Welcome back to the Lovecraft reread, in which two modern Mythos writers get girl cooties all over old Howard’s original stories.
Today we’re looking at “The Quest of Iranon,” written in February 1921 and first published in the July/August 1935 issue of Galleon.
Spoilers ahead.
“I remember the twilight, the moon, and soft songs, and the window where I was rocked to sleep. And through the window was the street where the golden lights came, and where the shadows danced on houses of marble. I remember the square of moonlight on the floor, that was not like any other light, and the visions that danced in the moonbeams when my mother sang to me.”
Summary
Iranon is a golden-haired youth, vine-crowned and purple-robed, who wanders in search of his birth city Aira, where his father was king. Long have been his years of exile, but he walks unaging and sings of the marble and beryl city with its fragrant groves, its verdant valley, its many-colored hills and the river Nithra that flows at night like a ribbon of stars.
He comes to the granite city of Teloth, where grim-faced men yawn or laugh or doze through his songs of memories, dreams and hope. The gods of Teloth demand that all men toil ceaselessly, and so an archon of the city tells Iranon he must apprentice to a cobbler or leave. To all hells with that, Iranon is on the road again, taking with him the small boy Romnod, who seems sympathetic to all the song-and-dream stuff and who suggests that they head for Oonai, a city of lutes and dancing. Maybe it’s the Aira Iranon seeks, or if not, at least the people there will appreciate his talents.
Iranon has been around the Dreamlands block a few times, and so he doubts that Oonai can be Aira, or that the music lovers there will be refined enough to really understand his oeuvre. Nevertheless, he takes Romnod with him and goes looking for Oonai.
After years of wandering, Romnod has grown but Iranon has not aged a day. At last they reach the party town of Oonai, where people wear rose wreaths and drink a lot of wine. The revelers applaud Iranon, and the King of Oonai makes him a court fixture, bestowing on him all the luxuries of a luxurious land. Poor Romnod succumbs to the lure of revelry, becomes a fat drunk, and eventually dies of sleep apnea. And now wild whirling dancers and dusky flute players are the new rage, so Iranon has no reason to stay in Oonai and recommences his wandering.
His last stop is a squalid cot wherein dwells an ancient shepherd, keeper of skinny sheep—skinny, no doubt, because they graze a stony slope over a quicksand marsh. The shepherd seems to recognize him. At least Iranon greatly resembles this beggar’s boy who used to sing of strange dreams and moons and flowers and all that. This kid thought he was the son of a king of Aira, but everyone knew him from birth as a beggar’s boy, albeit weird, so they weren’t buying that. And one day the shepherd’s childhood playmate Iranon just up and run off in search of auditors who’d appreciate his art.
That night, a very old man dressed in tattered purple and crowned with withered vines walks off into the quicksand. And so. something of youth and beauty dies in the elder world.
What’s Cyclopean: Everything.
The Degenerate Dutch: Real cities can never live up to the fair visions in your mind—being full of real people either working hard, or not working hard and getting hangovers for it. These real people cannot possibly be worth your time.
Mythos Making: Aira may be imaginary, but all these other places can be found on any map of the Dreamlands. Sarnath gets a shout-out, as does Lomar.
Libronomicon: Iranon doesn’t so much as consult an atlas.
Madness Takes Its Toll: Delusion’s a fine thing, as long as you never notice. Iranon has a lot in common with Wile E. Coyote.
Anne’s Commentary
It’s the old sad story. Most people just don’t have the capacity to understand and enjoy TRUE ART. They may run the gamut from Puritanical workaholics to drunken libertines, but the end result is always the same: TRUE ART goes unappreciated.
It’s also the old sad story about people of stunted imagination or faux-elite tastes who eschew as beneath them such genres as fantasy and science fiction. Or who, accepting them as a fad, don’t have a gut-deep geek’s comprehension and appreciation for SFF. When something’s big-big-big, like Harry Potter, they’ll applaud with the rest, oooh, look, wizards. But then something with fifty shades will come along, or with devious psycho disappeared wives who may have been killed by their husbands, and off the herd goes to applaud the new “it” author.
God, it sucks to be Iranon. He’s got all the makings of a superstar: real talent, good looks, eternal youth, writes his own material, has great taste in clothes. Oh, and he also has great backstory, either way you go with it. Exiled prince or beggar’s boy who makes it out of the hood. You know what Iranon needed? Not some brown-noser of a groupie like Romnod but a really sharp manager. A really, REALLY sharp manager could even have cashed in on Iranon’s delusions by turning them into the basis for a cult, or when it got big and mainstream enough, a legit religion.
