Richard Corben’s meditation on both the era and the art of H.P.
Lovecraft is a rara avis indeed: a critique of turn-of-the-century American
racism that eschews ego-boosting righteousness in favor of a plain-spoken
realism about the ways human beings treat one another. And despite being a
dramatic work at its core, RAT GOD is also brilliantly funny in many places.
The main setting is New England in the 1920s (taking place
partly in Lovecraft’s fictional city Arkham), and the main character is a
physical doppelganger for HPL, here given the staidly respectable Anglo-Saxon
name of “Clark Elwood.” Though none of the Lovecraftian gods appear in the
story, Corben has Clark swear by Cthuilhu and Yog-Sothoth, and use fancy words
like “gibbous” and “eldritch.” However,
before the reader encounters Clark, RAT GOD’s first eleven pages deal with two
Native Americans, a brother and sister, fleeing from tribal enemies in the
wilderness, apparently back in the days before the advent of Columbus. A totem with the image of a “rat god” appears once, but Corben does
not explicitly align either tribe with this repulsive deity.
Though the title of Corben’s work begs associations with HPL’s “The Rats in the Walls,” the greatest
similarity is that of protagonists are, at the outset, initially sure of being
at the top of the ethnicity-totem pole. After page 11, the physical struggles of the aboriginals
give way, via a time-shift, to the struggles of Chuk and Kito, a brother and
sister who are implicitly descendants of the first siblings—though by the 20th
century, their struggles have more to do
with defining themselves in a world now owned by white people.
In point of fact, Kito, sister to Chuk, does not appear on
page 12, but she’s the subject of a conversation between Chuk and Clark. Chuk
informs Clark that though they’ve never met, Chuk is aware that Clark is dating
his sister. Clark, having been unaware that Kito is at least partly Indian, is
not pleased with Chuk’s revelation. Clark picks a fight with Chuk and gets
quickly beat down. (Clark is far more pugnacious than any HPL protagonist: he’s
something like a Robert E. Howard character who can’t really fight but
sometimes wins by sheer doggedness.) As Clark licks his wounds he remembers his
encounters with Kito in Arkham, with whom he falls in love even though “she’s
kind of funny looking.” In the course of their dates, Kito reluctantly relates
her escape from a “rat hole” called Lame Dog.
This town was originally an ancient
settlement of the Cthanhluk tribe, but it was taken over in the 1800s by white
gold-hunters. The gold-seekers soon left, leaving Lame Dog to be dominated by
what Kito herself calls a “mongrel hybrid” made up of white and red people.
However, even with most of the white settlers gone, there’s still one rich
white guy in charge of things, Zachariah Peck, whose ancestor studied the pagan
practices of the Cthanhluks. Kito relates how she and Chuk escaped Lame Dog
without Clark ever tipping to the idea that she too may be of mixed race. The
two lovers quarrel when Clark finds out how she makes her living, and though
Clark intends to forgive her her trespasses, he learns that she’s fled back to
Lame Dog. Despite all of his Anglo-Saxon misgivings, Clark pursues the object
of his desire.
The town of Lame Dog might be termed an “Innsmouth for
rats.” The residents, all of whom encourage Clark to get lost, often have a
rodent-like look about them, regardless of their race or social station. One
such is Gharlena, a grotesque but earthy young white woman who tries to seduce
Clark. Far less earthy is Damon Peck, son of the patriarch Zachariah, who
initially tries to get rid of Clark as well, only to change his mind when he
gets the idea that Clark may serve as a catspaw with which to slay Zachariah.
The patriarch follows in the footsteps of HPL’s evil de la Poer family, having
built up a religion based on human sacrifice. However, instead of using
regular-sized rodents, Zachariah’s religion worships a giant flesh-and-blood
rat-creature. Damon asserts that the giant animal is some sort of mutant.
However, given that Corben has suggested the existence of an aboriginal
rat-god, Damon may not be privy to all the mysteries of his father’s cult.
Without giving away all aspects of the story’s ending,
suffice to say that Clark’s quest for Kito has a more satisfying conclusion
than the story-arcs of most HPL characters.
To be sure, Corben doesn’t let Clark keep his delusion of racial
superiority. By the end of RAT GOD, he’s a long way from the man who starts out
the story claiming that “my family has been the racial backbone of New England
for generations.” Rather, he becomes thoroughly implicated in the mixed-race
world of Lame Dog. Thankfully, though, Corben resists any impulse to cast even
margjnalized races as suffering, sinned-against innocents. Whereas Lovecraft
took the position that all humans were doomed to descend into a hell of
degeneracy, Corben plays with the images of miscegenation and perhaps some sort
of spiritual bestiality in order to emphasize the common visceral heritage
shared by every ethnicity. And, for what it’s worth, it’s also a world where
women are free to be every bit as visceral and degenerate as any man.
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