He

by H.P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft was one of the greatest horror writers of all time. His seminal work appeared in the pages of legendary Weird Tales and has influenced countless writer of the macabre. This is one of those stories.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Lovecraftian, Fiction, Classics, Fantasy, Audiobook

14 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1925

About the author

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.

Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

— Wikipedia

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this disturbing and bizarre story a first person narrator gets shown by a nameless magician the real face of the city. Is it a perspective of the future or one of the past? The visions seen are terrible and absolutely shocking. What is going on here? This story definitely casts a black shadow on the big city of New York. Does the narrator survive his trip? Well, you have to go on a trip yourself and read this well crafted story by Lovecraft. Sometimes I felt I was shown those thing by the magician. Great read. Recommended!

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This short story, first published in Weird Tales (September, 1926) was written eleven months earlier, at 7 A.M., in a Elizabeth, New Jersey park, after one of H.P.’s midnight rambles in August of 1925. Its Greenwich Village geographical details are based on an even earlier walk Lovecraft made during the summer of 1924. During these solitary nighttime walks, Lovecraft could escape from the immigrant throngs that crowed the daytime metropolis, an alien horde which—Lovecraft habitually thought—menaced him by day. (Was this in spite of—or because of—he was married to a Ukrainian immigrant Jew—Sonia Shafirkin Greene—at the time?)

In this tale—one of the most blatant literary expressions of Lovecraft’s racism—our narrator encounters an ancient gentleman who becomes his guide through the oldest alleys of the city. This person—who turns out to be more ancient that anyone could have reasonably suspected—shows his companion a vision of New York City’s past and then a view of its future:

For full three seconds I could glimpse that pandaemoniac sight, and in those seconds I saw a vista which will ever afterward torment me in dreams. I saw the heavens verminous with strange flying things, and beneath them a hellish black city of giant stone terraces with impious pyramids flung savagely to the moon, and devil-lights burning from unnumbered windows. And swarming loathsomely on aërial galleries I saw the yellow, squint-eyed people of that city, robed horribly in orange and red, and dancing insanely to the pounding of fevered kettle-drums, the clatter of obscene crotala, and the maniacal moaning of muted horns whose ceaseless dirges rose and fell undulantly like the waves of an unhallowed ocean of bitumen.

Luckily for Lovecraft’s craft—and his sanity—he soon relocated to New England, and there he sublimated his fears of Levantine and Far Eastern aliens into a fear of a much more alien kind of alien. It was then that his best work began.

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

He
An unnamed optimistic poet arrives in New York. He loves everything about it since the night promises great things for him. Daylight, however, brings disappointments. The wonderful city of night turns into a dead, modern thing during the day. Soon the disappointed man starts going out only at night, wandering the less known or even forgotten streets and alleys and loving the feeling of old he manages to find there.
One night he meets a strange man who promises to show him more. He promises something wonderful. Although there is something not quite right with the stranger, the narrator goes with him. Creepy story with a twist near the end.

[Andrés Diplotti · Rating 2 out of 5]

The purple prose is strong in this one. Take a look at this, barely the second sentence of the story:

My coming to New York had been a mistake; for whereas I had looked for poignant wonder and inspiration in the teeming labyrinths of ancient streets that twist endlessly from forgotten courts and squares and waterfronts to courts and squares and waterfronts equally forgotten, and in the Cyclopean modern towers and pinnacles that rise blackly Babylonian under waning moons, I had found instead only a sense of horror and oppression which threatened to master, paralyse, and annihilate me.

Yes, that is just one sentence.

Only because the prose is so fun to read I'm giving this two stars instead of only one. Just look at who the monsters are in this story: foreigners and Indians. The foreigners are "squat, swarthy strangers with hardened faces and narrow eyes" that corrupt the once proud New York; a vision of the future of the city overrun by immigrants is enough to give the sensitive, blue-eyed protagonist screaming fits. The Indians might or might not have drunk themselves to death (because of course they would), and then their spirits blame the white sorcerer who stole their magic (again, because blaming white people is what Indians do, right?). I suspect Lovecraft would support Donald Trump today.