But Iranon is an independent kind of artist. He thinks all he has to do is show up and gigs will be arranged, critics will be wowed, record deals will be signed and documentaries about his hard-knock struggle and triumph will be produced. Or rather, he might have thought this once upon a time, but experience has kicked the naivete right of him by the time he cruises into Teloth. Another set of dead-souled Philistines unable to chill out.
Iranon’s pretty brave, though. He may no longer be innocent but he’s not disillusioned, he’s not hopeless or bitter. He can continue his quest essentially untouched while others (Romnod) fall to drug and rose wreath addiction. Oh, and did I mention he’s a natural blond? Because he is. Alas, even blondness isn’t a guarantee, not when these “dusky” people start getting all the gold and platinum and rose-peltings. Iranon gets stuck playing for tips in third-rate dives where the kids jeer at him.
It’s not right. It’s just not right.
Inevitable, I guess, that when Iranon loses his core delusion of being Prince of Aira, he should walk off into the quicksand like James Mason in A Star is Born. Except James Mason actually walked off into the Pacific Ocean, leaving his bathrobe to wash up on shore so Judy Garland could feel all guilty about driving him to suicide with her sheer superior shininess. Quicksand is worse. Also Judy Garland really was shiny, whereas I think Lovecraft means us to have doubts about the “dusky” flute players.
There’s some nice imagery in this story, and it abounds in fine Dunsanian cadences. My very favorite bit is such fine and evocative observation: Iranon remembers how his mother used to rock him to sleep before a window through which he could see the lights and shadows of Aira, but most important, most poignant, is the square of moonlight that rests on the marble floor, unlike any other light. This killer image is reprised in the last paragraph: moonlight on the quicksand marsh is like that which a child sees “quivering” on the floor while he’s rocked to sleep. Prose like music, complete with leitmotifs.
Finally, “Iranon” confirms what we’ve already suspected about the significance of architectural choices in the Dreamlands. Granite cities are likely to house unpleasant people. Marble and any sort of semi-precious mineral (like beryl) equals people of true refinement. Golden domes are great, as long as they’re really golden, not just sordid gray painted gold by the sunset. Gaudiness isn’t a good sign either, as in Sarnath and here in Oonai with its frescoed walls and tapestried chambers and roses constantly being chucked. Then there’s the King’s mirrored floor. How tacky is that? Worse than a mirrored ceiling, because with the floor you can always be looking up ladies’ gowns and gentlemen’s kilts. Dirty old king. You need a spanking with some very thorny roses, although, on second thought, you’d probably like that.
Do pass me that good Oonaian wine, though.
Ruthanna’s Commentary
In my favorite scene from C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair, our noble adventurers have traveled deep underground and been captured by the Lady in the Green Kirtle. Seeking to suborn them, she demands to know why they follow the laws and morals of Narnia—a distant land that here, far from the sun and the wild forests, they cannot even prove exists. She builds doubt in their minds: What evidence do they have for this supposedly beautiful land with its unrealistically wondrous people? This glorious place is merely the product of their imaginations, a shallow dream that can never sustain them once the illusion is revealed.
Only Puddleglum, up to this point the Eeyore of the party and kind of annoying, has an answer. It doesn’t matter, he says, if Narnia is real. Even if they’re delusional, the place they’ve imagined is wonderful enough, inspiring enough, that it’s best to act like a Narnian even if there is no Narnia.
Aira is no Narnia, and Iranon, sir, is no Puddleglum.
I actually like “The Quest of Iranon” better than I like a lot of the other Dreamlands stories about pining poetically for a lost childhood. The wandering, ageless singer is a good trope, even if this isn’t the best instantiation ever; the sub-par Dunsanian dialogue isn’t quite as exasperating as in Sarnath. On the other hand, there’s no porphyry. And I’m still trying to figure out whether it’s a clever indication of Iranon’s power, or just lazy writing, when the toiling Telothians laugh at our bard only two paragraphs after we learn that there’s no joy in Mudville laughter in Teloth.
But yeah, as Aesops go, “Delusion is endlessly powerful until confronted with reality” seems pretty weak. On the flip side of the Mythos, “Delusion is all that stands between us and being devoured by dark uncaring gods” carries a lot more of a punch. The suspicion that the world, as we thought we understood it, never really existed, is pretty scary stuff—done right. Here, it comes across more as childish distress over everything being imperfect. There’s not actually any place that will perfectly cater to your needs and desires. Gasp.
