THE DEEP ONES: "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" by H.P. Lovecraft

"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" by H.P. Lovecraft

Discussion begins August 5th.

First published in the amateur publication Pine Cones in October 1919.



Above is the main illustration for the story from the March 1930 issue of Weird Tales.

ONLINE VERSIONS

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/bws.aspx
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/lovecraft/hp/wall/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41868

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction
The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft
The Doom That Came to Sarnath
The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories

MISCELLANY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Wall_of_Sleep_%28short_story%29
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMSX08194Tw
https://lovecraftianscience.wordpress.com/tag/beyond-the-wall-of-sleep/
http://tinyurl.com/pxh2qxr

>1 gwendetenebre: Above is the main illustration

Cool!

The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft for me.

Reread it in The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft* last week. I'll also post commentary on the tale from S.T. Joshi and David Schultz's An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia when the discussion begins on Wednesday.

*Available for free here: http://arkhamarchivist.com/free-complete-lovecraft-ebook-nook-kindle/

>2 paradoxosalpha:

Gotta love Virgil Finlay. Here's a hi-res version from the amazing blog The Golden Age (http://thegoldenagesite.blogspot.com/):

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H19H4w5lv-s/VWPGdfeFc5I/AAAAAAACqj0/V913HZQIduI/s1600/...

Garrett P. Serviss books at Project Gutenberg:

www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2120

The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft for me.

Online again for me.

The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft for me as well.

How, I often asked myself, could the stolid imagination of a Catskill degenerate conjure up sights whose very possession argued a lurking spark of genius?

Indeed! The situation with the narrator attempting to communicate with Joe Slater as he experiences his otherworldly journey reminds me of Poe's "Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar", but with electronic apparatus instead of mesmerism providing the link.

I really liked the entity's speech near the end, which includes such purely Lovecraftian remarks as

Next year I may be dwelling in the dark Egypt which you call ancient, or in the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan which is to come three thousand years hence. You and I have drifted to the worlds that reel about the red Arcturus, and dwelt in the bodies of the insect-philosophers that crawl proudly over the fourth moon of Jupiter. How little does the earth-self know of life and its extent! How little, indeed, ought it to know for its own tranquillity!

I enjoyed this story and its asylum-setting. It flows rather nicely and features more awe and wonder than horror. This would have been written during HPL's Dunsanian period, would it not?

It's not clear to me whether HPL intended a red herring or I'm overreaching: the dangled idea that instead of a "degenerate" there is a "genius" duping everyone, or perhaps an idiot savant, only to reveal Joe Slater is in fact possessed by an entity from beyond our universe. If in fact the cosmic entity behind Slater's dreams is intended as a big payoff, I think it doesn't quite work. Perhaps this is an unfair expectation of the modern Weird reader, the situation has been telegraphed beforehand insofar as we expect the story to be about the Weird and not a mundane con.

I also thought the big news about Algol was anticlimactic: again, it was clear what was implied, so the explicit statement doesn't pack any sort of wallop. At the same time, the idea is nifty, and more impressive to me was learning of this star system:

Winking Demons

In the constellation Perseus there is a moderately bright star called Algol. It is remarkable in that every 68.75 hours its light dims rather suddenly for several hours before returning just as quickly to its former brightness. This change in brightness is sufficiently large to be apparent even to the naked eye. Very careful observation also indicates a small dip in light output halfway in between the large dips, and detailed inspection of the spectrum indicates that Algol is a spectroscopic binary. ( Additional evidence indicates that Algol is actually a triple star system, but two of the stars are very close together. It is these two stars that concern us here.)
Algol is called the Winking Demon Star because of its light variation and because Perseus is according to mythology holding the severed head of the Gorgon or demon.

On February 22, 1901, a marvellous new star was discovered by Dr. Anderson, of Edinburgh, not very far from Algol. No star had been visible at that point before. Within twenty-four hours the stranger had become so bright that it outshone Capella. In a week or two it had visibly faded, and in the course of a few months it was hardly discernible with the naked eye.

I feel like such a killjoy, but when I read this, all I could think was that even if the entity had been able to travel instantaneously between Earth and Algol, or to bilocate between them, the celestial apparition still wouldn't have been visible in the skies of Scotland for another 93 years or so.

>11 paradoxosalpha:

It's possible to make the story work in the given timeframe, but I won't claim it's satisfying:

We may guess that in dreams life, matter, and vitality, as the earth knows such things, are not necessarily constant; and that time and space do not exist as our waking selves comprehend them

So imagine that everything Slater witnessed in dream state "actually occurred" 90+ years before, and the physical evidence of those events are manifesting now, on Earth, in terms of Slater's bodily death on February 21st, and the star's light observed on February 22nd. In other words, it's not only space being traversed, these events also involve time travel.