I find Lovecraft's phobias make for better stories when they are less overt. In The Shadow over Innsmouth, for example, they make for the right kind of creepy. When the batrachian abominations are humans of the wrong ethnic makeup, old H. P. is just your racist grandpa.

[Virginia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think I need a break from Lovecraft. I'm not sure I appreciate such a vivid glimpse of what the world must look like through the eyes of a bigot.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovecraft writes beautiful prose.

A man guides the first person narrator to labyrinths he seeks. He shows him secrets by power of necromancy and the narrators screams awaken something slithering up the stairway, black and with hundreds of undead eyes, "He."

[Dorotea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just because you put together beautiful words, it doesn’t make it a great story
​

[Jonathan Dunne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!

Wishing Netflix would make a HP Lovecraft mini series, each episode dedicated to one short story. I would tune in.

[Baal Of · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly standard offering from HPL including a trip through weird landscapes and buildings, and the expected overwrought language. Mystical arts, a mysterious stranger, visions of a future with weird architecture, and then black goo with lots of eyes. It's enough to drive one mad.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very twisted story.

[Graeme Rodaughan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A youthful poet seeks 'Wonderment,' in the alleys and byways of New York. Accepts a stranger as a guide and quickly finds himself within an ancient realm of otherworldly horrors. Barely escapes with his mind and body intact. Kinda dragged in spots, although the creature known as 'He,' was inventive.

3 'Beware Strangers in New York,' stars.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

So racist.

[Tihana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really do love his stories, but sometimes I find it hard to separate art from the artist with him, you know? Especially in works like these, where the bigotry shines through. True, one can't expect much better from someone living in those times, especially from a person as paranoid about, well, literally everyone and everything, as he was. But it doesn't make it easier to stomach. I've seen some takes on this story saying that 'He' is the personification of Lovecraft's racism and the story tells a kind of fight or struggle against it. If I recall correctly, I did read that he regretted his racism/xenophobia later on in his life. But one can only guess, I suppose. In any case, I just felt uncomfortable during this entire thing. I couldn't get into it no matter how hard I tried. I give it two stars only because I like his writing style. Everything else was just... I don't know.

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another of Lovecraft's weird tales. An unnamed narrator has moved to New York, decides to take a walk one night, meets a strangely dressed fellow, accepts his invitation to go on some late night site seeing, listens to some strange tale, gets damn frightened, then learns that he's just met some dead guy from the 1700s...

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 3 out of 5]

The prose in this story was phenomenal and dripping with eldritch fascination, but the racial undertones dragged it down quite a bit. He could have pulled off a nice dream cycle story here, but chose to go with this instead. Luckily, this was around the point he began to grow out of his discriminatory attitude and moved on to bigger and better things.

[Nikita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though only the second Lovecraft story I read, it establishes him as the archetype white racist American without any redeeming qualities. A slight possibility exists that Lovecraft was mocking the ambiguous morality of post-WWI Western world, by exaggerating the deep-rooted fears of racists. However it's hard to distinguish the narrator from the writer in case of such short stories.
Still I find myself immensely attracted to the brilliant prose of Lovecraft which settles between the archaic fearful lore of our ancestors and the ramblings of modern man disappointed by promise of triumphant civilization.

[Netanella · Rating 3 out of 5]

First line: I saw him on a sleepless night when I was walking desperately to save my soul and my vision.

Our loquacious narrator travels to New York where he encounters a dirty city, dirty natives and even dirtier foreigners, and has visions of unknowable horrors in the city hat leaves him cataleptic in the end. Typical Lovecraftian stuff, but not as good as other shorts.

[Branson Plunk · Rating 3 out of 5]

It looks like our boy Howard does NOT like New York City. Most of Lovecraft's writings are about things he was afraid of, and hoo boy he did NOT like the idea of an old city. The weird bit about time-traveling was kind of fun, but the entity that was knocking down the door was weird and spooky. Overall I think I liked this one a bit more than some of the other stories in this collection.

