(no subject)

[camwyn]

When the influenza of 1919 rolled over the county of Essex in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, it left unnumbered dead in its wake. That was no surprise; death traveled in the Spanish Lady's train as surely as night followed day. Indeed, it was a leveller the likes of which no-one had ever seen before, outdoing even the Great War in its equity of destruction. For a thing had come to pass during the time of the War, a thing which no-one gave much thought to before, and could not be bothered to pursue after. Of all the counties in the Commonwealth, Essex was the least touched by the Gold Star- and that was because, if one made the effort to search, of the fact that of all the counties in the Commonwealth, Essex sent forth the fewest sons to the War.

Not that the young men of that part of the state were lacking in patriotism. Far from it! No, many a lad went off to volunteer, some of them in the armies of other countries in the days before America would give them the chance. Their young men were as willing to go of their own accord as any other. But that was the thing, you see. They went of their own choosing. The hand of the draft board fell lightly indeed upon the county, young men's numbers scarcely ever being called; and in some towns that hand was not felt at all. Kingsport was one such. Dunwich, another. Innsmouth's queer clannish folk never so much as heard a recruiter's voice, and that was just the way they liked it. And as for Arkham town, well, they'd given volunteers, hadn't they? If the government didn't call on them to send more than they wished to give, they weren't about to object. Keep the lads at the university or by their parents' sides, that was just the way it ought to be.

No one noticed, or if they did, they kept it to themselves. About the only man who might have said something was a young soldier from New York, a clerk by profession, born in the back woods of the Catskill Mountains. He'd spent long hours compiling and reconciling the records of the War Department, doing the duty of a bookish man so that stronger sorts might be free to fight. He saw a great deal, and even speculated upon what it might signify, before he was called. That was the end of any chance that he might speak. Not that he died- far from it- but the roar of the guns cracked young Private Martense's mind beyond all repair. He speaks not at all in his quiet cell in the asylum, save when the thunder of summer storms rolls overhead; and when that happens, he screams.

[ETA: The tag refers to topics raised in the comments.]

Comments

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

camwyn, you're scary. =)

[camwyn]

I do my best.

[veedub.livejournal.com]

that was positively....squamous.

[camwyn]

Neil Gaiman fan by any chance?

[veedub.livejournal.com]

yep. i love his peter cook and dudley moore meet hpl, especially read out loud.

of course, neil could read the telephone book aloud and i'd be charmed.

[camwyn]

Sweet. I heard him read Shoggoth's Old Peculiar aloud once, a few years back. I had to explain the references to the person I was with, who was an enormous Gaiman fan but didn't have any knowledge of HPL.

It was still cool.

[adiva_calandia]

....

Is it bad that my reaction is :D!! ?

[camwyn]

Possibly, honey. Possibly. But I'm probably not the one you want to ask that question.


(Side note: when I get home tonight I'm probably going to put up a post here about the Frozen Horrors, Frozen North plot. I have to run Walter Peck and the Raiders of the Lost Warehouse first, but I'd like people who wanna participate in the Frozen Horrors, Frozen North thing to have a little time to put their own spin on their particular part of it.)

[adiva_calandia]

Point.


(Ooh! I'll keep an eye out, though I won't be around much tonight.)

[lrodell.livejournal.com]

If your reaction's wrong, mine would be considered terrible: I squeed^^

[kd7sov]

I do not understand.

Would this be solely because I have no idea who Private Martense is?

[camwyn]

It's all Lovecraft references. Kingsport is where The Terrible Old Man and The Strange High House In The Mist take place; Dunwich is the site of The Dunwich Horror; Innsmouth is where The Shadow Over Innsmouth (featuring humans being inter-bred with fish-beings who also commit human sacrifice) takes place; and Arkham is the central city of a bunch of Lovecraft's stories. As for Private Martense, one of Lovecraft's more conventional horror stories, The Lurking Fear, featured a Catskills family called the Martenses, who had some interesting reactions to thunder.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

You are made of win. And love. And awesome.

[kaikias.livejournal.com]

Win.

[the_croupier]

Wait, what? Cook and Moore meet HPL, written by Gaiman? Was that ever published?

How did I miss that?

[camwyn]

No, not literally- there's a story called Shoggoth's Old Peculiar that involves two characters who're basically Deep One hybrid types that Gaiman always envisioned as being played by Cook and Moore.

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

You are the unhallowed alien wind beneath my multidimensional wings.

[tundra-no-caps.livejournal.com]

You use "Far from it" twice, making it feel a bit forced.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

This makes me wonder: Did the celebrated Mr. Carter (who some say was the descendant of a noted cavalryman and warlord) ever offer his services to his country during the Great War? Were the horrors that broke men at Verdun and the Somme the fire that tempered his spirit and enabled him to endure those things that Man Was Not Meant To Know in later years? Or was he judged to be too young or of a temprament unsuitable to military life and sent home with the old and the infirm, to live with the stigma of a 4-F?

[camwyn]

Oooh. I hadn't considered that, but it does have a certain ring of possibility to it.

I also find myself casting a glance at the loathesome and unwelcome discoveries made by a certain Mr. Jermyn, and wondering whether the information he uncovered about a white jungle goddess and her connection to his own family might have ever rebounded upon, say, the Greystokes in some way.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

Oh indeed.

As a side note, in the backend of the second volume of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a story featuring Allan Quartermain, the Time Traveller, Randolph Carter, and John Carter. It's in this story that Moore makes the two Carters relatives, comparing the strapping, virile Burroughs hero with Lovecraft's slight, nervous protagonist. Needless to say, the former is less than impressed with his descendant.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

By pure coincidence, I'm reading The Return of Tarzan off of Project Gutenberg, and have just come across a reference to something that Wikipedia says might have been one of Lovecraft's inspirations for "Arthur Jermyn." A savannah native relates to Tarzan how his tribe acquired gold ornaments while looking for better land to live in, by defending themselves from the inhabitants of a city to the southwest of the village. He describes them as:

"They are wicked people--neither white like you nor black like me,
but covered with hair as is Bolgani, the gorilla. Yes, they are
very bad people indeed, and Chowambi was glad to get out of their
country."

So, while Lord Greystoke was not himself related to the Jermyn clan, it is perhaps that he encountered Sir Arthur's "Portugese" grandmother or members of her family.

Personally, I wonder what Tarzan says about Robert E. Howard's assertion that the natural state of humanity is barbarism. But, being a Texan, my mind is perhaps closer to Cross Plains than Providence. :)

[camwyn]

Myself, I harbor a private suspicion that the plethora of barbarian heroes, especially heroes raised by animals, were on some level society's way of reassuring themselves that it was okay to hire nannies, governesses, etc. from the filthy stinking immigrants and lower classes. Because hey, if a kid of good breeding raised by ring-tailed lemurs (or whatever) could turn out more impressive than guys raised in civilized society, it was clear that superior blood could overcome bad influences in one's upbringing, right?

... yeah, I get kind of cynical when I look back on some of these authors.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

Sign of the times. Or, as Barbara Hambly says in her Ben January novels, "The custom of the country."