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Standard Introduction
I am a fan
HP Lovecraft. Not his god-awful racism
of course, but the fact that he wrote in such a stilted un marketable way. I think it was Neil Gaiman (Though I can’t
find the interview) that described HP’s work as "a churning morass of
adjectives". But the ideas in the
stories, the mysterious and weird parts that lend themselves so well too modern
horror are often great.
The idea
of humanity not being important at all, that the universe is chaotic and
hostile, and that even knowing about these things leave the protagonists of the
stories insane from the knowledge, those are all cool.
What is
also cool is that all of HP Lovecraft’s writings are public domain. They can be re-printed, referenced, and even
re-written by those (like me) who are fans of the ideas but want to make the
writing cleaner, or tighter, or just less racist. (Seriously, why did you name the cat that
Howie? Did you think it was funny?)
Today’s Entry
I figured
I would take one of his more accessible stories and rewrite it a bit as an
experiment. “Azathoth” is a fragment
published after Lovecraft’s death. It
was the opening to what was supposed to be (I think) a “John Carter of Mars”
type space travel story about a man who gains the ability to astral project
himself to other worlds after years of stargazing to escape the drudgery of
his day to day life.
As this
reads like a semi-poetic epilogue I didn’t have to change or add much, just a
lot of restructuring, as the original text was 3 massive paragraphs that were
physically hard for me to read. For more
info, here is a link to the story, and here is a link to the Wikipedia entry.
If you want to do this yourself, here is a link to HP Lovecraft’s complete works, or at least the horror ones. I believe he
wrote some romance stories too and I have no idea where to find those.
Anyway, here
is the story. I hope you enjoy it.
Azathoth
When age
fell upon the world and wonder went out of the minds of men. When grey cities reared to smoky skies, tall
towers grim and ugly in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of spring's
flowering. When learning stripped the
Earth of her mantle of beauty and poets sang no more of twisted phantoms seen
with bleared and inward looking eyes. When
these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone forever, there was a
man who set upon a quest to the spaces whither the world's dreams had fled.
This man’s
name and abode remain cloaked in mystery, for they were of the waking world. It is enough to say that he dwelt in a city of
high walls where sterile twilight reigned, that his days were filled with toil
and drudgery among shadow and turmoil. Returning in the evening to a home whose one
window opened not to green fields or vibrant groves, but on a dim courtyard
where other windows stared back in dull despair.
From that
casement one might see only walls and windows, except when given to lean far
out to gaze up at the small stars that turned past the open top of the yard. For those who dream and read much, mere walls
and windows must soon drive a man to madness, and that dweller in that room lean
out night after night to peer aloft glimpsing some fragment of things beyond. Beyond the waking world. Beyond the tall cities. Beyond the dull despair.
Over the years,
he found names for the slow sailing stars, and to follow them in fancy when
they glided regretfully out of sight.
Hypnotized by their splendor he gazed on them and thru them. At length, his vision opened to many secret
vistas whose existence no common eye suspected.
One
leaning, stargazing night a mighty gulf was bridged in the eye of his mind. The dream haunted skies swelled down to the
lonely watcher's window to merge with the close air of his room and to make him
a part of their fabulous wonder. He
could see his stars about his as he gazed in his room. Surrounded by the many points of light he had
learned the names of over so many evenings of longing.
There came
to that room wild streams of violet midnight glittering with dust of gold. Vortices of dust and fire swirling out of the
ultimate spaces and heavy perfumes from beyond the worlds. Opiate oceans poured there, lit by suns that eyes
of men would never behold and having in their whirlpools strange dolphins and
sea-nymphs of depths beyond.
Noiseless
infinity eddied around the dreamer and wafted him away without touching the
body that leaned stiffly from the lonely window; and for days not counted in
men's calendars the tides of far spheres that bore him gently to join the
course of other cycles that tenderly left him sleeping on a green sunrise
shore. A shore fragrant with lotus blossoms
and starred by red camalotes. He
breathed deeply the scents and listened to the distant thrum of that green star
telling him of vast infinities now open.
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