The color from space

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The Color Out of Space ( English title: The Color Out of Space ) is a short story by the American writer HP Lovecraft , written in March 1927, in September of the same year in the pulp magazine Amazing Stories was published. In 1939 she appeared in the anthology The Outsider and Others , with which the story of Arkham House began. A German translation by Rudolf Hermstein was included in the collection of short stories Das Ding auf der Schwelle der Usher 's library in 1969 and reprinted in 1983 in the Fantastic Library of Suhrkamp Verlag .

In his story, Lovecraft combined science fiction with elements of horror and in this way created an amalgam that would characterize his later work.

content

The color from space is written from the perspective of a first-person narrator , a surveyor from Boston . In preparation for the construction of a reservoir as a new water reservoir for the city of Arkham, he is examining a heather area west of the city that is to be flooded. He comes across a mysterious piece of land, a five-acre abandoned farm on which there is no life. There is an old well in the center of the homestead. The surveyor disgusted the site and hurried past it.

Returning to Arkham, the surveyor collects information about the abandoned site. He learns something from an old hermit, Ammi Pierce, and asks him about the "cursed heath". The hermit tells him the following story.

The farm had been very productive in the early 1880s, maintained by Nahum Gardner, his wife, and their three sons. Then, one afternoon in June 1882, a large meteorite fell on the land next to the well. The meteorite was made of an element that was unknown on earth. Inside was a sphere with a color spectrum that did not occur on earth either. While scientists have never been able to say exactly what the meteorite had contained, its influence was undeniable - within a year the Gardner family and their property suffered irreparable damage.

While initially only the taste of the fruit was affected, after a while the flora and fauna near the Gardner-Hof began to mutate. The plants took on the tone of the alien color and eventually turned gray and brittle, only to crumble into dust. The scientists assumed poisoning by the alien element and said that it would soon be washed out of the ground. The well from which the Gardners took their water also seemed poisoned, but they continued to drink the water, almost mechanically. The trees moved even when there was no wind. At night the vegetation glowed a tone of the alien color. What was worse, however, was that Nahum's wife, Nabby, and her son, Thaddeus, went insane. He had to lock them up in the attic of the house, where they yelled at each other across the hall in an incomprehensible language.

Then the dying among the pets began. The farm animals turned gray and disintegrated, their meat was inedible. The vets attributed the sudden death of the cattle to an inexplicable disease, as they had never been fed the farm's modified fruits. Soon after, Thaddeus died under similar circumstances as the cattle. Gardner's youngest son, Merwin, disappeared as he walked to the well.

After hearing nothing from Nahum for a long time, Ammi took heart and visited the Gardner farm. There he found Nahum, who had finally lost all sense of reality. The last Gardner's son, Zenas, had meanwhile also disappeared. Ammi went up to the attic to check on Nabby. As he entered the attic he was horrified to see that Mrs. Gardner shared the fate of Thaddeus. It was gray and brittle and collapsed. For a moment "a breath of plague" brushed Ammi's face and the color from space flickered in front of his eyes.

Then, in an act of grace, Ammi killed Nabby Gardner, at least the surveyor concludes from his descriptions, and went back downstairs to Nahum. This too had collapsed within the half hour that Ammi left him alone and told Ammi that something was living in the well that Merwin and Zenas had fetched. It feeds on the land and steals its energy. Then Nahum died too.

Ammi fled home and the next day he notified the authorities and reluctantly led some men to the Gardner farm. After Ammi had linked the condition of the dead to the well, the men set about emptying it. In the well they found the skeletonized remains of the missing Gardner children. One of the men climbed down and poked the mud with a stick, but found nothing.

Then the men went inside while it was getting dark outside. Suddenly the tethered horses went wild outside and the men noticed how an alien glow came from the well. Ammi, aware of the effect of the color, prevented the men from going outside. When the house itself began to shine in color from space, they all fled out the back door. The next day only the stone parts of the house and the well were left of the Gardner farm.

Ammi tells the surveyor that the gray area spreads about an inch every year. The surveyor quits his job and leaves Arkham, knowing that whatever lived in the well is still there and may now be poisoning the new reservoir that is being built.

Typical motifs for Lovecraft

Non-human influences on humanity

The Gardner family is enslaved by the parasitic color from space. By consuming the altered foods and the poisoned water, they come steadily under the control of the color that feeds on their bodies and mind. Apparently some of the color passes over to them too; Nabby and Thaddeus appear to be communicating in an alien language.

Inability to escape fate

The Gardners are stuck on their farm until their bitter end. While Nabby and Thaddeus Gardner are imprisoned by Nahum, Merwin, Zenas and Nahum become so listless that they too do not flee from the terrible place. Ammi Pierce also does not leave his house, which is so close to the "cursed heath", although he is aware that it is spreading. Only the nameless narrator breaks with the motif and leaves Arkham.

Forbidden knowledge

Both the surveyor and Ammi Pierce know that there is something unearthly lurking in the well, but they could not tell anyone about it, as they would then be thought to be insane. They may actually have lost their minds since the story is a surveyor's tale.

Threat to human civilization

Just as the paint destroyed the Gardners, it could also destroy the city of Arkham, since ultimately no means is known to combat its effects.

Isolation, silence and rejection

The population shuns the Gardners and does not seem willing to help them. Even best friends are unable to get close to the house. Nobody seems to care that the children no longer go to school. Nobody wants to be infected with the situation, even if only remotely.

filming

"The color from space" has already been filmed several times:

literature

  • Sunand T. Joshi, David E. Schultz: Color out of Space, The. In: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Hippocampus Press, Westport 2001, ISBN 0-9748789-1-X , pp. 41-43.

Web links

Wikisource: English-language original text  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ HP Lovecraft's Seed of Evil (2008) - IMDb. Retrieved June 8, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Homepage of the film - "The Color". Retrieved January 17, 2013 .
  3. ↑ Patrick Müller: The Color Out of Space. August 18, 2017. Retrieved October 25, 2017 .