Someone in the Dark

by August Derleth

August Derleth. Someone in the Dark. [Sauk City]: Arkham House, 1941. Second printing, Currey binding (B). Twelvemo. 335 pages. Publisher's binding and dust jacket. Dust jacket, with illustration by Frank Utpatel,

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Short Stories

223 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Cosmic Horror genre, as well as his founding of the publisher Arkham House (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the US that had only been readily available in the UK), Derleth was a leading American regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction, and biography

A 1938 Guggenheim Fellow, Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious Sac Prairie Saga, a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augus...]

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I respect Derleth for his editing skills, this short story collection did not impress me at all. In his introduction, Derleth notes that: "Perhaps it is not to my credit that I have never taken the time to write a really first-rate ghost story; indeed, out of some two hundred, less than a score stand up to a second reading." I take it Someone in the Dark contains these 20 stories, but do they stand up to a second reading? Meh. Most were if not boring, entirely predictable. No real standouts and lots of clunkers. 1.5 weak stars, rounding up as I finished it.

[Dirk Dursty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short, fairly tame collection. Forgot most of the stories upon finishing each, save the last two that go full-blown Lovecraft and help to elevate the whole thing.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of stories by August Derleth, the celebrated pupil of H.P. Lovecraft, exposed me to some seriously creepy stuff. Extremely discomforting. Hell, I’d almost call it spine-tingling. And this unspeakable horror was thus: being a world-renown fan and occasional collaborator with Lovecraft makes a great author not.

I was really hoping I’d have something positive to say about this, something which would make me be able to confirm that simply by rubbing elbows with greatness each of us can aspire to something far greater than we previously were. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work like that, as “Someone In The Dark” painfully illustrates. I should have learned this disheartening lesson when I mowed Michael Jordan’s lawn as a kid and still can’t dunk, let alone make a routine lay-up. It might have dawned on me when I got Bill Murray’s autograph while serving at Charlie Trotter’s and still can’t recall the punchlines to pollack jokes. You’d really think it would have sunk in after a week of hobnobbing with Paris Hilton and I still can’t deepthroat nine mean inches of trouser trout. Eh, wait a second.

Ok, so maybe none of those things happened, and I’ve never been groomed as the heir apparent to some stupefyingly-awesome master of an appreciated art, but I guess I always suspected that was how it went; master teaches promising apprentice his craft, master vacates the throne upon leaving this twisted mortal coil, pupil ascends to the throne and becomes the master, eventually cozying up to a new prodigy, repeat process. Perhaps I was indoctrinated into thinking it worked like that from the blather I’d heard about simpletons like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle while in school, some sort of bogus succession-of-greatness bullshit which I probably fell hook, line, and sinker for, until actually opening my eyes and realizing they were just a fortunate bunch of well-off scions of aristocracy, with ascribed opportunities and hereditary bragging-rights that the rest of Greek society only dreamed about. I may never know where I get these silly ideas, and probably shouldn’t spend a whole lot of time uncovering their absurd sources.

As a fan of Lovecraft’s work myself, I could only hope the best for Derleth, and this was my first foray into his works without the heavy, guiding hand of Howard Phillips. (Granted, I did read “Lurker At The Threshold” some years ago, which appears to have been a collaboration, but I’ll have to go back one day and see who appears to have been the main contributor) I was intrigued as to what I could expect; was it possible that this guy could somehow fill the large shoes Lovecraft left behind, that simply being a slavish idolater could transform a mere fan into the man to carry the torch? It certainly didn’t seem like this could be the case, I considered how so many bands say their influences were The Cure and Depeche Mode and their albums sound like Godsmack b-sides. Or worse yet, sometimes the pivotal members of a band move on to a new project and you think that ‘something special’ they had might hitch along for the ride (Billy Corgan’s transition from Smashing Pumpkins to that wreck called Zwan stands out as an example, or Ken Andrews’ dissolution of Failure to go snapping mad with Year of the Rabbit hits a more personal nerve with me). But there was still hope, I countered to myself; a band is a collective of specialists, whereas an author doesn’t need anyone else. It’s not like Joris-Karl Huysmans relied on the percussive assault of Jimmy Chamberlain to weave the bizarre tapestry of words that became “Against Nature”. We can rest assured that Jan Potocki didn’t use the sweet, distorted riffs of James Iha as a crutch while penning “The Manuscript Found in Saragossa”. On the other hand, Jack Ketchum can’t blame “Off Season” on the fact that porcelain-faced freak D’arcy was more semi-goth eye-candy than a reputable bassist. While the rest of the world was doing something productive and even meaningful with their time, I sat and contemplated this nonsense, possibly influenced by a growler of Oregon’s finest Dead Guy Ale and iTunes switching albums from “Magnified” to “Mellon Collie”.

