The Rats In The Walls.

So, as you can probably guess from the title, today I'm going to be talking about H.P Lovecraft's short story The Rats In The Walls. The first thing you have to understand is that until my beady little eyes fell upon Ex Oblivione, Rats was my favorite Lovecraft story and I still love it. When called upon to pick a name for a server or co-op game, Exham Priory is my default (with the occasional Watership Down reference for good measure).

But Goddamn, I just re-read it and it gets harder and harder to love. I re-read Rats today because I'm trying to write a haunted house story and went to an old standby in a similar vein.

1. The Rats In The Walls is not the dryest Lovecraft piece but his writing style remains very dry. We get paragraphs of mostly nothing, and all the horror is slam-dunked at the end. There's something to be said for build up, but maybe a little more build up wouldn't have killed anybody. 
2. The. Racism. Look, I get it, he wrote at a different time and that's how words were used back then. But Jesus Christ, H.P. Lovecraft is the most racist and xenophobic author I've ever dealt with. In my memory it's just the name of the cat that's a problem (a name I will not be typing) but no, it interweaves with the rest of the piece. 

The Rats In The Walls is a chilling story that means a lot to me. But some days I wish anyone else had written it.