'The Evil Clergyman' – H.P. Lovecraft


So, it's October which means it's the time of year when I start feeling like I should be reading more horror, ghost stories, you know what it's like...We'll see how that goes (the smart person would put money on the 'as well as it ever does' option which is to say, 'could do better'...) but in the meantime, I found this Lovecraft collection in Oxfam, not so long ago, and figured I'd take a look at the contents and see if anything sprang out and demanded that I read it. Well, a title like 'The Evil Clergyman' is all it takes to pique my interest. I've known a few clergymen (and a couple of clergywomen) in my time and they've generally been a quite pleasant bunch; it was time to find out what an evil one was like ;o) As it turns out... Let me tell you about the slightly disappointing read that was 'The Evil Clergyman'.

Our narrator is shown the rooms of a clergyman (yep, the evil one) who met a violent end. The narrator is warned not to touch an object on the table which, of course, he then proceeds to do and gains an insight into what went on in that house, all that time ago. He also gains something else from his encounter which will haunt him for the rest of his days..

I actually feel a little sorry for Lovecraft as far as this tale goes. A little glance at Wikipedia told me that this tale was actually recounted by Lovecraft as a dream that he had (in a letter to a friend). After Lovecraft's death, 'The Evil Clergyman' was published as a short story, in 'Weird Tales', and reading it, I can't help but think that Lovecraft himself probably wouldn't have published it without a great deal of reworking first.

'The Evil Clergyman' is very light on why this particular clergyman was evil in the first place. I mean, he had a strange object (which scared other clergymen) and some books on magic, not really enough (in my eyes) to make a judgment one way or the other. And a couple of the decisions that the narrator makes would make perfect sense if it was your dream but come across as just a little too convenient here to really make the finale stand out as anything other than a bit underwhelming really. And the reaction of the man who finds the narrator is very much 'oh, not again...' There's some atmosphere but literally no plot to give it any meaning.

And the thing is, I'm not blaming Lovecraft for this at all. The fact that 'The Evil Clergyman' wasn't published in his lifetime suggests to me that Lovecraft quite possibly never had any intention of doing anything with this particular dream other than putting it in a letter to a friend. I wonder if it would have been a better choice to leave that dream exactly where it was...

Oh well, I'm sure I'll be dipping in and out of this collection so hopefully the next read will be a better one.

If you fancy reading 'The Evil Clergyman' yourself, have a read over Here.

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