August Derleth (1909–1971)

Not properly a novel, The Trail of Cthulhu is more of a "story cycle": a set of five novellas, with linking narratives, in chronological sequence. Each was originally published separately. There are five protagonists, one for each story, but some feature in each other's tales. The humans in this book are much more active in their antagonism toward the Great Old Ones (Cthulhu and his cousins) than Lovecraft's own precedent-setting fictions would have allowed. As the title implies, Derleth's show more heroes take the initiative to track down these beings in an effort to rescue humanity from their inevitable reconquest of Earth. The stories are almost entirely plot-driven, and the characters are tepidly drawn. Derleth has no evident skill at dialogue, and he avoids it as much as he can. Still, it's all digestible fun for those who have a taste for this flavor of nightmare, from human sacrifice in New England to nukes in the South Pacific. The net effect is like nothing so much as an account of a great campaign in the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.

Even for a confessed pastiche with some genuine innovation, the writing is often painfully derivative. The third story begins with this sentence: "It is singularly fortunate that the ability of the human mind to correlate and assimilate facts is limited in relation to the potential knowledge of the universe even as we know it--to say nothing of what lies beyond." Even for the reader unaware that this prose is a virtual plagiarism of the opening sentence of Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu," the fact is exposed when Derleth uses that very sentence as an epigram for the fourth story!

An appendix is Derleth's "Note on the Cthulhu Mythos," in which he attempts to demystify the lore generated by the Lovecraft Circle regarding eldritch prehuman forces. The "immediately apparent" similarity of the Cthulhu stories to "the Christian mythos," emphasized both in this short essay and in the text of Derleth's fiction, is an equivalence of Derleth's own invention, just like his attribution of certain Great Old Ones to the classical elements of fire, water, air, and earth. Although it may be something of ignotium per ignotius in a quick book review, it strikes me that Derleth is to Lovecraft much as Kenneth Grant is to Aleister Crowley. Both are self-appointed successors eager to remake their mentors in their own image. Just as Grant (himself no mean Lovecraft fan) is determined to reduce AC's Thelema to an outre form of Indian Tantra, Derleth is intent on making HPL's Cthulhu into an aquatic Satan on steroids.

While the "Note on the Cthulhu Mythos" carefully points out that Lovecraft never took his own writings as anything other than fantasy, the stories of The Trail of Cthulhu represent HPL as a researcher into the genuine occult who cloaked his findings as fiction. In neither case does Derleth admit to the abundantly demonstrated fact that Lovecraft was a mechanistic materialist convinced that there were no "higher powers" with any fondness for humanity whatsoever. show less

August Derleth saw himself as H.P. Lovecraft's natural heir, weaving his stories into the Cthulhu Mythos and incorporating the 'dreadful events in Innsmouth' and other incidents from the original corpus. At one moment, he suggests, in a fit of in-joke paranoia, that Lovecraft and others died young because they knew too much - a nice little conceit.

He has been much and rightly criticised on two grounds - for being derivative but, more seriously, for attenuating the raw cosmic horror of the show more original (as if he had failed to understand its essential bleakness).

He constructed a mythological fantasy of good and evil much closer to the religious tradition and to fantasy than true horror. A Sumerian would have understood his Elder Gods and Ancient Ones, whereas only a modern mind could have comprehended Lovecraft himself.

The Mask of Cthulhu, a collection of stories from Wierd Tales, stretching from 1939 to 1957, epitomises those failures and yet, perhaps, the reaction has gone too far because too much was expected of Mr. Derleth.

His early championship of his master helped to ensure that Lovecraft became a cultural phenomenon, heir to Poe in leading the American tradition of horror and influencer of popular culture. Although his writing is not great, by the standards of pulp fiction, Derleth is solid, clear and, at times, can write very well and suggestively. There is a minor and unexpected erotic charge in the final story - The Seal of R'lyeh - and the community threat to the 'hero' to The House in the Valley is well drawn.

