The Whisperer in Darkness
I either chose the worst or best circumstances to read this in preparation for a talk at my library by a Lovecraft scholar about H.P. Lovecraft's 1927 and 1928 visits to Windham county in southern VT after a particularly devastating flood. "The Whisperer in the Darkness" is the result of those visits.
The Cthulu mythos had already been developed, as well as most of Lovecraft's story tactics, but there is an authentic old Yankee chill throughout that is pure Vermon'. We have no hard 'T' sounds at the end of words. Get used to i'. As for me, I've recently moved in to a Victorian house full of old furniture, and am only a few streetlights and car-lengths away from the horrible green domed hills and am experiencing it all for the first time at night, alone.
Why did I never question my boyfriend's insistent leaving on of lights in unoccupied rooms of the house? Sensible, saving the earth one down switch at a time me started this evening with a single light on at the door and one in our office at the top of the house. Now I have all this darkness below me, full of quiet.
The professor, I've already forgotten his name, but he teaches at Dartmouth, was knowledgeable but a bit lazy as a professional speaker. He did that thing where you have PowerPoint slides (an excellent tool) and then proceed to read every word on those slides, and only those on the slides (an amateur move). He did provide a good background on Lovecraft's life and contemporary reception - and on how Lovecraft studies have boomed in the last decade.
The presentation beforehand by the reference librarian on the town of Bellows Falls just after the storm, with rivers teeming with dead livestock and smashed houses, water streaming through abandoned mills, and roads utterly impassable, was much more thrilling by comparison. New England lore buffs will be interested to know that Joe Citro was in the audience, and had a useful interjection or two. A well-spent evening, I encourage you to check out your local library's programs. This story was fun, even if Lovecraft does keep going on about the unnameable, unspeakable, dare I say - ineffable - in abundance.