[Sara]

Its nt my imigation
that black under city who have yallow eys pep
itsnt my imigtion
to take that adv cold mist road
to have my redimpation
to survive behind black window
to survive yallow fung and flash hold sky pirsoner
with pain and broken bone searce to my freedom
just my word and poem my candle was
at cold road
my imganition take that desert to sea
greensky hold dark sea with cold eyes
still me and river of my blood who wake the life of my soul
that city nt my imgation witgj witch green one take me over the cloud
natural to feel free when i open my eys
and beleve.

[Julia Leporace · Rating 3 out of 5]

“[...] and when I found the poets and artists to be loud-voiced pretenders whose quaintness is tinsel and whose lives are a denial of all that pure beauty which is poetry and art, I stayed on for love of these venerable things.”

[Jesus Flores · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cuento pequeño sobre un tipo que conoce a otro y de buenas lo lleva a ver algo y pues resulta que es algo terrorifico.

Tarda mucho explicando el porque al primer personaje no le gusto el Nueva York pues no era a sus expectativas.

3 stars

[Mika · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think that this short story is loosely based on the Native Americans genocide which is truly tragic.

While it's not just about Native Americans, it mainly felt rather sad than creepy, which is quite disappointing as I expect a creepy horror story.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horror, short story by a master, well done!!

[Griffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The scariest part? Willingly moving to New York City.

[Teemu Öhman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story set in the "tenebrous labyrinths" of New York, sort of. Not a really great one, but worth reading anyway.

3.75/5

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 Stars rounded down to 4 Stars.

[Klara Woodson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Venire a New York è stato uno sbaglio perché, ovunque cercassi bellezza ed ispirazione artistica, (...) avvertivo, invece, un vago orrore ed una sensazione di soffocamento che mi opprimevano, quasi al punto di prostrarmi ed annichilirmi"

"Mi si fermò il respiro: non tanto per quello che vedevo, quanto per le possibilità intraviste dalla mia immaginazione"

Devo dire che questo racconto ha protetto a denti stretti la mia opinione su Lovecraft. Se, infatti, le ultime storie che avevo letto di lui dalla mia raccolta Newton Compton avevano cominciato ad annoiarmi, "Lui" mi ha improvvisamente ricordato perché amo tanto questo autore. Si tratta di uno scritto semplice e privo di inutili complicazioni. Tuttavia, il crescendo continuo dell'angoscia e del timore si risolveranno in un climax finale per nulla scontato.
Una delle cose che ultimamente avevano cominciato a venirmi a noia in Lovecraft (oltre alla sua tristemente celebre xenofobia, fin troppo esplicita in certi racconti per poter essere semplicemente sorvolata) era il suo costante bisogno di affidarsi ad aggettivi come "orribile" e "terrificante". Invece che mostrarci l'orrore, tende a descriverlo, infrangendo così quel sacro principio dello "show, don't tell". Qui non avviene nulla di simile. Certo, ci sono delle descrizioni, dovrei aggiungere minuziose e numerose. Ma non si soffermano mai a specificare quello che il lettore dovrebbe provare in quel momento, concentrandosi piuttosto sul FAR provare al lettore quelle medesime sensazioni, senza spiegarle. I passaggi descrittivi sono meravigliosi, veramente terrificanti e poetici allo stesso tempo, ricchi di quella Filosofia del Macabro che Lovecraft assume come sue marchio di fabbrica. Il contrasto tra la bellezza della notte, la banalità del giorno e l'orrore del surreale si mescolano in un vortice infinito, che pare ingoiare chi legge nella sua indecifrabilità. Si resta attaccati fino all'ultima pagina, rapiti dal fascino della morte e della decomposizione.