That’s fine for my 11-month-old, who wails desperately when the universe doesn’t produce food, physical comfort, and adult attention immediately on demand. It looks less good on immortal bards.
Color this Narnian unimpressed. Perhaps Y’ha-nthlei and R’lyeh can better inspire real-world action—of some sort—even in the face of doubt.
Next week, a couple of sweet holiday poems: “Festival” and “Christmas.” Plus bonus holiday greetings to Frank Belknap Long’s cat. (Spoiler: Some of these are sweeter than others. Be warned.)
Ruthanna Emrys’s neo-Lovecraftian novelette “The Litany of Earth” is available on Tor.com, along with the more recent but distinctly non-Lovecraftian “Seven Commentaries on an Imperfect Land” and “The Deepest Rift.” Winter Tide, a novel continuing Aphra Marsh’s story from “Litany,” will be available from the Tor.com imprint in Spring 2017. Ruthanna can frequently be found online on Twitter and LiveJournal, and offline in a mysterious manor house with her large, chaotic household—mostly mammalian—outside Washington DC.
Anne M. Pillsworth’s short story. “The Madonna of the Abattoir” appears on Tor.com. Her first novel, Summoned, is available from Tor Teen along with the recently released sequel Fathomless. She lives in Edgewood, a Victorian trolley car suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, uncomfortably near Joseph Curwen’s underground laboratory.
Another Dream Cycle story which doesn’t stay in my mind.
Weird Tales: March 1939, along with Duane W. Rimel’s “The Metal Chamber”, August Derleth’s “The Return of Hastur”, the second part of Manly Wade Wellman’s “Fearful Rock” and Robert E. Howard’s “Desert Dawn”.
Lin Carter’s The Young Magicians: includes “The Quest of Iranon” and “The Cats of Ulthar”:
This story may be a bundle of self-pity over the lost privileges, but it still gets me every time I read it.
Like Schuyler, I’d read this before, but had no memory of it. I actually expected Iranon to find Aira in ruins at the end, unaware of the centuries that had passed in his wanderings.
It’s clear to me that Lovecraft had a rather (R|r)omantic view of Art at this point in his life. Anne dealt with that pretty thoroughly in her commentary. I wonder if Iranon is something of a stand-in for HPL, who may have seen himself as the unappreciated great artist, but to what extent was he aware/afraid of his own rude origins? It would be all too easy to go all pop psychology on this one.
Oh, I don’t know — it’s always stayed in my mind. Which may indicate that I’m a deeply flawed individual.
And I do love that BAF cover for The Young Magicians.
A decent enough Dreamlands/Dunsanean tale.What most interested me was how it conveys HPL’s attempt to cultivate an “art for art’s sake” philosophy while eschewing the temptations of “decadence.” Lovecraft, however, didn’t think much of it.In a 1936 letter to Wilfred Talman, he includes it in a list of his worst stories:
“Know, then, that THE HOUND, THE HORROR AT RED HOOK, HE, THE MOON-BOG, THE WHITE SHIP, FROM BEYOND, THE TREE, and THE QUEST OF IRANON might-if typed on good stock-make excellent shelf-paper, but little else.The CTHULHU thing is rather middling-not as bad as the worst, but full of cheap and cumbrous touches. Indeed, nothing but the COLOUR OUT OF SPACE really satisfies me as a whole.My regard for ERICH ZANN is negative rather than positive…I place it second merely because it isn’t as bad as the rest.”
(Selected Letters V, 348)
Oh, I’m pining for the glories of never-seen Y’ha-nthlei over here. When it’s put that way, I start to sympathize with Iranon.
Good post title.
