in the ground beside the well at the Nahum Gardner place.” Then there came “that white noontide cloud, that string of explosions in the air, and that pillar of smoke from the valley far in the wood.”

Professors from (fictional) Miskatonic University came to study it. Nahum Gardner tried to tell them it had shrunk by the time they got there, but they laughed. Rocks don’t shrink. They took the samples back to their lab. Their testing revealed little except for the odd spectrograph.

An electrical storm hit. Gardner claims that the stone “drew the lightning.” In the morning, the meteorite was gone.

In the fall, the Gardners’ fruits and vegetables looked good at harvest, but were inedible. Before long, the livestock grew ill. The meat was also inedible. Vegetation around the area turned odd colors and seemed to glow at times.

It was not natural.

Thoughts:

Lovecraft never defines the lethal agent in the story. Is it living? Does it act with intent? Or is it merely a mindless force doing its thing, heedless of the destruction and horror it causes?

One of the things Lovecraft does so well is to build tension throughout his stories. This is true of this one as well. If there are few surprises, the reader is still interested in the fate of the characters. Poor, innocent Nahum Gardner has done nothing wrong, nor have his wife or their sons.

This story is a taste of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror. The idea behind cosmic horror is that human beings are insignificant to most cosmic powers. Rather than nihilistic, there is some comfort in this. We can go on our merry way without stumbling across Nyarlathotep or Shub-Niggurath or worrying about what either thinks of us. And that’s a good thing. But if we poke too deeply into forbidden things—

Poor old Nahum just happened to be an outlier in the usual cosmic run-of-the-mill—no fault of his own.

This is probably more than you will ever want to know about cosmic horror: H. P. Lovecraft Wiki

The Internet Speculative Fiction Database lists this story as part of the Cthulhu Mythos series.

While the tale is long and Lovecraft is given to purple passages at times, this is a solid yarn. I enjoyed it.


This story can be read here:

This story can be listened to here: (1:27:20)


Bio: H.P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. He is best known as the creator of the Cthulhu myths, involving “cosmic horror,” that is, horror that arises from forbidden knowledge. Those who seek such knowledge are often driven insane or die.

Lovecraft originally wanted to be a professional astronomer. He maintained a voluminous correspondence, particularly with other writers. Though his work is now revered as seminal in horror and dark fantasy, he died in poverty at the age of 46 of cancer of the small intestine at his birthplace, Providence, Rhode Island.

Lovecraft was an early contributor to Weird Tales magazine in the 1920s. Among his best-known works are “The Dunwich Horror,” “Dagon,” and “The Call of Cthulhu.”




Title: “The Color Out of Space”
Author:  H.P. Lovecraft
First published: Amazing Stories, September 1927
Length: novelette