“The Return of the Sorcerer” A Retro Review
In my ongoing quest for enrichment activities, I thought about the British tradition of A Ghost Story at Christmas. What could be more of an enrichment activity than starting a new tradition? The notion of reading a classic horror story on Halloween came to me like a revenant. There’s a wealth of material to choose from, and it’s always good to take a fresh look at those tales that have haunted us for years. For the first installment of this annual ritual, I’ve chosen a yarn set in H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmology. Written by Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893-August 14, 1961), “The Return of the Sorcerer” was first published in 1931 in Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror. The story is the earliest example of a published work that wasn’t written by Lovecraft but references Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Employing the Necronomicon, the Lovecraftian bible of all that is unholy, the narrative involves a scholar employed to translate parts of the tome from its original Arabic. Hired by an aging and high-strung occult practitioner, the translator moves into the California residence of his very nervous employer. The surroundings appear to be in keeping with what he has gleaned about his boss: “It was very much as I should have imagined the den of some old sorcerer to be. There were tables strewn with archaic instruments of doubtful use, with astrological charts, with skulls and alembics and crystals, with censers such as are used in the Catholic Church, and volumes bound in worm-eaten leather with verdigris-mottled clasps.” The environment living up to the narrator’s expectations sets a tone of creepy acquiescence.
Mr. Ogden, the narrator, accepts occultist John Carnby as a sort of fellow academic: “He had all the earmarks of the lonely scholar who has devoted patient years to some line of erudite research.” But Ogden recognizes that Carnby’s unease dominates his existence, manifesting itself as a “nerve-shattered air, a fearful shrinking that was more than the normal shyness of a recluse, and an unceasing apprehensiveness that betrayed itself in every glance of his dark-ringed, feverish eyes and every movement of his bony hands.”
Indeed, in assisting Carnby by translating the notorious Necronomicon, Ogden himself experiences a dreadful apprehension: “When I opened the yellowish pages, I drew back with involuntary revulsion at the odor which arose from them—an odor that was more than suggestive of physical decay, as if the book had lain among corpses in some forgotten graveyard and taken on the scent of dissolution.” Despite the off-putting olfactory sensation, the pursuit of arcane knowledge persists and is justified as academic curiosity. Both assistant and occultist fall back on that rationale, with the rationalization being less convincing in the case of Carnby: “More than once, during our discussion, he sought to imply that his interest in the supernatural and Satanic was wholly intellectual, that he, like myself, was without personal belief in such things.”
Ogden’s objectivity undergoes a change during his tenure: “Horror-breeding hints and noisome intuitions invaded my brain. More and more the atmosphere of that house enveloped and stifled me with poisonous, miasmal mystery; and I felt everywhere the invisible brooding of malignant incubi.” Unlocking the secret behind Carnby’s fear leads to a dreadful discovery that catapults Ogden into otherworldly terror.
Author Clark Ashton Smith’s writing impressed Lovecraft, who praised Smith in the essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” published in 1927: “In sheer daemonic strangeness of and fertility of conception, Mr. Smith is perhaps unexcelled by any other writer dead or living.” Certainly, Smith was an impressive person. He never attended high school but was self-educated; he learned French and Spanish, read extensively, and had an extraordinary memory that was deemed to be near-photographic.
Reading “The Return of the Sorcerer” for Halloween proved to be an unexpected treat. I had forgotten how adroitly Smith could conjure up fears, and through my research was reminded that the tale had been adapted to television for the anthology series Night Gallery in 1972. The episode starred Vincent Price and Bill Bixby.
Clark Ashton Smith’s short story has fueled my desire to start a tradition. The annual rite of reading a classic horror story to celebrate Halloween absolutely fulfills the goal of an enrichment activity.