August Derleth comes flailing wildly out of the gates with an introduction, which begins ominously enough with the line
“there are few things so superfluous as an introduction to a collection of ghost stories, and yet collections without introductions remain consistently in the minority.”
The first sign of the apocalypse hath come to pass. I figured the second sign wouldn’t appear until the anticipated 2012 release of “Ron Weasley and the Leather Dungeon”, but this obviously wasn’t in keeping with Derleth’s timetable, and he hurries it along a paragraph later with another bold proclamation:
“Perhaps it is not to my credit that I have never taken the time to write a really first-rate ghost story; indeed, out of some two hundred, less than a score stand up under a second reading.”
I’d have expected honesty like this from Barack Obama campaign ads concerning his political experience when shilling for my vote; not from some broke-ass Lovecraft disciple trying to sell me a two-dollar paperback. This may or may not be a contributing factor to the overall condition of the world, and it’s really not that important when trying to focus on the self-avowed substandard fare titled “Someone in the Dark”.

After reading this collection, I shudder to think that those other 180 ghost stories that Derleth has scribbled might be like, in the unfortunate event he hasn’t burned them, but based on those included here I can imagine they appear to be as derivative as possible of Algernon Blackwood’s work, and adhere as closely as the story allows to the following simple formula: some numbskull comes across an accursed house/room/relic/talisman/document/grimoire/totem/amulet/spirit and unwisely decides to fuck with the damned thing, notices the resulting uncommon occurrences from this undesired interaction, but persists in their folly and maintains that this is all a figment of their imagination until getting iced. At least, that’s how the first fourteen stories go, the last two stories are something special; ersatz, second-rate Lovecraftian masturbation, which, of course also happen to generally follow the same formula as outlined above, but with the word ‘eldritch’ generously scattered about to fool one into thinking this is the genuine article direct from H.P.’s pen.

However, in spite of all this boring, repetitive slander, I will say that some of the stories were actually entertaining reads, although even these were ridiculously predictable and always conclude with the same ‘and-here’s-the-most-terrifying-part!’ endings. “Compliments of Spectro” was actually a pretty enjoyable yarn, and “Glory Hand” was pretty decent, but this is probably because these were the first two stories within, and the formula had yet to grow stale. After a mere two stories the pattern set forth became unbearable, and even slightly redemptive tales like “Joliper’s Gift” and “Altimer’s Amulet” just couldn’t be appreciated, since it was all-too-obvious the titular ninny in each story was going to cross paths with the instrument of his demise (once in a while seeking, then ignoring, advice from a peer named after one of Derleth’s idols, such as Inspector Machen).

Considering I was expecting this to be some sort of continuation of Lovecraft’s greatness, I was wholeheartedly disappointed to find that Derleth seemed to take the alternate route of base emulation, and having been thus let down, at least would have been consoled if he’d gone and found his own unique voice or style. Instead, he merely mimics his predecessors (predominantly Algernon Blackwood and HP Lovecraft) with what I can only label LoveWood-Lite. I’m not down with LoveWood Lite; I say if you’re going to love the wood, don’t give me that ‘great taste, less filling’ shit, give me something both filling and delectable.

[Leothefox · Rating 2 out of 5]

In his introduction, Derleth himself seems less than enthusiastic about his own work on the whole. He says that of the 200 stories he's written, these 16 are the ones that one might read twice. I was cautiously optimistic and took this for false modesty...

“Someone in the Dark” is a problematic collection. One of the reasons for this is that the stories are rigidly herded into three categories, namely “Not Long for This World”, “A House With Somebody In It” and “Visitors from Down Under”. Up front I'll say that the Lovecraft-inspired tales in “Visitors from Down Under” are the best in this collection and it's kind of a shame that they're wedged together at the very end.

The other 14 stories in this collection invariably involve pedestrian applications of ghosts and the supernatural, often surrounding murders for inheritance. There were so many murders of miserly uncles and aunts that if one zoned out at the right times he might have thought this to be one long rambling novel. There is some variance, naturally, and some have ideas that were done better on stuff like “The Twilight Zone”. The problem is that Derleth treats the good ideas about the same as the dull ones and it gets a tad lost in a flavorless mess.

“The Return of Hastur” and “The Sandwin Compact” are Lovecraft fandom in which Cthulhu is implied to be close at hand at all times. They both more or less break down to being haunted house stories like much of the others, but they have the lore to draw on.

I'm disappointed that so much of “Someone in the Dark” is just repetition of dull drawing room horror cliches. Derleth even sets most of them in England to make his murders “most British”. I really wish Derleth had knocked off some of the aunt or uncle murder stories and brought in some more of his Lovecraft stuff to make this feel less like padding.