The Moon-Bog by H.P. Lovecraft: Review & PDF

This story is part of the author’s early run of stories inspired by folklore, local legends and small communities. You will see this structure repeated fairly often in his work. The first part introduces us to a sceptical narrator entering a different “world”, usually sceptical at first. Night after night, or event after event, he is exposed to a ghostly truth that inhabits the place.

It works well. It keeps you intrigued, and this local-legend style of storytelling can be very compelling. There are some problems attached to it, though, starting with the predictable “he ignored the curse and paid the price” plot. For anyone who has already read The Rats in the Walls, the rhythm feels more familiar and less ferocious. It also raises certain questions which, obviously, will not be answered. For example, why is our narrator the only one having these visions? Why did the “goddess” and the city only react now? In the end, it comes down to the convenience of things deciding to happen just when the narrator arrives to witness them.

The Ultimate Guide to Lovecraftian Gods and Cosmic Creatures

Another thing I consider a weakness in Lovecraft here is how little substance Barry has as a character. I mean, he doesn’t even compare with Erich Zann or Pickman, for example. The character’s final appearance feels somewhat irrelevant, when the author could have spent more time developing his personality, even if he were simply the stereotypical greedy man. By the middle of the story, I’d almost forgotten about him, so his final appearance had almost no impact. You barely feel that his punishment came as a consequence of his arrogance.

We can give him some leeway, since this story was written fairly early in Lovecraft’s literary career and was clearly produced simply to fulfil the requirements of a story written for that competition, which was inspired by St Patrick’s Day (hence Ireland as the setting). If it had been written later, this would almost certainly have been a story divided into four parts. One for the introduction, then three more for each of the visions during the night. Between the nights, he would have spent long paragraphs talking about the local legend, the village and, for God’s sake, Barry.