1"Nethescurial" by Thomas Ligotti in The Book of Cthulhu Ross E. Lockhart (ed.)
A
quick
summary; the narrator finds a manuscript in the form of a
letter/confession that reveals the existence of a cult to
Nethascurial. Nefarious activities extending back centuries are
revealed within the manuscript. The narrator ends up penning his own
letter/confession about his experiences as he reads the
manuscript and what happens later as a result.
Upon
initial read, “Nethescurial”
delivered the right amount of creepiness with a satisfactory ending.
I knew that I wanted to write about this story for the RIP VII
challenge, but it took quite a bit of pondering to pin down what
exactly about Ligotti's piece drew me in (and lingered). A few weeks
later as I was reading a different anthology of Lovecraft inspired
stories, I came upon a quote, which coalesced my scattered thoughts.
The introduction to New
Cthulhu: The Recent Weird Paula
Guran (ed.) lays out some themes in Lovecraft's fiction, and quotes
from China Mieville's introduction to At
the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition.
“'Traditionally genre horror is concerned with irruption of dreadful forces into a comforting status quo...By contrast, Lovecraft's horror is not one of intrusion but of realization.”
Keeping
this quote in mind, we can go through Ligotti's story.
“'In the rooms of houses and beyond their walls—beneath dark waters and across moonlit skies—below earth mound and above mountain peak...behind the faces of the living and the dead...'” (2)
The
narrator is quoting from the manuscript. He notes that the ideas
encompassed in this quote are a theme throughout the document. In
Ligotti's story, this quote also functions to tie the entire story
together, occurring at the beginning and at the end albeit in a
slightly different form. It also gives a sense of immensity, of the
cosmos, of the “several worlds” that is a recurring element in
Lovecraft's fiction. As Lovecraft himself stated, his stories
contain “'the fundamental premise that common human laws and
interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the
cosmos-at-large,'” (as quoted in Guran, introduction). Later sections in Ligotti's story support this theme,
“Imagine all of creation as a mere mask for the foulest evil, an
absolute evil whose reality is mitigated only by our blindness to
it.” Not only is the evil unquantifiably vast, permeating
everything in existence, humans are powerless before it, are
insignificant in fact, and can only cope because they do not grasp its
presence.
And
the narrator initially continues to be blind to the truth, he dismisses the
manuscript as a pedestrian fiction, something he has encountered many
times before – until he has a dream. Now if you have read much
(any) Lovecraft you know that dreams are important, and in later
works by other authors imitating the style, dreams-as-gateways
continues to be a significant theme. The dream here that afflicts
our narrator lingers well into waking. “I tried to invoke the gods
of the ordinary world – calling them with the whistle of a coffee
pot and praying before the icon of the electric light.” As maybe we
can guess considering the rules of this universe, the everyday, the
ordinary has no power over the evil that lies beneath. The ordinary cannot drive away something that is a fundamental aspect underlying it. As Mieville
stated above, it is not about intrusion, but about realization.
“It seemed to be in possession of my house, of every common object inside and the whole of the dark world outside. Yes – lurking among the watchful winds of this and the several worlds … I could feel every damn thing squirming, not excluding my own flesh. And I could also see what was squirming beneath every surface … It was that dark color from the dream, I could identify it clearly now. Dark and greenish,”
Ligotti's
use of color throughout the story to convey horror, to convey the
presence of unimaginable evil really impressed me. I could see
exactly what he was describing, the fungal menacing “singular”
green of Nethescurial. And it was unsettling.
At
this point, the narrator is haunted, he can't sleep, he is restless,
the things revealed to him permeate every second of his life, every
object he encounters. In his wanderings, he comes across a puppet
show. Puppets are always
creepy. “Their misshapen heads titled, and their glassy eyes
stared straight into mine.” As he stands there watching and
listening, he realizes that they are chanting the quote from the
beginning, “In the rooms of houses and beyond their walls...”
This encounter provides him with the answer to set everything right again. A moment of illumination. Or so he thinks.
He
has gone from blindness to revelation (realization); he now knows what
lurks within the watchful winds and the several worlds, but he tries
to convince himself that he can go back to a state of unknowing. As he writes while putting his plan into action, he denies what is happening, as a litany across the last few pages. Clearly his
plan isn't working; things get worse. He goes back to the thematic quote, “It is not
in the rooms of houses and beyond their walls” [not] “beneath
dark waters and across moonlit skies,” [not] “below earth mound
and above mountain peak.” As if reversing this incantation will
negate what he is seeing (or not seeing).
I
won't spoil the exact ending for you, but it is safe to assume that events don't really turn out the way that the narrator had hoped they
would.
So
my ultimate assessment is that I really liked this story because it
is spot
on
Lovecraft at his finest, just written by Thomas Ligotti. What
Mieville notes about Lovecraft's fiction, what Lovecraft himself
identifies as themes, are present in full force in this story. If
you like your horror to be blood and guts, then “Nethescurial”
might not be for you. But if you appreciate a subtle sort of terror
and can be disturbed by a description of a menacing shade of green,
then Ligotti delivers.
1. Photo at the top taken by me at a famous cemetery in Ukraine. I have more and they'll accompany all of my RIP posts.
2.
No page numbers because I'm Kindle illiterate and can't figure out
how to find them. When I do figure it out, I'll add them.
