R.I.P. VIII

It is slowly getting to be fall weather here where I am.  The Halloween decorations are out, aisles in my local stores have been taken over with Halloween candy. Must be that time of the year again. The R.I.P. challenge.

I almost forgot about it this year. But it isn't my fault. I fairly recently moved back from Ukraine, got a new apt, a new job, a new roommate. And I'm supposed to be writing my dissertation. Because of all that I'm keeping it super simple this year.

Before I tell you what I'm going to do, here is a brief description of what the RIP reading challenge is.
1. Have fun reading (and watching).
2. Share that fun with others.

Oh and read something (or watch something)  in any of these categories:
Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

There are different levels of participation. For more information see here.

This year I'm going with Peril the Third in which I read only one book.  I have decided to read NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. I kind of enjoyed Horns when I read it (probably for a RIP challenge one year), but I remember not liking the ending much. Time to give Hill another chance I think.

I'm also going to complete Peril on the Screen. My friend made a Lovecraftian movie called Long on the Island.  I'm pretty darn thrilled about it.

Finally, I will do Peril of the Short Story. I haven't decided on anything for that, so suggestions are welcome!

RIP VII: Peril of the Short Story

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.

Random Fact of the Day

Did you know that HP Lovecraft was neither claustrophobic nor agoraphobic but rather some strange mixture of the two?  He was terrified of large enclosed spaces*. This makes so much sense if you've read enough Lovecraft. Seriously horrible things happen to people all the time as soon as they find a yawning dark cavern that is seemingly infinitely vast. 

I learned this from reading The Roots of Horror in the Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft by Barton Levi St. Armand.  

*And not just caves because that's only ordinary speluncaphobia.