Blind Read Through; H.P. Lovecraft: The Festival

Welcome back!  We’re getting into it today!  Thus far through the blind reads I have read a number of stories which were written before the Cthulhu Mythos truly began.  I have enjoyed these stories for their literary merit, and for the genesis of Lovecraft as a writer.  Then we get the The Festival and we finally get to the feel and nomenclature that I associate with Lovecraft.  This is the first mention of The Necronomicon, the first mention of Miskatonic University, and the first mention of Arkham that I have come across in the readings.

Our story begins with the narrator heading back to “the ancient sea town where my people dwelt…”  It is a horribly beautiful description, that portrays a town built centuries before and is somehow still standing.  He is heading back there for a Yuletide celebration, as he got a message summoning him back to join his family for this celebration.

He heads through town to find his ancestors home and knocks on the door.  He is met by an old man who’s face is so soft and un-moving that it looks like a wax mask instead of skin, and there is an old woman off spinning in the corner.  The old man doesn’t speak, but tells our narrator to sit and wait for him (he writes it down on a tablet, I assume he doesn’t speak because the wax mask wouldn’t move and he doesn’t want to break the illusion yet).  The narrator sits down and sees a number of books on the table in front of him, one of which is The Necronomicon.  He picks it up and reads a bit while the old woman continues to spin in the corner.  Eventually the old man comes back, dons a robe and beckons our narrator to follow him.  They head out through the snow, in a congregation of hooded figures, until they get to an old church.  They head down a trap door in the church to a tomb underneath.  There is a flame that gives off no heat and a strange oily, putrid stream that flows through the tomb.  The old man gets up and raises The Necronomicon, says a few words and horrible creatures come out of the flame.  They are fetid and rotting and have wings.  The group gets on and flies out of the church.  The old man beckons our narrator to get on one, and gives him a watch that had been buried with his grandfather in the 1600’s.  The narrator freaks out and jumps in the fetid stream.  He wakes in the hospital and finds out that the town he was in has not existed for quite some time, and everything has been updated.  He is then sent to Arkham for psychological surveillance.

We are led to believe that the old man is in fact his great-great-great-great grandfather, and that the narrator actually has ties to the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred who wrote The Necronomicon.

Though less literary than a number of his other stories; this straight forward horror tale is indicative of everything I’ve come to love about Lovecraft’s legacy.  I’ts been amazingly fun to read through it, and I loved this one.  Absolutely my favorite thus far in the cannon.

Next week there will be no Blind read through, because of a vacation, but join me September 7th for The Nameless City.