The line from Hawthorne to Lovecraft - and why one of Hawthorne's famous stories is one of his weakest

The Great Carbuncle is one of Nathaniel Hawthorne's better-known stories - also one of his weaker stories - and these two facts may be related. I think it's pretty well known because it's eminently "teachable," an analogy or parable like many "tales," such as Chaucer's, for example, that is seemingly deep and mysterious but actually pretty self-evident and didactic. In this case, a group of 7 men and one woman are in pursuit of the eponymous carbuncle, a rare gem that gives off an tremendous, alluring glow. Camping out during a storm that interrupts their search, each explains why he or she is seeking this gem: one to add to the honors and treasure of his aristocratic family, one to worship it through poetry, another to break it apart and study it scientifically, and so forth. So each is pursuing his or her fortune or fate, each in a different way. They depart the next morning in search of the gem, we go w/ the man and woman, a young and modest married couple. After a climb up the heights of the White Mountains, they come upon the carbuncle - and the dead body of one of the treasure-hunters. The woman says they should return to the valley and pursue their just-beginning married life. They of course are the only ones to truly "find" the gem - all others die in the pursuit. So those who turn away from vanity, self-absorption, narcissism, obsession, and grandiosity are the ones who have truly found the "gem" of life. You can see why English teachers in middle schools and high schools like, or used to like anyway, this story- easy to build discussion, to unravel, to "discover" the gem of the story. But for Hawthorne this is pretty weak brew - he's a much better writer when less schematic and more mysterious. One strength of the story, though, is the climb up the heights to reach the gem - through a storm, then above the clouds on a desolate landscape above the tree line - all White Mountain hikers will recognize this - and then discovery of a lake and a waterfall, and the dead body - this kind of writing clearly inspired another New England writer, Lovecraft, in some of his creepiest scenes - only Lovecraft could make Vermont a creepy state - and again I'm surprised and impressed to see what a strong influence Hawthorne had on horror fiction and the macabre in the 20th and 21st centuries. Easy to underestimate Hawthorne as a quaint New England version of Washington Irving - there's much more to him, though.