By COLIN WILSON (Panther; 1967/68)
A bizarre book with an even more bizarre history. According to the late British novelist-philosopher Colin Wilson (1931-2013) he was contacted by August Derleth, H.P. Lovecraft’s literary executor, in response to Wilson’s 1961 book STRENGTH TO DREAM, in which he took Lovecraft (a “horrifying figure” who “carried on a lifelong guerilla warfare against civilization and materialism, albeit he was a somewhat hysterical and neurotic combatant”) to task. Derleth challenged Wilson to write a Lovecraftian novel, which he, unlikely enough, did in the form of THE MIND PARASITES (and, later, THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE and THE SPACE VAMPIRES). Wilson by that point had evidently changed his views on Lovecraft, claiming in the present novel that “The study of Lovecraft was, in itself, an interesting and pleasant occupation. He was a man of remarkable imagination.”
Wilson’s interest in Lovecraft isn’t hard to fathom, as Lovecraft would appear to embody the characteristics of the outsider, as detailed by Wilson in his iconic 1956 text of that name. This is to say that Lovecraft was a reclusive and solitary individual at odds with society who nonetheless exerted a considerable influence on his fellow humans. Wilson’s philosophical concerns are elucidated at some length in THE MIND PARASITES, which like most of his fiction is quite frank and rather pedantic in its approach. Wilson admittedly had little interest in things like emotion and empathy, although he did have a unique imagination.
The opening pages are magnificently unnerving. They describe the first person protagonist, an archeologist named Gilbert Austin, coming to the realization that his mind has been infected by parasites that are causing him to act against his own interests. This has come about through the excavation of an ancient Turkish city that Lovecraft dubbed Kadath. Lovecraft and Derleth are both incorporated into the narrative, whose central concerns are Wilson’s philosophical ideals, which the mind parasites’ dastardly aims neatly encapsulate.
These parasites, we learn, have been with us for centuries, but didn’t make their mark until the end of the eighteenth century. It was then, Wilson claims, that morbidity took hold of humanity, spearheaded by the Marquis De Sade (whose “sole purpose” was “to add to the mental confusion of the human race, deliberately to distort and pervert the truth about sex”) and furthered by figures like the “life-slanderer” Schopenhauer and Adolph Hitler, and has resulted in a plague of suicides. How are we to combat all this negativity? Through the development of psychic powers in mankind, which is accomplished here by simply thinking really hard. Austin himself becomes a telekinetic adherent very quickly, and gathers together a group of similarly talented individuals to fight the mind parasites on their own turf.
It’s all just as silly as it sounds, ricocheting haphazardly between hectoring philosophizing and a narrative that grows increasingly implausible and outright ridiculous. The novel is not uninteresting, however; as Joanna Russ stated in a Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction review, “It is one of the worst books I have ever read and very enjoyable.” I’d add that it’s also very unique; there’s really nothing else quite like the mixture of philosophical speculation and pulp silliness found in THE MIND PARASITES—outside Wilson’s other Lovecraft-influenced novels, that is.