![]() ![]() Maybe there's going to be something horrible lurking in the ruins, but in describing the mundane, expected, natural elements of the scene as being innately scary Lovecraft doesn't foreshadow the horror so much as make himself seem like a total wimp who hates going outside. ![]() ![]() "Accursed," "evil," "not meant to be beheld." Why? What he's actually describing - a ruined city reclaimed by the jungle - sounds not only visually beautiful, but of great interest to anyone with archaeological or zoological leanings. It’s not so bad in this case, but we see hints of it. Oftentimes though, the reader is simply left baffled over what, exactly, is meant to be so disturbing, even by the standards of xenophobic nineteen-twenties America. In the previous story, "The Beast in the Cave," the protagonist at least had the excuse of not being able to see the approaching creature and thus letting his imagination fill in the blanks with something scary. Anyway, the gist of it is that the characters sometimes have horrified reactions to things that really shouldn't be horrifying. I call it the Two Legs problem, for reasons that I’ll explain in a few more posts. I should point out that this is the first sign of a problem that we’re going to see a loooooot more of going forward through Lovecraft’s works. He waxes a little too poetic for his own good in the first few lines, but it gets easier to read as it goes on. I had to google "upas tree." In the pre-internet age, I'd have been at a loss for what to imagine there. ![]()
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