Incidentally, has anyone else been reading Alan Moore’s PROVIDENCE? I just started it, and I’m quite enjoying it. For those who haven’t looked at it, it treats HPL’s fiction as a quasi-roman a clef. For a taste, here’s a PROVIDENCE timeline:
703
Khalid ibn Yazid writes the Kitab al-Hikmah al-Najima. (Providence #1 & 2)
704
Khalid ibn Yazid dies, supposedly torn apart by invisible djinns. (Providence #2)
1203
The alchemist Ahmad ibn ‘Ali ibn Yusuf Al-Buni revises the Kitab. (Providence #2)
1225
Al-Buni dies. (Providence #2)
1250
The Kitab is translated from Arabic to Latin in Toledo in Moorish Spain. (Providence #2)
1498
The Latin translation of the Kitab is first published in Venice by Aldus Manutius, as Liber Stella Sapiente. (Providence #2)
1589
Guillaume Roulet is born, the only son of Jacques Roulet of Caude. (Providence #2)
1598
Jacques Roulet is charged with lycanthropy. (Providence #2)
1613
August – Hekeziah Williams is born in Knaresborough in Yorkshire, England. (Providence #2)
1616
Marie Delaroche is born at Pithiviers near Orleans, in France. (Providence #2)
1620
A passenger named “Colwyn” is listed on The Mayflower. (Providence #2)
1629
Hekeziah Williams marries Aloysius Massey. (Providence #2)
1630
Marie Delaroche is placed in a convent at the age of 14 due to promiscuity. (Providence #2)
1634
Marie Delaroche is a novitiate nun at Loudun at the time of the famous witch-hysteria there. (Providence #2)
1640
October – Aloysius Massey is hanged for murder. (Providence #2)
1649
Marie Delaroche, at the age of 33, marries Guillaume Roulet of Caude.
1650
Etienne Roulet is born in St. Denis. (Providence #2)
1651
An English translation of the Kitab by Robert Turner is published, titled Hali’s Booke of the Wisdom of the Stars. (Providence #2)
1652
Hekeziah Massey flees the witch-trials of England, settling in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Providence #2)
1685
King Louis XIV of France revokes the Edict of Nantes, spurring the prosecution of Protestants in France and leading the emigration of many Hugenots, including Etienne Roulet.
1685
Etienne Roulet and Hekeziah Massey begin corresponding, mainly about the Kitab. (Providence #2)
1686
February – Etienne Roulet and his wife Mathilde arrives in Greenwich, Rhode Island, with a copy of Hali’s Booke. The captain of their ship was Shadrach Annesley, in the employ of Japheth Colwen. (Providence #2)
20 August – The Roulets met Japheth Colwen from Salem, who together with Hekeziah Massey formed the Worshipful Order of the Stella Sapiente. (Providence #2)
1686-1691
The Worshipful Order of the Stella Sapiente explores the occult mysteries of Hali’s Booke and expands its membership, including Shadrach Annesley. (Providence #2)
One of the new members was the great-grandfather of Garland Wheatley. (Providence #4)
1692
January – Hekeziah Massey is accused of witchcraft, and disappears from a locked cell. Roulet and Colwen relocate to somewhere else in Rhode Island. (Providence #2)
February – The Salem Witch Trials begin.
1693
May – The Salem Witch Trials end.
1754
The Boggs Gold Refinery is established in Salem, Massachusetts. (Providence #3)
1781
Captain Jack Boggs creates the rum-run tunnels beneath the Salem waterfront, for smuggling immigrants, and includes a door built according to the instructions of Hali’s Booke. (Providence #3, Neonomicon #2 & 3)
1842
Captain Jack Boggs brings back his wife Pathithia-Lee. (Providence #3)
1846
A “plague” hits Salem (actually an invasion of Deep Ones to free the imprisoned Jack Boggs); this event leads to the split between Boggs and his Friends of Oannes and the Worshipful Order of the Stella Sapiente. (Providence #3)
1865
Sabine Baring-Gould’s Book of Were-wolves is published, containing the account of Jacques Roulet.
1880s
Dr. Alvarez writes an essay on Sous le Monde in a Spanish literary magazine. (Providence #1)
Individuals from the Boggs Gold Refinery in Salem begin selling “folk artifacts” to Robert Suydam. Their representative is “a funny little Englishman” (almost certainly Winfield Scott Lovecraft). (Providence #2)
1882
11 June – The Worshipful Order of the Stella Sapiente “brings down the stone” on the farm of Noah Forrester outside of Manchester. The Forresters call on the Catholic Church, who in turn call on the Stella Sapiente; members of the college (Father Dennis Mary Bradley, who later founded St. Anselm’s College) and the order (Mr. Wade and Winfield Scott Lovecraft) arrive. They later claim the stone “evaporated.” (Providence #3, 4, & 5)
The Forresters all sicken and died; the federal government moves in and secures the farm. (Providence #5)
1887
Claude Guillot’s Sous le Monde is published, inspired by the Kitab. (Providence #1 & 2)
1889
Members of the Stella Sapiente work to fulfill the Redeemer prophecy; without consulting the Wheatleys. (Providence #4)
St. Anselm’s College is founded.
