Brian Keene, Lovecraft, and Whippoorwills

I'm a big fan of Brian Keene's writing, and I'm in the midst of enjoying Ghost Walk. It's a ride you can't get at Disney World, that's for sure.

In (perhaps) another tip of the the hat to Mr. Lovecraft, Mr. Keene has this passage on page 188, "My grandaddy used to say that if you heard a whip-poor-will, it was waiting to carry away someone's soul." Keene follows this up with, "Now there's a cheerful f**k*ng thought."

Compare this to the many legends of the whippoorwill, including the classic from The Dunwich Horror: Then, too, the natives are mortally afraid of the numerous whippoorwills which grow vocal on warm nights. It is vowed that the birds are psychopomps lying in wait for the souls of the dying, and that they time their eerie cries in unison with the sufferer's struggling breath. If they can catch the fleeing soul when it leaves the body, they instantly flutter away chittering in daemoniac laughter; but if they fail, they subside gradually into a disappointed silence.

Now I don't know that Mr. Keene is alluding to Lovecraft's use of "grandmother" in a perjorative manner with his gransdfather term. I think it unlikely. In most of Mr. Keene's other works, "grandfather" tends to be a respectful term. Unlike Lovecraft who would say (as in The Shunned House): To destroy a vampire one must, the grandmothers say, exhume it and burn its heart ...

Nodens: Part 1

Long time readers of this blog know that it's not my intention to get into the many modern interpretations of Lovecraft's Mythos. Rev. Price and Mr. Joshi have spoken on this often, as to how first August Derleth reinvented the Mythos with dualism and pantheism, and how Mr. Lumley has taken a very different turn. Brian Keene has diligently set out his own new mythological system called the Labyrinth. So far it seems great fun.

In Dark Hollow (2008) which is identical to The Rutting Season (2006), Keene mentions Nodens. On pp. 226 he writes that "Found a picture in one of my history books. It's all in Latin ... a marker, a totem to Nodens, one of the Thirteen ... discovered by a scientist fella named Machen ... O'Connor had said we weren't supposed to say Noden's name out loud". The inscription is previously listed on p.26 of Dark Hollow.


DEVOMLABYRINTHI
NLEHORNPOSSVIT
PROPTERNVPTIAS
QUASVIDITSVBVMRA

This is basically from the story, The Great God Pan (1894). Arthur Machen hints that the identity of the god is actually the ancient British god Nodens. In the final chapter, an informant from the border of Wales tells of finding an inscription on a pillar in an ancient roman ruin near where Helen Vaughn lived.

On the side of the Pillar was an inscription, of which I took a note. Some of the letters had been defaced, but I do not think there can be any doubt as to those which I supply. The inscription reads as follows:

DEMOMNODENi
PLAvISSENILSPOSSVit
PROPERNVPtias
quasVIDITSVBVMBra

"To the great good Nodens (the god of the Great Deep or abyss) Flavius Senilis has erected this pillar on account of the marriage which he saw beneath the shade".

I don't know when Mr. Keene became entranced by Machen's work, but he has been a long time correspondent and friend to Mr. Tim Lebbon, whose work is very indebted to Machen.

***

A previous researcher has stated: the mental model was the Roman ruin at Caermaen, which war near the home where Machen grew up in in southeast Wales, he probably was also inspired by findings at Lydney Park, just across the border in Glouschestershire. Machen's fictional inscription seems to be a sinister parody of the kind of inscriptions which were found during the excavation of an extensive temple complex dedicated to Nodens located there. ... Machen probably became familiar with Nodens and his cult through William Hiley Bathhurst and C. W. King's Roman Antiquities at Lydney Park published in 1879, which included a number of similar obscure inscriptions to the mysterious god. ... Machen's use of Flavius Senilis as the author of the fictional inscrpition. Flavius Senilis is also the author of a famous inscription found by Bathurst and King on a mosaic floor at the temple at Lydney park (above) which reads, "D(eo) N(oenti) T(itus) Flavious Senilis, pr(aepositus) rel(oqiatopmo), ex stipibus possuit o [pus cur]ante Victorio inter[pret]e. 'The god Nodens, Titus Flavious Senilis, officer in charge of the supply-depot of the fleet, laid this pavement out of money offerings; the work being in charge of Victorious, interpreter of the Governor's staff.'"(Wheeler and Wheeler, p. 103; who reproduce Bathurst and King's drawing of the inscription).

Also: Sir John Rhys wrote, "Nodens, the Celitc Zeus was not simply a Neptune or a Posidon, in his connections with the sea; he was also a Mars, as his inscriptions at Lydney testify: (p 130, my emphasis).. Nodens is not simply to be compared with the classic Zeus, but with the pre-classical Zeus, was Zeus, Posidon and Pluto all in one; who also discharged the functions of his classical so-called sons. Greek Literature usually represents Greek theology in a highly departmental state; but traces are not lacking of a previous state. We have a well-known instance in Pluto, who was always a Zeus, with his realm in the deep earth as far below its surface as the sky above it. This is born out by the orphic myth of the union of Persephone of Zeus in the form of a snake, but still as father Zeus; and by the Pontic cult which did not did not disting Zeus Upatos and Zeus Chthonios, not to mention how near the ideas of Pluto, or Pluton, as a god associated with wealth, comes to that of Zeus Plousious (Celtic Heathendom, p. 131).

Machen's Pan is not the simple goat god of the mythology handboks, but one created in the orientalized syncretistic religious decadence of of the late Roman Empire. Machen's image of Pan is most likely the product of more esoteric reading, which could include the Hermetic Books, Gnosticism and Alchemy, and some more scandalous early studies such as Richard Payne Knight's Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, (1786), which were sold to later day Victorian as a kind of antiquarian pornography. This Pan was always closely associated with the cult of Dionysus, and often was his double.

Lovecraft In the Comics

This seemed appropriate to Cthulhu & especially some of the modern interpretations of the Mythos to include biblical allegories of Leviathan and Behemoth.* Strange Brew is a horror fan's delight since it is very "Far Side" and a little Gahan Wilson.

* Brian Keene's recent Conqueror Worms deals with this concept. In reality, Leviathan was a crocodile (probably an extinct Palestinian crocodile) and Behemoth was the hippopotamus (again, probably an extinct hippo. Palestine also had lions, and other anmals before the population growth eliminated most indigenous large species near the Jordan River millenia ago).

My Review of Brian Keene's Ghoul

The review is here.

As previosuly noted, there are a number of Lovecraft allusions to this story, including Cthulhu and (while not mentioned by name) shoggoths.

Many, many of my stories and essays are at HL.net here.

Brian Keene's The Conqueror Worms

Just read this book which has been out quite some time. I won't spoil the read, but I will say that there are some very interesting Lovecraft allusions and references by the middle of the book. Mr. Keene has shown many times that he is a Lovecraft fan and incorporates Lovecraftian and King in Yellow Mythos frequently into his short and long stories.

This was a nice, fast paced read. Mr. Keene has strong and interesting characters.

Brian Keene, The Conqueror Worms, Leisure Books, 2006.