Thursday, July 20, 2023

THE READING RHEUM: HERBERT WEST, REANIMATOR (1922)

 My review of this six-part tale, so notable for spawning the cinematic RE-ANIMATOR franchise, will be succinct. I'd long heard that this might be HPL's worst story, and despite trying to keep an open mind, I concur with that verdict. I found none of HPL's stellar use of language or his esoteric concepts. 

In fact, WEST isn't a standard story at all. All six parts are vignettes, and all save the last concern this innocent-looking mad scientist repeatedly bringing corpses to life with his special fluid. The narrator is the usual "I couldn't help just following along" type, who tells us of West's pointless enormities, none of which are given even slight self-justification, as one can find in the diatribes of Moreau and Frankenstein. West likes to bring life to dead bodies because he can, and that's about it, until the last story, in which it appears that the risen dead carry West away to his doom.

The only incident that showed a little psychological promise appears when HPL describes the aged mentor of West and his companion as an almost saintly man. West shows his indifference to affection by bringing his former mentor back to life as a raving hulk. Mary Shelley used Frankenstein's mania as a means of displaying his buried hostilities toward everyone close to him. But HPL has no such aims, and frankly, I don't know why this notion held any appeal for him. He does, however, come up with a much more substantive "living dead man" story in the 1928 story COOL AIR.

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