“…and
through a small wicket in the gate he felt the sunken eyes of Surama and heard the
echoes of a deep-voiced, blood freezing chuckle.”
Throughout
his career, H.P. Lovecraft collaborated with several lesser known authors, often
with mixed results. In a few, the
intermingling of his unique style and perspective with that of another author
was fruitful. This was the case in the creepy
cosmicist tale The Mound, written in 1929
with Zealia Bishop, and the entertaining Imprisoned
with the Pharaohs, written in 1924 with escape artist Harry Houdini. But other joint efforts were much less
successful, as in such preposterous stories as The Diary of Alonzo Typer (1938) and The Horror in the Burying-Ground (1937).
The
Last Test is in
this latter camp. A collaboration
between Adolphe de Castro and H.P. Lovecraft, The Last Test was
published in Weird Tales in November of
1928. According to S.T. Joshi, Lovecraft
received $16.00 for his revision work, and de Castro received $175.00 from his
sale of the story to the magazine. Both
were probably overpaid. (Joshi quotes
Lovecraft remarking that “I nearly exploded over the dragging monotony of the silly
thing.”)
Even
so, the less renowned collaborations are still interesting, if not always entertaining
or satisfying. They can reveal much of the
author’s personality and points of view.
Devoted fans of H.P. Lovecraft may find The Last Test a worthwhile read despite its glaring
faults. Part of the fun comes
from detecting the tension or influence of the other contributor on Lovecraft’s
typical style and content. It appears
that Lovecraft used revision and ghostwriting as opportunities to recycle some
of his favorite concepts.
The
Last Test combines several of Lovecraft’s weaknesses as a
writer with de Castro’s near absence of talent.
These include lengthy back story, stilted characters, a lack of dialogue
or action, occasional melodramatic outbursts, and racial stereotypes. The image of the malevolent oriental—think
of the Emperor Ming in the old serial Flash Gordon—frequently occurs in
pulp fiction of the time period. An evil
Asian, described as a Caucasion who resembles “a high-caste Hindoo” skulks
about The Last Test, chuckling:
“Surama, he thought, appeared alarmed at recognizing
him; though he had chuckled as usual when striding off again toward the
clinic. Dalton always recalled Surama’s
stride and chuckle on the ominous night, for he was never to see the unearthly
creature again. As the chuckler entered
the clinic vestibule his deep, guttural gurgles [i.e., chuckles] seemed to
blend with some low mutterings of thunder which troubled the far horizon.”
The
Last Test is a novella and tells the story of three
individuals: James Dalton, the governor of
California (!), Georgina Clarendon, the woman he eventually marries, and Alfred
Clarendon, her brilliant and fanatical microbiologist brother. Alfred has been searching for a cure to ‘black
fever”, but falls under the evil sway of the constantly chuckling Surama, a sort
of witch doctor he met in northern Africa.
Surama may actually be a survivor of Atlantis.
Governor Dalton and Dr. Clarendon are old boyhood
friends; Dalton uses his influence to get Clarendon a job as medical director
at San Quentin Prison. Dr. Clarendon
resumes his medical research, but the prisoners begin to die of a terrible
fever, and the press spreads news of an impending epidemic in San Francisco. (At this point in the story, I was hoping
that I had found an early version of SyFy’s Helix, with the familiar
plot of scientific research run amok and spawning a new and terrible disease.)
Clarendon is fired from his position at the prison because
of the scandal. To avoid further bad
publicity, Alfred and Georgina retreat to an isolated mansion along with 8
black robed Tibetan monks, Georgina’s St. Bernard, and the ever chuckling
Surama. (This sounds like something that
could happen in California.)
Weird cries and disappearances begin to happen in and
around the makeshift “clinic” on the grounds of the Clarendon estate. Among the victims are all the laboratory
animals, Georgina’s St. Bernard, (“Dick”), and all of the Tibetans. Georgina herself is next in line to be
sacrificed to Surama’s and Alfred’s ministrations. She is entirely passive and makes no effort
to escape, but is saved by “the strength of the steel-firm, square jawed
governor”, who is a sort of Dudley Do-Right character. Surama and Alfred later perish in a cleansing
fire that burns the evil clinic to the ground.
Alfred is the one who lights the fire, but just
before he does, he offers Dalton a lengthy and incomprehensible explanation
about what he and Surama have been up to—something about Atlantis, Yog-Sothoth,
an infection from outer space, and worshipping “ancient, primordial and unholy
gods...” All of Alfred’s notes are destroyed, leaving no trace
of his studies under Surama. It is
probably just as well.
The
Last Test contains interesting commentary about the impact
of the media on public opinion and public hysteria circa the late 1920s. (Both Clarendon’s friends and foes make
effective use of planted newspaper stories to sway public opinion about the
doctor.) Although the story begins as a
straightforward melodrama with proto-science fiction elements, by the second
half it morphs into a ‘Cthulhu Mythos’ tale, with re-heated leftovers about ‘The
Old Ones’ with a dash of Atlantis thrown in.
(Lovecraft had published his classic The Call of Cthulhu in
February of the same year.)
Virtually all of Lovecraft’s stories contain
autobiographical elements. He is clearly
sympathetic to the misunderstood and misguided Dr. Clarendon, a tormented genius
in thrall to the search for knowledge no matter what the cost. The maternal relationship depicted between
Clarendon and his sister Georgina seems to mirror Lovecraft’s relationship with the two aunts he lived with. Finally there is an
interesting shift from ‘scientific research’ to the supernatural and occult by
the end of the story—which reflects Lovecraft’s own preoccupation with
religious themes despite his avowed materialism.
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