Lovecraft Annual #17 (2023) edited by ST Joshi (book review).

Every year, the ‘Lovecraft Annual’ brings together a collection of critical essays about HP Lovecraft. There’s no overall theme as such, so each ‘Annual’ ends up a bit of a pot pourri. But for a mere $15, pretty much anyone interested in HPL, the Cthulhu mythos and weird fiction in general will usually find the ‘Annual’ good value and a welcome Christmas present.

This year’s edition kicks off with what’s effectively a two-hander: a reissue of an early (1921) parody of Lovecraft’s writing by fellow amateur Edith Miniter, followed by a forensic analysis of the piece by well-known Lovecraftian Ken Faig. The parody piece, entitled ‘Falco Ossifracus’ is absolutely brilliant. It mimics so many of Lovecraft’s literary ticks and does it so well that it’s astonishing to think that this was written comparatively early on in his writing career. Faig does a good job revealing the depth of the work, explaining the puns and indicating the allusions. All in all, it’s a terrific start to the collection.

The third essay is equally strong, though very different in tone. Lovecraft’s sexuality has been discussed by many critics over the years but, in this essay, Dylan Henderson takes a refreshingly balanced view and draws conclusions that seem, on face value, to be perfectly reasonable. He explains that while some authors have wanted to make Lovecraft out to be a closeted homosexual, the actual evidence for that is unconvincing. Instead, he points out that while Lovecraft had a brief if unsuccessful marriage to Sonia Greene, most of his writing, both fiction and non-fiction, indicates a near-total disinterest in sex.

Next is a piece by Andrew Paul on ‘ekphrasis’, which is the description in text form of a painting or some other visual artwork. Lovecraft does this quite a lot, most famously in ‘Pickman’s Model’, and part of what Paul does here is explain the comparisons, for example, with Goya, that many of Lovecraft’s characters make in the stories. There’s also a tension between the realism of the situations that Lovecraft describes and the weird, perhaps indescribable, horror shown in artworks like Pickman’s paintings. This, Paul argues, is deliberate and used by Lovecraft to bind together what he calls a matryoshka doll of different levels of narration.

Duncan Norris has a length piece that he describes as ‘snapshots’ into the way pop culture has absorbed and portrayed Lovecraft’s work. This essay is certainly comprehensive, but whether or not the reader will find much that’s new here is hard to say. Yes, Lovecraft imagery can be found well beyond books and films but in record albums, role-playing games, soft toys and t-shirts. I’m not so convinced that Lovecraft is particularly significant outside of a certain clique of readers and RPGers: many of the films that Norris describes as having Lovecraftian elements do so in only the most tenuous, even ambiguous, sort of way.

A second pop-culture piece from Ron L. Johnson perhaps makes the argument more convincingly by drawing parallels between the ‘Ghostbusters’ movie and one of Lovecraft’s best-known stories, ‘The Dunwich Horror’. If not quite done in a scene-by-scene way, Johnson points out again and again how certain scenes in the movie echo those of the short story. Laid out fair and square, it’s convincing stuff: an ancient evil is summoned and, after referring to ancient tomes, a team of scientists invent the tools required to confront that evil at the top of a local landmark.

Francesco Borri’s lengthy piece discusses the ‘revisions’ that Lovecraft did for other authors. In particular, he focuses on ‘Out Of The Aeons’, a story written with Hazel Heald about a strange mummy brought up from a sunken island. While the story isn’t highly regarded, Borri makes several important points in the piece. For a start, it’s one of the first stories where Lovecraft really gets to grips with his idea of ‘deep time’, which would ultimately become so important for his later stories, notably ‘The Shadow Out Of Time’ and ‘At The Mountains Of Madness’. It’s also important for featuring a much debated line about ‘gods’ hostile to mankind being opposed to ones that would side with mankind. This line, seemingly at odds with everything else Lovecraft wrote about, was used by August Derleth and those following him to imbue the Cthulhu mythos with some sort of good versus evil narrative.

Since this review is now getting rather long, I’ll summarise the remaining articles. Sounds and soundscapes, particularly silence, are the subject of James Goho’s essay. Andrew Paul Wood provides a very detailed and fascinating investigation into the possible origins and symbolism of the mythos deity Shub-Niggurath.

Edward Guimont’s essay starts by making the connection between the young Lovecraft and Jules Vernes, one of the first writers Lovecraft rated. Guimont then goes on to show how some aspects of Verne’s less well-known novels have definite foreshadowings of what Lovecraft would end up writing, including their shared ideas of utopian cities and racial segregation.

Duncan Norris gets a second essay here, on historical mysteries that have echoes in Lovecraft’s fiction, such as the Voynich Manuscript. Finally, Steven J. Mariconda continues his series on ‘How To Read Lovecraft’, this time focusing on the elements of humour common to Lovecraft’s fiction.

All in all, an excellent batch of essays covering all sorts of things from literary inspirations through to the inner workings of the Cthulhu mythos. Something for everyone, as the old cliche goes but, in this case, a good-value stocking filler for the Lovecraft fan in your family!

Neale Monks

December 2023

(pub: Hippocampus Press, 2023. 242 page paperback. Price: $15.00 (US). ISBN: 978-1-61498-415-3)

check out websites: www.hippocampuspress.com and www.hippocampuspress.com/journals/lovecraft-annual/lovecraft-annual-no.-17-2023