1890
Garland Wheatley voices his objections to the Stella Sapiente’s plan to create a Redeemer; his wife’s body is found as if picked up and dropped. (Providence #4)
The Worshipful Order of the Stella Sapiente gives Hali’s Booke to Saint Anselm College. (Providence #4)
The Stella Sapiente have their picture taken by Ronald Underwood Pitman. (Providence #6)
20 August – Howard Phillips Lovecraft is born.
1892
A fire at St. Anselm’s College burned several books, but not Hali’s Booke. (Providence #4)
1895
Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow is published, inspired by Sous le Monde. (Providence #1)
1890s-1910s
Robert Black grows up in Milwaukee, then leaves to be a journalist in New York City. There, he interacts with the homosexual scene and becomes lovers with Johnathan/Lillian Russell. (Providence #1)
1896
Shadrach Annesley’s house in the Naumkeg Valley is hit by lightning. (Providence #3)
1903
23 February – The Ariston Hotel Baths are raid in New York City; Lillian Russell was living above the baths at the time of the raid. (Providence #1)
1904
Tobit Boggs has Garland Wheatley copy out a transcript of Hali’s Booke, which is sold to Robert Suydam. (Providence #3)
Hector North, a medical student at St. Anselm’s College, consults Hali’s Booke. (Providence #5)
1905
Dr. Alvarez and Dr. Estes secure a transcript of the Hali’s Booke from Robert Suydam; Alvarez uses one of the methods therein to preserve himself, but Estes does not survive. (Providence #1)
1912
Garland Wheatley puts forward his own proposal to fulfill the Redeemer prophecy; he and his daughter Leticia are expelled from the Worshipful Order of the Stella Sapiente. (Providence #3 & 4)
1906
Elspeth Wade is born. (Providence #6)
1908-1913
Nat Paisley suffers a breakdown, and for five years acts like another person, causing his wife and children to leave him. He recovers in 1913, with no memory of the preceding five years. (Providence #6)
1913
Willard and John-Divine Wheatley are conceived at Sentinel Elm, and born by Leticia Wheatley. (Providence #4)
Edgar Wade of the Stella Sapiente insists that the Wheatleys should be banned from the St. Anselm library. (Providence #6)
1914
Edgar Wade dies, leaving Elspeth Wade in the guardianship of Mr. Finney. (Providence #6)
1914-1918
World War I, known to the Parish of Saint Jude in Salem, Massachusetts as “The Great Dry Cull.” (Providence #3)
Hector North and his companion James Montague were in Flanders during the war. (Providence #5)
Elspeth Wade matriculates and enters St. Anselm’s College at a precocious age. (Providence #6)
For those who might want more, here’s the link:
https://factsprovidence.wordpress.com/moore-lovecraft-comics-annotation-index/moorecraftian-timeline/
I was laughing out loud at this write-up; nice job, Anne and Ruthanna! :D
I first read this story when I was an angst-ridden teenager with delusions of beng an artist (and who nobody understood, of course!) :P so I immediately identified with Iranon’s quest.
Now that I’m older, it seems pretty artificial and over-preachy/obvious, but I won’t deny that it still strikes a chord. However, I suspect that is more from a sense of my current disillusionment with contemporary U.S. society rather than a teenage grandiose ego (I HOPE!). It’s also interesting to see the aesthetic/decadent’s (as in Walter Pater’s) influence on Lovecraft here, as I tend to tie him primarily to the modernists.
Incidentally, I think that Oonai would be a *much* more interesting place to hang out than Aira and I’d like some of that wine as well!
The Moore sounds interesting, but what I want to know is: how much of it is Yet Another Lecture on Moore’s Principles of Ceremonial Magic? I was bitterly disappointed by Promethea, and am side-eyeing hard the idea of someone non-Jewish trying to integrate Kaballah and cosmic horror in the same universe.
No, you know what, I am side-eyeing the idea of anyone doing that. *looks at muse, daring her to make me regret that statement*
@8 JaimeW:” It’s also interesting to see the aesthetic/decadent’s (as in Walter Pater’s) influence on Lovecraft here, as I tend to tie him primarily to the modernists.”