The chief difference from Lovecraft is one of perspective. He is more likely to be 'simpatico' to the person drawn to the evil which he can treat more ambiguously as just the not-good of another - as if alien creatures have rights too. Lovecraft is determinedly judgemental. These evil forces are dominant but they are evil, or at least anti-human rather than just non-human, to Lovecraft. The alien is generally to be extirpated.

The American Government in Innsmouth would have had every right to slaughter the half-breeds whereas Derleth sometimes sees them as sentient 'others' to which he, like some of his heroes, are drawn. Abominations or just different? - Derleth's ambiguity shows a culture in change between judgementalism and relativism.

His weaknesses are intellectual and imaginative rather than purely literary and he still deserves to be remembered as the leading member of the 'School of Lovecraft'.

The stories themselves are like watching re-runs of favourite TV shows. They are comfort food for horror fans. The first stage in a process with all horror tropes that has a visceral original eventually end up with a child's cartoon or toy. From Dracula to Count Duckula and so from Innsmouth to cuddly Cthulhu knitted toys. Derleth is the first unfortunate stage in taming Lovecraft as Bela Lugosi's Count Dracula was in taming the Nosferatu.

His stories are the sort that remind you why you wish Lovecraft had lived longer and written more. As the years go by, it becomes ever clearer that the gap between Poe and Lovecraft is reflected in a gap between Lovecraft and whoever is to be the next great innovator in horror.

Sadly, it is not Stephen King (though he is another writer who is over-diminished by literary snobs) and it is not yet Thomas Ligotti who is too much in the shadow of his Master and whose corpus seems small and too out-of-the-way. Someone out there, in some American High School, is turning their Goth mind to dark matters that must be written down ... lest he go insane :-) show less

The more I read science fiction, especially the classic stuff, I realize that I don't quite enjoy that classic stuff....unless it's got an element of horror embedded in the story. This anthology, with entries from Bradbury, Asimov, and Leiber, contained elements, sometimes a hint and sometimes a deluge, of horror. The one that stands out is a story about an alien that is feeding off a large family in a house, essentially wearing a meat-suit, and the children are forced to feed it or see show more their kin eaten. Another features a space exploration flight that crashes and the crew starves to death watching the strange world through a port, and the inhabitants of that world are worshipping them and the craft. It's all fairly macabre, and thereby more palatable than the world building of the classic stuff where it takes pages and sometimes chapters if not the whole book to figure out what's going on.

4 bones!!!! show less

What a surprise! This was an easy read for a teen boys adventure tale. Three teens out on the Wisconsin River. We aren't given very many clues about the timeframe. Grandpa drives a Model T and people driving or taking the train to Chicago, but there is still a harness shop in town. The first page started right out with a couple of new words: Old Fred was repairing a 'binder apron', which I have no clue what it could be. He also smelled of 'Asthmador', but at least I could guess it to be a show more medicine for breathing problems, probably like 'Vicks Vapo-rub'. And frequently he would mention the smell of 'musk', when 'scent' would have been a more common word especially since he isn't describing a glandular odor.
I'm glad I picked up this book. It compares nicely to Gary Paulson's stories. I'd read one of Derleth's historical novels for adults before, and it was a bit stultifying. But, since he married into my dad's family (his wife a 2nd cousin), I felt duty bound to read more stories of my father's childhood stomping grounds. I was drinking in all the details of Moely's sugarbush, Ferry Bluff (now a State Natural Area), Cassel prairie...all places I've driven past along Hwy 60, and I'm trying to figure out the modern name for Mill Rd. He calls Honey Creek 'Grell's Creek.' There is now a 'Law Road' which must be where Bert Law's farm was in the story.
I'm going to look up more of Derleth's YA adventures!
Derleth writes descriptively about the birds and the way the sun glances off the water. What he doesn't really mention is the danger of undertow from the current downstream from the islands. Perhaps the mechanics of why people drowned in this river hadn't been figured out yet. He has the boys land on an island from the downstream side. Luckily not every single island has that issue, the trick is knowing when it's safe. show less