That said, I don't at all believe HPL worked it out for himself that way. Seemingly a novice mistake, given his longstanding interest in astronomy?

This one's one of HPL's more, uh, psychedelic efforts, isn't it? To paraphrase something one of you (paradoxosalpha?) said about another Lovecraft story we discussed a ways back, it's not difficult to imagine this being successfully adapted into a Steve Ditko/Stan Lee-era Dr. Strange comic.

Like >9 gwendetenebre:, I enjoyed the nifty proto-Mythos imagery here. The mention of Tsan-Chan is particularly interesting, as he (as far as I can find), isn't mentioned in another HPL tale until The Shadow Out of Time, which Howard wouldn't start working on 1934, fifteen years after "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" was written.

As promised, here's part of the commentary on this tale from An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia:

HPL notes that the story was inspired by a passing mention of Catskill Mountain denizens in an article on the New York State Constabulary in the New York Tribune - "How Our State Police Have Spurred Their Way to Fame," by F. F. Van de Water... The story was presumably written shortly thereafter. The article actually mentions a family named the Slaters or Slahters as representative of the decadent squalor of the mountaineers. HPL concludes the story with an account of the nova taken verbatim from his copy of Garrett P. Serviss's Astronomy with the Naked Eye...

Some have claimed that the story was influenced by Ambrose Bierce's "Beyond the Wall"... HPL had first read Bierce in 1919, but there is no similarity between the two stories except in their titles, as Bierce's tale is a conventional ghost story that bears no resemblance to HPL's. There may be an influence from Jack London's Before Adam... although there is no evidence that HPL read it. The novel is an account of hereditary memory, in which a man from the modern age has dreams of the life of his remote ancestor in primitive times. At the very onset of the novel London's character remarks: "Nor... did any of my human kind ever break through my wall of sleep." Other passages seem to be echoed in HPL's story. In effect, HPL presents a mirror-image of Before Adam: whereas London's character is a modern (civilized) man who has visions of a primitive past, Joe Slater is a primitive human being whose visions, as HPL declares, are such as "only a superior or even exceptional brain could conceive."

>9 gwendetenebre:

This would have been written during HPL's Dunsanian period, would it not?

According to Joshi and David Schultz, HPL first read Dunsany in 1919 (the year this tale was written), so there's a good possibility that this story was influenced by him. (Otoh, Grandpa was writing very Dunsanian tales like "Polaris"* as early as 1918, so one could say that his "Dunsanian period" begins before he actually read Dunsany, if that makes any sense.)

* http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/p.aspx

ETA: link

>13 artturnerjr: Totally Steve Ditko!

I agree with the lemma writer that the Bierce story doesn't seem to have been any kind of influence on this one.

A rockin' Black Sabbath jam that may or may not have been inspired by this tale:

https://youtu.be/OYgBOVoLI6U

(Actually, it's entirely likely that it wasn't - I'll just post Sabbath-related links on the merest pretext. \m/)

There's a lot here that gets teased out in later stories, and becomes either part of the Mythos, or recognisable elements of Lovecraft's fictional world (rustics, asylums) or his storytelling techniques (the Poe-like hoax techniques to create a sense of verisimilitude - the link to the Garrett P. Serviss article in this case).

I don't think the ideas were quite worked out in this early story, though. I am not clear whether all humans possess a "light spirit" soul - whether that is in fact the better or even the real part of us; or if we are supposed to understand the light spirit as a precursor to the Great Race: incorporeal minds that can temporarily take occupancy of living beings bodies.

If it's the former, it's an interesting - and I assume an early - example of the wish fulfilment idea of the foundling who is really a king, which in science fiction dress means "is really a super-powered mutant" or "an advanced alien", etc. Here though, the human personality gains no benefit thereby, being shut off from its better self unless, like Slater, so degraded it traps its own light spirit and drives its human aspect mad.

Whatever Lovecraft's opinion of Freud (and I presume psychoanalysis/psychotherapy more broadly), there does seem to be a reaching out towards something - and a pulling back, embodied here.

I forgot about this story, so it was a welcome re-read.

>9 gwendetenebre: and >16 housefulofpaper: I like that speech too. Insect-philosophers, the future empire of Tsan-Chan, and that bleak Asian plateau ...

>16 housefulofpaper: I also wasn't totally clear on the whole "light spirit" thing either.