The Decadent/Symbolist/Aesthete milieu of the late 19th century (Huysmans, Wilde, Pater, etc) played a major role in shaping HPL’s fiction. Note how the Necronomicon is introduced in the context of “The Hound,” whose protagonists could have been lifted straight out of Huysman’s A REBOURS. For that matter, note how the idea of the “forbidden book” itself acquires new resonance in the wake of A REBOURS, with both the “poisonous French novel” that corrupts Dorian Grey in THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GREY and madness inducing play KING IN YELLOW clearly deriving from Huysman’s original.
For that matter, look at how Oscar Wilde seems to haunt Lovecraft. In his letters, HPL frequently refers to the shadow that fell over Wilde’s name in his youth, how even amateur productions of things like THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST would be staged without reference to the playwright’s name. And Wilde even figures as a point of comparison for Joseph Curwen in THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD:
“From that time on the obliteration of Curwen’s memory became increasingly rigid, extending at last by common consent even to the town records and files of the Gazette. It can be compared in spirit only to the hush that lay on Oscar Wilde’s name for a decade after his disgrace”
@8 JaimeW:” It’s also interesting to see the aesthetic/decadent’s (as in Walter Pater’s) influence on Lovecraft here, as I tend to tie him primarily to the modernists.”
The Decadent/Symbolist/Aesthete milieu of the late 19th century (Huysmans, Wilde, Pater, etc) played a major role in shaping HPL’s fiction. Note how the Necronomicon is introduced in the context of “The Hound,” whose protagonists could have been lifted straight out of Huysman’s A REBOURS. For that matter, note how the idea of the “forbidden book” itself acquires new resonance in the wake of A REBOURS, with both the “poisonous French novel” that corrupts Dorian Grey in THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GREY and Chambers’ madness inducing play THE KING IN YELLOW clearly deriving from Huysman’s original.
For that matter, look at how Oscar Wilde seems to haunt Lovecraft. In his letters, HPL frequently refers to the shadow that fell over Wilde’s name in Lovecraft’s youth, how even amateur productions of things like THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST would be staged without reference to the playwright’s name. And Wilde even figures as a point of comparison for Joseph Curwen in THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD:
From that time on the obliteration of Curwen’s memory became increasingly rigid, extending at last by common consent even to the town records and files of the Gazette. It can be compared in spirit only to the hush that lay on Oscar Wilde’s name for a decade after his disgrace
@9 R.Emrys,
Mercifully, lectures on ceremonial magic have been pretty much absent.So far. Maybe Moore learned a lesson from PROMETHEA?
RE: Lovecraft’s mythos and Kabbalah,
I tend to think that the two could be brought together fairly easily in a story.There are Gnostic and Neo-Platonic elements in both, after all. Maybe Azathoth (the primal, nuclear chaos) as the Ein Sof?
@trajan23 – Good point! I spent an entire chapter of my dissertation tying Lovecraft to the modernist ethos, so I think I’m still stuck in that mindset. While on the surface good ol’ Purtianical Lovecraft seems to decry the decadent impulse (yes, as explored by Huysmans and Baudelaire – look what happens to the protagonists of “The Hound!”), the fact that he seems to so often kind of “wallow” in it suggests something different. I hadn’t totally associated Lovecraft and Wilde, but I can see it. For that matter, The Picture of Dorian Grey, when looked at slantwise, could even be called vaguely Lovecraftian.
Speaking of “The Hound,” have you read “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood” by Poppy Z. Brite? Very nice homage. It came up during the post on “The Hound.”
@R.Emrys – May I asked what disappointed you about Promethea? Was it just the very loose interpretation of Kabbalah? I have to confess that I adore Promethea and have re-read it a number of times. Not only do I feel it’s very female-positive, I personally like the ceremonial magickal content. However, Moore is very much building off ceremonial magick as practiced by people like Crowley and the A:.A:., Dion Fortune, the Golden Dawn, and even Kenneth Grant. (Remember that Machen and Blackwood, both influences on Lovecraft, were associated with the Golden Dawn.) Moore’s ceremonial magickal Kabbalah is not the same as the true Kabbalah of Jewish mysticism, at least as I understand it – I’m not Jewish. (Funny story, however: my sister recently had a baby and during the genetic testing found out that our family has a LOT of Ashkenazki Jewish heritage! That’s something we’re all starting to explore, not only because it’s cool, but also because her husband is half Jewish so my niece has even more of a connection to Judaism than we do and we want her to know about her heritage. We had a mini-Hanukkah this year, complete with a menora, latkes, and this incredible olive oil nut cake. *drools*)
In any case, Moore is basically following Crowley’s vision of Kabbalah and the Tree of Life, which I think bears about as much resemblance to the Jewish study of Kabbalah as the ancient Egyptian elements in his Thelema do to the actual ancient Egyptian religion! :P
Fun note: I visited the British Library’s “Art and Anarchy in the UK” comic exhibit two summers ago. Among the items on display was Williams’ original painting of Promethea that appeared in sequential form at the end of the run of the comic. It was incredible. I’ve got the trades and they do NOT do Williams’ art justice. I tried to surreptitiously snap a photo (no cameras allowed in the exhibit) but it didn’t come out.
