Math the Evil from Beyond
Why is it that science and math are so feared in the Lovecraftian universe? Dreams in the Witch House seem to take these fears to the ultimate conclusion. Math will first drive you mad then kill you by a witch and little rat man.
It is strange that this short story should speak so much to me, but as anyone who knows me will tell you, I hate and fear math. Gilman, the main character, was not afraid of math. He was very fascinated with it. The problem was he lived in the room where an ancient witch did some wonders with math. This made him a prime candidate to be haunted by her and the devils of calculus.
This story varies from other Lovecraft tales in that it is written in the third person. It also seems more contemporary than other tales. It still uses his tropes of the horrible unknown and the pull of the stars, but the “I am being driven mad by the unseen evils” is gone. That makes the story more pleasurable to read. The problem with the story is that it was too long for the payoff. The story seemed to meander around and not really do anything except to describe how “creepy” things are. The story could have just as effectively been told in a few pages.
The story overall is a scary tale about how evil mathematics are. Stay away from the math it will kill you. So my advice is, stay away from math. I tried to tell my mother that many years ago.
