TSOU - The Book
vonj...@hotmail.com
The Shadow over Usenet
"The Book"
Sources: _Dagon and other Macabre Tales_, Arkham (under "Fragments");
_The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft_, Ballantine.
Synopsis: The narrator, now only dimly conscious of himself and his
surroundings, relates how he found a mysterious Latin book of spells in
an ancient bookstore. He bore the book home, began reading it, and was
joined by a shadow which signified his beginning on a terrible path.
He obtained more books, and his senses became open to other realities
as his studies continued. He once nearly lost himself at a green-lit
temple near the outer gulfs, but his experiments continued...
Comments: I'm not sure why I like some of HPL's fragments so much -
perhaps because of their vague suggestions which my imagination then
fills in with all manner of wild ideas as to what HPL was thinking when
he wrote them. "The Book" is one of these.
Joshi dates "The Book" to October of 1933, but since the only
grounds he gives in _H. P. Lovecraft: A Life_ is that HPL was
unsuccessfully experimenting with his prose at the time, I'm left baffled
as to why he attributes it to that period. The bulk of this piece is
clearly the same story told in the first three sonnets of _Fungi from
Yuggoth_ in prose. Joshi suggests that the story stops because the
_Fungi_ does not tell a coherent narrative after these sonnets, but
clearly the story goes on after the end of that material. (My own
theory, in fact, is that "The Book" _pre-dates_ _Fungi_, and that HPL
turned this fragment into poetry as an opening to the other poems. I'd
be interested to hear any evidence confirming or disconfirming this
hypothesis.) The piece was published in 1938 in the magazine Leaves,
the title having been provided by Barlow.
There's not much I have to say about this piece, other than to
note that it was completed by Martin Warnes, given the title "The
Black Tome of Alsophocus", and printed in the now-OOP _New Tales of
the Cthulhu Mythos_. As I recall, Warnes gives the book its title,
then provides a narrative of the speaker's return to the fortress
beyond space to confront the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. I first
read the story in my initial halcyon Mythos days, so I'd be interested
to hear other's opinions of it.
It's my belief that no commentary should be longer than the
original piece, so I'll stop here. Steven Kaye will announce the
IRC details later this week. Next week, we'll be looking at "The
Tree on the Hill" with Duane Rimel, which you can find in Arkham's
_The Horror in the Museum_ or Carroll and Graf's _The Loved Dead_.
Until then, I am sincerely
Yrs.,
Daniel Harms
http://members.tripod.com/~danharms/
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D.E. Kesler
Hello Mr. Harms,
I too find "The Book" to be an evocative albeit very short read. I
noted that it features yet another example of the idea that Lovecraft's
fictional world is tainted by a dark and shadowy reality that is
normally not noticed by the bulk of humanity. I touched upon this
briefly in a thread I think was entitled "Cause and Effect."
"Then came the first scratching and fumbling at the dormer window that
looked out high above the other roofs of the city. It came as I droned
aloud the ninth verse of that primal lay, and I knew amidst my shudders
what it meant. For he who passes the gateways always wins a shadow, and
never again can he be alone. I had evoked - and the book was indeed all
I had suspected. That night I passed the gateway to a vortex of twisted
time and vision, and when morning found me in the attic room I saw in
the walls and shelves and fittings that which I had never seen before."
(D, 364-365)
You mentioned the confussed state of the narrator. Although this may
very well be unrelated, I was struck by the similarity to Lovecraft's
comments on Cole.
"One fellow - named Cole - whom I used to correspond with had it [a
cosmic quality] as anybody on the globe, but unfortunately he took to
"hearing voices" & finally "got religion" -being now a preacher of some
"Pentacostal" sect in Colorado. He was such a fantaisiste that he
actually lost his hold on reality." (SL 196-197)
By the by, Lovecraft is not writing about Edward H. Cole or Edward's
son, E. Sherman Cole. This is Ira A. Cole who was involved in The
Kliecomolo and the UAPA. This is made quite clear in a memoir entitled
"The Kliecomolo" which has been tentatively attributed to Rheinhart
Kleiner.
One last niggling detail. As with "The Evil Clergyman", Joshi has once
again opted to use a title chosen by someone else. I know this must
seem silly, but a more accurate title would be "Untitled Fragment."
Joshi is such a stickler for presenting Lovecraft's efforts in the exact
words he chose. Well, a title is part of the story.
Regarding the date for "The Book," Lovecraft wrote the following in a
letter to Clark Ashton Smith on February 2, 1930.
"Oh - here are my Yuggothian Fungi, to be returned at leisure. Nothing
notable about them - but they at least embody certain moods & images.
Some of the themes are really more adapted to fiction - so that I shall
probably make stories of them whenever I get that constantly-deferred
creative opportunity I am always waiting for." (SL III, 116-117)
This pretty much spells it out. Lovecraft was planing on taking a stab
at converting his poetic efforts into fiction at some future date. At
least, that's my impression.
Of course, Joshi himself concedes that the "exact date for this work is
not known" (HPL: AL, 542). But I feel pretty safe in stating that it
was written at some point after February 2, 1930.
Regards and Best Wishes,
Donald Eric Kesler