Reading about Kabbalah on the internet has made me somewhat confused about what it is exactly, beyond that aspects of it showed up in Robert Silverberg’s “The Sixth Palace”, though there it was mixed in with Zen. Is there a good, clear, explanation online?
@13: “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood” was a good one: I have it in Cthulhu 2000. Surely no discussion of Lovecraftian decadence is complete without reference to W. H. Pugmire’s stories, among which is another tale related to “The Hound” (“Some Distant Baying Sound”).
@13: Lovecraft was significantly influenced by Decadents and even had a somewhat Decadent phase in 1920s. There is even a book about his reluctant Decadence.
Brite’s story is a funny one: it’s basically The Hound as interpreted by Ruthanna (“We are so Dark and Gothy!”) turned up to eleven. For me it’s not much different from other his stories I’ve read – funny but not very deep.
Pugmire has also written (at least one) story related to Hypnos and many others heavily influenced by the particular HPL tales. He seems to be especially fond of Pickman Model. I agree that he is the best choice if you want to read something both Lovecraftian and Decadent.
JaimeW @@@@@ 13: I’m actually pretty comfortable with people integrating Kaballah with other traditions as long as they’re polite about it. I’m probably not the best source to give this approval, however, as I know little about Kaballah and what I do know I mostly find very dull. It seems to me that it combines pretty legitimately with other ceremonial magic traditions, and I know a lot of Judeo-pagans who do so and are very happy with the results. I’m cool with Moore taking that on–if Jews can play around with Crowley, Crowleyites are welcome to play around with Kaballah. But then, I live in a Jewish/Pagan/no-longer-Christian Agnostic interfaith household, and am probably at the extreme end of comfort with respectful interfaith tradition-building.
No, my problem with Promethea was not in the least bit principled–just “Damn it, I’ve been to this workshop at Starwood already, and I wanted a story, not a lecture in ceremonial magic.” I will freely admit that the art is gorgeous, though.
Also, congrats to your sister and her family! Ping me if you ever need spiced-up recipes, or a Passover Haggadah that’s welcoming to goyim at the table. No one should ever be stuck with the awful Maxwell House version just because it’s the easiest to find.
The thing about Kaballah is that it’s a pretty catchall term for a related set of mystical Judaism. In its modern Jewish forms alone it ranges from hardcore extreme Orthodox to some pretty New Agey stuff that Madonna was really into about 20 years ago. Then you’ve got Christian Cabala that blended stuff like Raymond Lully (who has come up in this reread somewhere) with Medieval forms of Jewish Kaballah into a sort of Christian mysticism (Gnosticism borrowed from it, too, but doesn’t seem to have passed much down to the modern era). That then turned into an esoteric movement that developed Hermetic Qabalah (mixing in alchemy and whatnot as the name implies). That’s the form that Crowley played around with and influenced most of what you find among neo-pagans and so on.
But, yeah, if you’re going to make use of it, you should be respectful and not forget that it all builds from a tradition still held sacred by millions of people.
@17: It sounds like Kabbalah has become one of those terms like “numerology” whose scope and techniques depend on which strand you follow, many of which have little to do with the original tradition. (This page proved helpful to this nonspecialist.)
Raymond Lully’s Ars Magna was in Joseph Curwen’s library.
@18: It’s probably something that happens with any esoteric/mystical school. A couple of people in every generation have to put their mark on it, and some will wander more widely from previous material than others. One way or another, often second-hand, Kaballah is a thread that runs through most forms of European mysticism, magic systems, and esoterica.
RE: Kabbalah,
There are as many variants/forms of Kabbalism as there are ways to spell Kabbalah (Kabbalah-Cabala-Qabalah, etc).
