Back From the Dead

What is the fascination with resurrecting the dead?  I finished up my reading for the semester (and I am in the process of finishing my grading for the semester—summer is nigh), and in that wonderful moment, poised between two worlds—the world of School-Year, when books are chosen to be read because I assigned them in a class, and the world of Break, when books are chosen haphazardly purely for self-edification and enjoyment—at that precise moment when I must choose how to break from the first world and enter the second, at that moment in which everything seems to hinge on how to start a summer, for reasons I cannot explain, indeed as if by some odd mystical force dragging me into the pit (and while that seems a bit melodramatic (well, while it is, in fact, melodramatic), I cannot explain this choice in any other, more rational way), I pulled from my shelf, the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft and read The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

Why did I read this book?  And even more importantly, why of all the books with which I could have started my summer reading, why instead of one of the books on the list I made a month ago of books I was looking forward to reading this summer, why would I pick this book to mark the onset of summer?  I have no idea.  Some chthonic force, perhaps?  The Call of Cthulhu?  One shudders.

Was it good?  Here’s Lovecraft’s own evaluation:  “cumbrous, creaking bit of self-conscious antiquarianism.”  (Ah Wikipedia, thou art so fair.)  In fact, it was only published posthumously.  In this case, the author’s evaluation wasn’t far off the mark.  Yet, oddly, it was still worth reading as a curiosity.

The book reads like a government report, detailing the strange disappearance of the titular character.  Said character dabbled in the Black Arts, following the footsteps of his ancestor, whose story is also retold.  And so, we move from New England in 1662  to New England in 1928 (with a detour into a demonic underworld thrown in for effect) tracing out the attempts to delve into Dark Secrets.  To what end?  It’s never entirely clear, and therein lies the hanging question which opened these ruminations.

Suppose you had the power to resurrect the dead.  Would you use it?  I have a hard time imagining anyone I would wish to call back from the Dead for a chat.  Imagine sitting down to talk with a resurrected H.L. Mencken.  Why?  What in the world would I have to say to Jonathan Edwards come back from the Dead?  Perhaps I have no imagination, but what would I want to know?  “Was it really cold at Valley Forge, Mr. Washington?”  “Would you like another drink, Mr. Faulkner?”

Would I really want to pretend that dear old Ben Franklin and I were BFFs simply because we had tea one dark night when I brought him back from the dead?  Do I really care if Sacco was innocent or not?  Would my life be better if I knew whether Shakespeare thought Gertrude knew about the activities of Claudius?

So, here we have a tale about a young man who gets sucked into a dark, dark world  in pursuit of a knowledge of things which really, when one thinks about it, wouldn’t be all that interesting to know.   Maybe I am in the minority here (hardly a novelty, to be sure).  Maybe everyone else really wants to swap gossip with Mark Twain. 

Or maybe the allure of bringing back the Dead is simply the allure of having Power.  And if so, remember these wise words from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, indeed the words which elevate this book into something other than the pedestrian, the words which should be engraved over the mantle of ever home:

Doe not call up Any that you can not put downe