Herbert West: Reanimator

Story 9/31

by Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Listening Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Link: https://librivox.org/herbert-west-re-animator-by-h-p-lovecraft/

Theme: Atheism 

Quote: "Damn it it wasn't quite fresh enough!"

(Source: http://www.letsbefriendsagain.com/2009/04/14/my-grass-type-vs-your-colour-out-of-space-type/ )

*Note: As always, this post gets a lot deeper than I was intending it to.

This story was one of the stupidest/funniest things I read this year. 

It was advertised as one of the first zombie-stories, I see it more as a pulpy re-working of Frankenstein. 

Now, I think Victor Frankenstein is a pretty shady dude, but Dr. Herbert West (Yes, he finished his degree...unlike Victor) is eeeevvvvilllll!! 

Dr West is an atheist who views the world in a completely mechanical sense and feels absolutely no guilt in anything he does. He even goes so far as to use the front lines of World War I as a cover, and uses the victims of the war as a resource to fuel his experiments. Anything and everything the world exists for him to use as a toy. His own best friend wouldn't put it past him to kill someone just so he can get material that's "Fresh enough". 

(And they say "zombies" are evil)

I can see why they say this story is an archetype of the zombie-myths; a lot of zombie stories feature an evil scientist and a serum or a virus that causes the outbreak. But the "zombies" in this story can't infect other people with their ailment. Most of them end up living in institutions or as vagrants because their creator (reanimatior?) had no other plans for them than to bring them back to life.

I'm not entirely convinced they are undead at all. When his experiments fail (which they often do, kudos to Mr Lovecraft for portraying the scientific process accurately *wink *wink), Dr West says the corpses were "not fresh enough". At what point then, is he "reanimating" a corpse vs "resuscitating" a corpse? What if they're all just people who've suffered brain damage secondary oxygen deprivation?

(If I were brought back like that, I'd probably want to kill him too!)

Supposedly, Mr Lovecraft was himself an atheist. But he comes across as one of the Clive Staples Lewis variety:

"I was at this time, living like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing."

The theme of an uncaring or indifferent supernal power is common in Mr Lovecraft's writings.

Herbert West, then, could be the human archetype of such an apathetic creator. He has no purpose or plans for his creations, he is wholly indifferent to them once he's done with the act of creation.

(Get your crap together, Herbert! Cthulhu, at least, wants to destroy us all!)