@@@@@ 19:”One way or another, often second-hand, Kaballah is a thread that runs through most forms of European mysticism, magic systems, and esoterica.”
Yeah. Frankly, it’s pretty amazing how much the various forms of Western occult speculation (Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, various forms of mystical Neo-Platonism, alchemy, etc) have in common. It’s quite clear that there’s been a lot of exchanging of ideas over the millennia.
@@@@@ 16:”I’m probably not the best source to give this approval, however, as I know little about Kaballah and what I do know I mostly find very dull.”
HPL would have agreed. One of the reasons why he invented the Necronomicon is because he found the real thing quite tedious:
“As for seriously-written books on dark, occult, and supernatural themes-in all truth they don’t amount to much.That is why it’s more fun to invent mythical works like the Necronomicon and Book of Eibon […..] But you [Willis Conover*] will undoubtedly find all this stuff [genuine occult lore] very disappointing. It is flat, childish, pompous, and unconvincing-merely a record of human childishness and gullibility in past ages. Any good fiction-writer can think up “records of primal horror” which surpass in imaginative force any occult production which has sprung from genuine credulousness”
SELECTED LETTERS V, page 286-87
*”Willis Clark Conover, Jr. (December 18, 1920 – May 17, 1996) was a jazz producer and broadcaster on the Voice of America for over forty years. He produced jazz concerts at the White House, the Newport Jazz Festival, and for movies and television. By arranging concerts where people of all races were welcome, he is credited with desegregating Washington D.C. nightclubs.[2]Conover is credited with keeping interest in jazz alive in the countries of Eastern Europe through his nightly broadcasts during theCold War.“
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Conover
RE: Kabbalah,
There are as many variants/forms of Kabbalism as there are ways to spell Kabbalah (Kabbalah-Cabala-Qabalah, etc).
@@@@@ 19:”One way or another, often second-hand, Kaballah is a thread that runs through most forms of European mysticism, magic systems, and esoterica.”
Yeah. Frankly, it’s pretty amazing how much the various forms of Western occult speculation (Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, various forms of mystical Neo-Platonism, alchemy, etc) have in common. It’s quite clear that there’s been a lot of exchanging of ideas over the millennia.
@@@@@ 16:”I’m probably not the best source to give this approval, however, as I know little about Kaballah and what I do know I mostly find very dull.”
HPL would have agreed. One of the reasons why he invented the Necronomicon is because he found the real thing quite tedious:
“As for seriously-written books on dark, occult, and supernatural themes-in all truth they don’t amount to much.That is why it’s more fun to invent mythical works like the Necronomicon and Book of Eibon […..] But you [Willis Conover*] will undoubtedly find all this stuff [genuine occult lore] very disappointing. It is flat, childish, pompous, and unconvincing-merely a record of human childishness and gullibility in past ages. Any good fiction-writer can think up “records of primal horror” which surpass in imaginative force any occult production which has sprung from genuine credulousness”
SELECTED LETTERS V, page 286-87
*”Willis Clark Conover, Jr. (December 18, 1920 – May 17, 1996) was a jazz producer and broadcaster on the Voice of America for over forty years. He produced jazz concerts at the White House, the Newport Jazz Festival, and for movies and television. By arranging concerts where people of all races were welcome, he is credited with desegregating Washington D.C. nightclubs.Conover is credited with keeping interest in jazz alive in the countries of Eastern Europe through his nightly broadcasts during the Cold War.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Conover
@21: I didn’t know that about Conover! Very cool invormation.
Wow. So one of Lovecraft correspondents was a celebrity in the USSR? How cool is that?
*Googles* so he really is quite famous in Russia, at least among jazz aficionados. I knew nothing of that.
Yeah, Conover led a very interesting life. And his LOVECRAFT AT LAST is probably the most charming of the many memoirs written by HPL’s friends after his death. Highly recommended:
http://www.amazon.com/Lovecraft-Last-Master-Horror-Words/dp/0815412126
Huh, I took away something entirely different from this story. The way I saw it, Iranon was able to withstand mockery, mindless shallowness, loss of friends, and endless wandering, as long as he had hope in the eventual fulfilment of his dream. When he found out that it was all a lie, that it never was and never would be, he killed himself. A person can withstand a lot, if they have hope, and if they have something higher to set their sights on in the midst of difficulties. But you take away a person’s hope, and they’re as good as dead.
Now that you guys mention it, I can see all the “art” stuff. I just didn’t read that at first, lol.