Just as with certain superior recording artists there are “no B-sides”, some writers seem to hit on all cylinders regardless of the piece. While “At the Mountains of Madness” is understandably viewed as one of his masterpieces, H. P. Lovecraft wrote many other stories that despite slightly less literary love, seem, to this reader, equally impressive. More than just my restating the obvious (“Lovecraft is a great horror writer”), with each new story I read buried deep in anthologies of his work, I am sure I have not always appreciated just how “great.”
Take “The Dreams in the Witch-House,” for instance. (Note: Upon researching some information on the story, I was surprised to discover that many reputable Lovecraft scholars deem this particular story to be one of his lesser efforts.) As a fan of Lovecraft’s mythos, as well as those other works clearly influenced by his writing, I found the description of the cosmic environments to be illuminating. Perhaps it is too overt in its depiction for those who like more nuanced horror, but the “vast converging planes of a slippery-looking substance” (
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror, page 153) populated by geometric creatures bathed in violet light and “iridescent bubble-congeries”, made concrete for this reader that which has not always been so clear. This approach is as effective as the more subtle approach, albeit in a different way.
Much of the content and details in “The Dreams in the Witch-House” also provides a “Who’s Who” of Lovecraftian ideas. In some ways this is an excellent follow up to “Mountains” as it takes some of the cosmology eluded to in the first and grounds it in a more accessible folklore (witchcraft). In addition to the expected supernatural/fantastic elements inherent in the horror, familiar settings such as Arkham and Miskantonic University connect the story to the Cthulhu Mythos by grounding the action in a real-er world.
Few writers are as closely associated with their literary creations as Lovecraft is with his Great Old One, Cthulhu. In addition to vividly capturing the cosmic nature of Lovecraft’s aesthetic, “The Dreams in the Witch House” also introduces a terrifying creature, though of much smaller in cosmic and physical stature than Cthulhu,
Brown Jenkin. “That shocking little horror,” Brown Jenkin, is described as being “no larger than a good-sized rat”, having “horribly anthropoid forepaws”, and a “tiny, bearded human face.” (145) Unlike some of Lovecraft’s creature creations, due in part to its rat-like nature, visualizing Brown Jenkin is much easier to do than others. The familiar of the witch of the title, Keziah Mason, Brown Jenkin enters the small room of the story’s protagonist, Walter Gilman, via a series of rat holes. As a familiar, he serves the role of Mason’s herald, visiting Gilman without his master at varying points of the story, often terrorizing Gilman in his sleep. For the reader, Brown Jenkin also plays serves as comic-relief, even if gruesomely so. “The sinister old woman and the fanged furry little animal” are quite the duo. If the evil witch is the "straight-man", Brown Jenkin is the comedic player. While requiring a leap, this dynamic is not one I generally associate with Lovecraft’s work so was pleasantly surprised by it. Perhaps it is Brown Jenkin’s tendency to “titter” maniacally throughout the proceedings that gave me a vision of the wisenheimer side-kick archetype. Of course by the story’s conclusion, no one’s laughing at Brown Jenkin or his “four tiny hands of daemonic dexterity”! So taken was I by this monstrous little creature that upon meeting him in the story, I immediately texted a friend of mine who has also read a few Lovecraft stories: “Where has Brown Jenkin been my whole life?”
The lesson here (beyond the coolness of Brown Jenkin) is that like those aforementioned B-sides, it pays to read deeper cuts by authors you enjoy. I know that as a result of this experience, I am going back through those other anthologies looking for any more gems.
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