Which Stories Fit Into The Mythos...?

[UnderTheOath]

^^^ Yes, I just realized that Iranon has references to Sarnath. Yep, I can see how that fits in now. I agree with you, (and yes, I am a Lovecraft noob, but don't hold it against me) however, there are some stories that clearly have no relationship whatsoever to what you don't like referring to as the 'mythos'. The Tomb, for instance and The Outsider, neither of which had that big of an impact on me anyway, but still.

[Ningauble]

Originally Posted by UnderTheOath

^^^ Yes, I just realized that Iranon has references to Sarnath. Yep, I can see how that fits in now. I agree with you, (and yes, I am a Lovecraft noob, but don't hold it against me) however, there are some stories that clearly have no relationship whatsoever to what you don't like referring to as the 'mythos'. The Tomb, for instance and The Outsider, neither of which had that big of an impact on me anyway, but still.

I beg to disagree with reference to "The Outsider". It mentions Nephren-Ka, who is also mentioned in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" and "The haunter of the Dark". And it mentions ghouls, too.

[UnderTheOath]

^^^ Fair enough. I don't remember it all that clearly beyond the basic plot line.

[j. d. worthington]

Errrmmm... well.... again, nearly all of Lovecraft's work ties in at least thematically with the ideas and concepts of the Mythos. "The Tomb" is very strongly tied to such. In fact, in a little piece I've put together, I've noted that it shadows forth much of what Lovecraft would deal with throughout the rest of his career. It's a very subtle story -- much more so than at first appears, and works on several levels. But among the strongest are those of (to use Donald Burleson's phrase) "illusory surface appearances" (reality vs. a super-reality; albeit not quite in the way Burleson may have meant it, nonetheless very closely related) and of the inescapabilty of the past -- the fact that the past can reach forth into the present (or the future) and swallow it (whether it be the unfortunate individual in question, or the entire human race). This, again, is at least closely allied (though in this case without the cosmic implications) to what Burleson called the "theme of unwholesome survival".

I agree entirely with Joshi's statement that, in this story, Lovecraft expends more effort than perhaps in any other tale to make one doubt the narrator's perceptions -- yet he also spends an equal amount of effort casting doubt on that doubt, as it were; keeping alive the possibility that Jervas Dudley's tale is at least largely true. If so, then we are left not only with the possibilities surrounding Jervas Hyde, but also those other perceptions of a "super-reality" that Dudley mentions -- things that tie closely into Lovecraft's use of sentience or near-sentience in Nature (another part of the Mythos -- cf. "The Colour Out of Space", "The Whisperer in Darkness", etc.) There's a lot going on in that story, mostly just beneath the surface, and I would argue that it is both a very undervalued and very subte story in many ways. (Here I'm also echoing -- though I only had the chance to actually read the essay this weekend -- William Fulwiler in his essay "'The Tomb' and 'Dagon': A Double Dissection", while I've been maintaining this stance for some time. *sigh* It's a bit frustrating repeating someone else's thoughts without even having been aware of them!)

At any rate -- again, this is why I am so reluctant to set off a set of stories as Mythos and others as non-Mythos: there really is no such distinction, save where it may apply to speficically naming things used in other tales -- but there are distinctly Mythos tales which do not name a single place, entity, or book that are named elsewhere, so even that is a very shaky proceeding. Essentially, each reader will decide for him- or herself what is and is not "Mythos", if they care for the term... and that list may well change from reading to reading....

[j. d. worthington]

Incidentally, just as a point of clarification about my previous post: the term "super-reality" is something of a misnomer; Joshi's "supra-reality" is much more on the mark -- and I would highly recommend his Primal Sources: Essays on H. P. Lovecraft, to anyone interested in some thought-provoking insights into the Old Gent and his writings....

Primal Sources: Essays on H. P. Lovecraft - Hippocampus Press

[Lobolover]

If you'd wanna read a story not writen by HPL,then try "The Black Stone" by Robert E. Howard.