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

This story gives great perspective on Lovecraft himself, and we get a sneak peek at the illustrious Randolph Carter.

What was so great about this story was getting to see what Lovecraft really felt about the construction of his stories.  Carter, who is apparently a writer as well, has a long conversation with a friend of his about how to tell a story.  His friend persists that there is no scientific was that anything in the scientific world could be unnamable.  Any kind of creature would have to be contained within some sub-classification or genus, but then suddenly, at the end of the story, a creature of some sort comes out of an old house they have been sitting next to and attacks them.  Manton, the friend has a mental break down because what he saw he cannot classify.

What gives the story a bit more depth is that it seems as though the subtext was that Manton stayed at the place where the story unfolds and saw something horrible when he was younger (which is probably the same creature he sees at the end of the story).  The point is that he has spent his life trying to categorize to deny the horrible, un-categorizable thing he saw as a child.

Carter also seems to serve as a duplicate for Lovecraft himself.  There is a theme that streams through Carter’s descriptions, which stream through all of the Lovecraft that I’ve read thus far.

This was a really great story on the essence of horror tales, and about the writing process in general.

What do you think?

Join me next Tuesday for a blind read of “The Outsider”