The Colour Out of Space

The September 1927 edition of Amazing Stories (illustrations by J.M. De Aragon) featured H.P. Lovecraft's short story “The Colour Out of Space”. The author had finished writing his short novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward earlier that year and immediately began this cosmic horror tale which would become one of his most popular works. The story has been adapted to film in 1965's Die, Monster, Die!, 1987's The Curse, and the 2019 film Color Out of Space.  

Like many stories of this era, particularly Lovecraft, the narrator is unnamed. He's a curious surveyor from Boston assigned to the frightful area of Arkham, the fictional Massachusetts city that appears in numerous Lovecraft works. It is in this rural stretch of American countryside that the narrator becomes obsessed with bizarre events that plagued the region over 50 years ago. 

According to a local named Ammi Pierce, a shunned resident deemed crazy by the townspeople, a meteorite crashed onto a farming tract owned by Nahum Gardner. This meteorite possessed strange property values – weird color (or colorless), substance, texture, and the perplexing ability to simply vanish into nothingness. Awestruck scientists can't derive any type of theory on the structural makeup 

Over the following months the Gardners themselves experience a dark metamorphosis. Ammi describes these events in horrifying detail. Beginning with the crops themselves, this isolated farming family experiences a type of blight that affects their supply and animals. The well water becomes contaminated, which seems to affect Nahum's son Zenas, a youngster that seemingly disappears into the well. Nahum's wife transforms into a monstrosity and is kept locked in the family attic. The same thing happens with Nahum's son Thaddeus. After Ammi meets with the family (and presumably mercy-kills Nahum's wife) he is met with a stark warning from Nahum describing the affects of the meteorite and the color being responsible for draining the life of the farm and surrounding community. The story concludes with Ammi and other men returning to the farm to learn of the Gardners' fate.  

No one can tell a more vividly haunting story than Lovecraft. His ability to inject so much sorrow and dismal illustration into his prose is simply remarkable. The attic scenes in particular, culminating in Nahum's broken and fragmented cadence, are permeated with a unique atmosphere that's equally chilling and delightful. It is this final evidence that showcases the ultimate fate for this unfortunate farming family. Without warning, unfairly, their little rural retreat is shattered by an alien invasion that defies explanation or description. It is the lack of color, the colorless attribute, that I feel is the most chilling element to the story. 

The concept of innocence corrupted by an unknown invasion is elementary, yet speaks volumes on the American spirit. Whether it is rain, fire, tornado, hurricane, economic weakness, or in this case a space invader, the vulnerability of the working class farmer is clearly evident. I think Lovecraft, in his own way, speaks to the heart and soul of the farmer and how the balance beam between profit and utter failure is a difficult act. 

The critical praise of this story, “The Colour Out of Space”, isn't just simple hyperbole - Lovecraft was on top of his game and this darkly delicious tale is a testament to his writing prowess. Highly recommended reading.