The Fog Horn by Ray Bradbury

Pattinson and Dafoe in Roger Eggers' The Lighthouse.

Continuing with our Ray Bradbury short-stories for the week, next up is The Fog Horn. I seem to recall not enjoying this one as much when I first read it and revisiting it again after so many years has certainly changed my opinion. This is an excellent story just dripping in atmosphere, evoked by such enchanting poetic prose. 

I couldn’t help wondering if Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse was influenced by this Ray Bradbury short story. Not so much in terms of plot, but in the way it conjures a haunting, claustrophobic atmosphere that feels steeped in eeriness and mystery, like something unfolding inside a fever dream. There are a few surface similarities, too: two men stationed at an isolated lighthouse, one a younger, newly appointed apprentice taken under the wing of an older lighthouse keeper with a distinctly eccentric personality.

In Bradbury’s story, McDunn has a flair for dramatic monologues and spinning tall tales about the sleeping gods of the deep. He has a secret he’s been guarding for years, something that feels ripped straight from a Jules Verne novel. The narrator is both bewildered and entranced by him, never quite sure if McDunn is a harmless old man slipping into madness or the sole witness to an ancient sea monster that rises from its slumber once a year to commune with the lighthouse’s foghorn.

Their intense encounter with the creature is pretty good stuff although what is most memorable here is the suffocating mood Bradbury creates around it all. His poetic prose drips with unease, delirium, and a creeping sense of cosmic dread, until the men’s encounter with the beast almost feels secondary to the oppressive atmosphere pressing in from all sides. The story leaves you suspended in that uneasy space between wonder and terror, where the sea feels alive, watchful, and profoundly indifferent.

You can read this story HERE.