Il tema dello "straniero in terra straniera" non è presente, come pensavo all'inizio, nel solo protagonista. Anzi, forse si dovrebbe parlare piuttosto di una "terra straniera nello straniero". Il personaggio principale deve riuscire ad evadere da un mondo grottesco e soprannaturale che si cela dietro la facciata moderna di New York, ma allo stesso tempo deve fuggire dalle immagini che lui stesso ha costruito dentro di sé di quella città. Il vero pericolo si nasconde nei segreti della terra, o nella psiche di chi vuole comprenderla?

Se l'invito è quello di non partire, di non lasciarsi coinvolgere, allo stesso tempo noi non potremo mai ignorare la verità sepolta nelle nebbie della Storia: c'è un orrore che supera quello della solitudine. E' da ricercarsi nei fantasmi del nostro passato? Nella nostra stessa anima? O in ciò che vive e regna intorno a noi, ma di cui siamo troppo terrorizzati per accettarne l'esistenza?

Ben fatto, Lovecraft! Mi hai riconquistata!
Quattro stelle!

[John Yelverton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is actually a very scary story of witchcraft and revenge, and how the protagonist is blessed to have learned his lesson when he barely escapes with his life.

[Julio Diaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Historia entretenida qué nunca te aclara más allá de las propias conjeturas, normal en Lovecraft.

[David Sarkies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark Secrets of the City
22 July 2023

This story is about an unnamed writer (though I’ve noticed that the protagonist in a lot of Lovecraft’s stories are unnamed) who decides to move to Greenwich village in New York because that is where all of the writers and artistic types hang out (which no doubt was the case). Actually, come to think of it, this character is probably another one of those stand-ins for Lovecraft, since he was a writer and grew up in New England.

Well, as it turns out, he didn’t really get on well with the writers and didn’t actually like the scene either, so he decided that he would go for walks during the early morning when there was nobody around. As it turns out there was somebody around, who invites him to see some of the unknown parts of the village, which turn out to be much, much more old-fashioned than the parts that he had been in. He eventually brings him to a house, and shows him a trick where he is able to travel in time to see what New York looked like back when it was originally settled by the Dutch.

Mind you, this is a Lovecraftian horror, so when we are time travelling, we end up going to places where humans are not meant to go, and that is to a time well before humanity even existed, and we discover that New York wasn’t the original mega-city on the site. In fact, it was the site of a city inhabited by those who lived on the Earth before humans ended up here. Needless to say that the experience doesn’t turn out all that well, though he manages to barely escape with his life. In the end, he decides that New York isn’t really for him and goes back home to New England (though interestingly the suggestion is that it is much better, though considering that a lot of Lovecraftian horror occurs in New England, this experience in New York mustn’t have been all that great).

Yeah, moving to a new city is an interesting experience. I did it myself, though to be honest with you there was no way I was going to return to Adelaide. I guess the difference here is that in my mind there was nothing left for me in Adelaide so it was time to go and explore new fields. Mind you, he is right in the suggestion that there is a vastly different culture – it was something that I discovered when I took a new job. Like, it turned out that the culture in the new role that I took just simply wasn’t the type of culture that I had experienced in my job in Adelaide.

However, I didn’t move because I wanted to join up with a group of writers or artists, though that is certainly something that has happened throughout time. Like, Montmartre in Paris was the go to place for artists during the Belle Epoque, though there are a number of stories of how people travel to Paris to become an artist, only to discover that the life really isn’t for them. Sure, there might be the Monets and the Renoirs, but most of us aren’t like that. The same is the stories of the actors that travel to Hollywood to make it big, only to discover that breaking into the scene, especially when you don’t have any real experience, is incredibly hard (I notice that a lot of the big names that land up in Hollywood usually already have a name, so the move is nowhere near as drastic as the small town girl trope).

Like, yeah, this was an interesting story, and it does go to show how cultures do change, even within a relatively local area. The country and the city are two vastly different places. I’ve known country people who move to the city for university only to move back to the country because living in the country is in their blood. As for me, I’ve always been a city person, and Melbourne works well for me because it is big enough that I’m always able to meet new people, and to avoid people that I really don’t want to associate with, something that is difficult, if not impossible, to do in the country.