I think this is another example of the theme of escape -- into history, dream, or fantastic fiction -- in Lovecraft's fiction. I think he once said something like "Time is the great enemy." This seems like a variation on the idea of a numinous soul trapped in a body of mud, "cosmic" and "planet" souls as Lovecraft has it.

>11 paradoxosalpha: I'm slightly wondering if Lovecraft was relying on some pre-Einstein concept that travel faster than light was possible. I believe Lovecraft didn't accept the Theories of Relativity until sometime in the 1920s. The wiki entry on the Special Theory of Relativity says the restriction on exceeding the speed of light seems to go back to at least 1896 and the work of George Frederick Charles Searle. I really don't think that's the answer though. Homer nods, and Lovecraft made a mistake in logic.

>16 housefulofpaper:

There's a lot here that gets teased out in later stories, and becomes either part of the Mythos, or recognisable elements of Lovecraft's fictional world (rustics, asylums) or his storytelling techniques (the Poe-like hoax techniques to create a sense of verisimilitude - the link to the Garrett P. Serviss article in this case).

Good point. You can definitely find elements in this tale that would be developed more later on. With the focus here on "degenerate" mountain folk, perhaps we should discuss HPL's influence on James Dickey. :-D

It's worth noting that "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" marks our 200th DEEP ONES story discussion!!!

>17 RandyStafford:

The relativistic limit on speed isn't really relevant here - even if the entity was capable of superluminal or instantaneous travel, the light of Nova Persei itself would need about 1500 years to reach Earth. That the speed of light is finite, and its approximate magnitude, has been known since Rømer's work in the seventeenth century.

(paradoxosalpha's 93 years is the travel time from Algol to Earth. Nova Persei was close to Algol as seen from Earth on the apparent dome of the sky, but in 3D space it's far more distant - indeed, from a non-earthbound perspective it'd make far more sense to say that Earth is close to Algol than that the nova was. Whether the distance was known in Lovecraft's day I do not know.)

I too had forgotten most of the story, so good on the Deep Ones for making me reread it. Not among Lovecraft's best, but worth reading again.

>19 gwendetenebre:

Gosh, that's almost four years, and we must be in our sixteenth round of selections.

>20 AndreasJ:

Correction accepted, to some extent, but although the observation in the actual 1901 report was of a light "not very far from Algol," and the idea of its proximity to Algol is important in the communication from Slater's daimon. HPL certainly was not apprised that Earth is closer to Algol than the nova was!

>18 gwendetenebre:

With the focus her on "degenerate" mountain folk, perhaps we should discuss HPL's influence on James Dickey. :-D

...and whether or not he enjoyed banjo music. :)

>19 gwendetenebre:

It's worth noting that "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" marks our 200th DEEP ONES story discussion!!!

Wowzers - it is indeed! And still so many classic weird tales left to discuss. The weird fiction ocean sure is a (pardon the pun) deep one.

I expected this to be a horror, and the beginning of the story, Joe Slater's crime, delivered. It surprised me by turning spacey.
Regarding the narrator's empathy towards Joe Slater, it was so strong that he wanted to sync their minds, which seemed to me like he was welcoming Slater's insanity. At that point, he didn't know what he's find but he did know that he was hoping for something strange. Which gives the reader the choice between seeing the story as the narrator describes, where he hears and experiences something not of our world, or that he took steps to bring his already unstable mind over the edge.

>15 artturnerjr: And why not? I saw them during their big reunion tour. Ozzy suddenly stopped in the middle of a song, turned around and mooned the crowd, then picked up where he's left off. Because he's a professional.

>23 mstrust:

Because he's a professional.

And he loves us all! :D

>19 gwendetenebre: et al.

Here's a blast from the past to mark this occasion - a link to the very first Deep Ones discussion way back in 2011:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/123362

I count six posters that are still regular participants in this group; I guess we must be doing something right, folks. :)

>18 gwendetenebre:

I had to check the reference! - James Dickey is nowhere near as well known as the film Deliverance is here in the UK. As an aside, director John Boorman was interviewed on BBC radio recently and Deliverance was one of the topics the discussion touched on (the main focus was on his two autobiographical films based on his childhood during WWII, there was also quite a lot about Lee Marvin, but nothing about Exorcist II!)

>26 housefulofpaper:

What about Excalibur (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082348/) ?

>27 artturnerjr:

I don't recall anything. The did talk about Zardoz for a couple of minutes, though.

Any movie that puts Sean Connery in a diaper deserves a couple of minutes discussion.

>26 housefulofpaper:

Interesting. Dickey attained literary lion status here in the States not only for Deliverance but also for his poetry. I found that Boorman BBC interview - thanks for the heads-up!