“ The statement of Randolph Carter”, in another translation “The statement of Randolph Carter” is the story of the American writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft , written in December 1919 and published in May 1920 in The Vagrant magazine [2 ] . The story is part of Lovecraft 's The Dream Cycle .
| Randolph Carter's testimony | |
|---|---|
| The statement of randolph carter | |
| Genre | Lovecraftian Horrors [1] |
| Author | Howard Phillips Lovecraft |
| Original language | English |
| Date of writing | December 1919 |
| Date of first publication | The Vagrant Magazine ( May 1920 ) |
| Following | |
Content
Story
The story is an investigation by Randolph Carter [~ 1] given to him by the police. Carter talks about the circumstances of the mysterious disappearance of his friend Harley Warren , with whom they had been studying history, archeology, esotericism and occult books for the past 5 years. Last night, he and Warren fell under the influence of magical powers and went, as if in obscurity, to an abandoned cemetery in Gainsville Pike (from the English Gainsville pike), next to the Great Cypress Marsh . Carter lost his memory and did not remember why they went there. Shortly before, an ancient book in Arabic was sent to Warren from India , in which something was written that led them to an ancient cemetery. The book said that there are doors or stairs between the surface world and the underworld through which demons can travel.
At night, by the light of the moon, they excavated in an ancient crypt. Warren went down alone into the crypt, he alone had the key to the secret. He made a telephone call with Randolph and told the receiver that he saw something indescribable and ordered him to run. Warren shouted about legions of creatures and no longer got in touch. Carter described the incredible transformations around him.
This is terrible, monstrous, incredible! I can't tell you anything, Carter! This is beyond all understanding! I just can't tell you anything! A person cannot learn about it and survive. Great God! I was waiting for anything, but not this ... Damn them, these fiends of hell! Legions! There are so many of them that you can’t count! Hit! Hit! Hit!
When he felt that he was moving to another world, watching the dance of formless, greedy for decay of shadows under the moon, when on the phone a terrible voice answered: "Fool, Warren is dead . "
Characters
- Randolph Carter
Randolph Carter is one of the most commonly found characters in Lovecraft's works. Carter was an experienced dreamer and successfully traveled around the World of Dreams , visited the Unknown Kadat , and was also an experienced occultist , mystic, scientist and science fiction writer. Harley Warren's friend who helped him with research on the unknown. A man with weak nerves; bundle of nerves; shuddered at Warren's theories about the dead. Randolph Carter is often found in other Lovecraft tales. The events of the story take place after the “ Somnambulistic Search of the Unknown Kadat ” and before the “ Silver Key ”. It is possible that Carter's character was inspired by Howard Carter, who in 1914 began excavating tombs in the Valley of the Kings of Egypt , which caused a lot of attention in the world.
- Harley warren
Harley Warren is an occultist who studied books in ancient languages. His pleasant, velvet tenor was, in spite of the nightmarish atmosphere, as calm as ever. He considered himself a man with iron feelings. Harley Warren is mentioned in Silver Key , The Gate of the Silver Key , as well as in Brian Lumley 's Titus Crow series. The Silver Key story mentions that Warren survived and returned to Arkham , though not his own.
- Otherworldly Essence
The otherworldly entity is the otherworldly entity from the underworld that killed Harley Warren and could erase the memory of man. Perhaps it could carry the heroes in time and space, judging by the description of Carter. Probably, this entity was once a man. His voice was low, viscous, deaf, distant, grave, inhuman, ethereal. The dead man had a very similar description in the story “The Dog, ” which acted on the tomb raiders and ordered them to return.
Inspiration
The initial idea for inspiration was a dream that Lovecraft had, where Warren's character was actually Samuel Loveman, a friend of Lovecraft . Loveman also dreamed about him in his dream, which became the poem Nyarlathotep . Lovecraft based the whole story on a dream that he reproduced, adding only a preamble to make the story more dynamic in terms of the pace of the narrative, and wrote it in the form of testimonies given by the police. A report on Lovecraft 's real dream can be found in one of his letters to Augustus Derlet .
Connection with other works
In the story " Silver Key " Warren is referred to as "a man from the south who was shunned and feared for sacrilegeous things that he read from ancient books brought from India and Arabia."
In the Silver Key Gate story, Warren is mentioned as a South Carolina native who was an expert linguist of the ancient Naakal language in the Himalayas .
Warren is also mentioned in Brian Lumley 's Titus Crow series as a member of the Boston psychic group.
Links
- text of the story (inaccessible link)
Comments
- ↑ Hereinafter, all names and titles are given by the translation of O. Kolesnikov.
Notes
- ↑ “Indications of Randolph Carter” . Laboratory fiction .
- ↑ Straub, Peter. Lovecraft: Tales. - The Library of America, 2005. - P. 823. - ISBN 1-931082-72-3 .
Sources
Straub, Peter (2005). Lovecraft: Tales . The Library of America. p. 823. ISBN 1-931082-72-3 .
Lovecraft, Howard P. (1985) [1919]. "The Statement of Randolph Carter". In ST Joshi (ed.). At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels (7th corrected printing ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-038-6 .
Lovecraft, Howard P. (1999) [1920]. "The Statement of Randolph Carter". In ST Joshi (ed.). The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (1st printing ed.). Penguin Books. p. 363. ISBN 0-14-118234-2 .
ST Joshi (ed.) Ed. (1999) [1920]. "The Statement of Randolph Carter". In ST Joshi (ed.) Ed., The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (1st printing ed.). Penguin Books. Explanatory Notes by ST Joshi.