The Unnamable

Randolph Carter #2

by H.P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft was one of the greatest horror writers of all time. His seminal work appeared in the pages of legendary Weird Tales and has influenced countless writer of the macabre. This is one of those stories.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Lovecraftian, Fiction, Fantasy, Classics, Audiobook

11 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1925

About the author

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.

Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

— Wikipedia

Reviews

[Dr. Appu Sasidharan (Dasfill) · Rating 4 out of 5]

H.P. Lovecraft tells the story of an entity that haunts a dilapidated house near a cemetery.


The story begins with the dispute between Radolph Carton and Joel Manton regarding the unnamable entity in the house near the cemetery. Is there really an entity they fear? The author will answer it in this book.

“It was everywhere—a gelatin—a slime—yet it had shapes, a thousand shapes of horror beyond all memory. There were eyes—and a blemish. It was the pit—the maelstrom—the ultimate abomination. Carter, it was the unnamable!”

When I first read this book, the initial thought that went through my mind was about he who must not be named (Lord Voldemort). Did J.K. Rowling read this book and get inspiration from it when she wrote Harry Potter? Only she will be able to answer this question. This is yet another brilliant creation by Lovecraft that will give you an amazing reading experience.


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[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little piece is unusual for Lovecraft. It is not so much a weird tale as a discussion about weird tales. in which two men sitting on a dilapidated tomb in an old graveyard—writer Randolph Carter (H.P. surrogate) and his friend high school principal Joel Manton—debate whether a writer owes his readers an explicit description of horrors, or whether it is better to leave the greatest horrors “unnamable.” H.P. often took refuge in the “unnamable,” and was criticized for it by many—including his English high school teacher friend Maurice Moe, who is almost certainly the model for Manton.

I would urge those of you who aren't fans of expository prose or who dislike literary criticism not to be discouraged. The description of the cemetery, though brief, is evocative and filled with the realistic details of a New England landscape, and you will be happy to know that eventually the debate of our two “critics” is resolved—not by an extraordinary persuasive argument—but by the appearance of the “unnamable” itself.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this cleverly plotted story about the Unnamable. It's a dispute between two friends, Carter and Manton. Will Manton believe at the end at the Unnamable after their experience at Meadow Hill? When Carter tells the content of the old diary he found and the experiences of the boy that went mad the setting gets real eerie. Also the wounds our friends receive are quite sinister. What attacked them? A very haunting and compelling tale. Recommended!

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Besides, he added, my constant talk about “unnamable” and “unmentionable” things was a very puerile device, quite in keeping with my lowly standing as an author. I was too fond of ending my stories with sights or sounds which paralysed my heroes’ faculties and left them without courage, words, or associations to tell what they had experienced.

Haha, I see why Carter is supposed to be a stand-in for Lovecraft himself.
I feel like I have to give him props for making fun of himself for doing that thing, while in the act of doing it.

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/t...

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two friends are sitting near an old house on Meadow Hill in Arkham, Massachusetts. They are arguing about the way the narrator writes about the unnamed in his stories.

'... my constant talk about 'unnamable' and 'unmentionable' things was a very puerile device, quite in keeping with my lowly standing as an author. I was too fond of ending my stories with sights or sounds which paralysed my heroes’ faculties and left them without courage, words, or associations to tell what they had experienced.

So he tells his friend a story about the old house and the attic and the thing that is said to exist there.

[David Sarkies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sceptic vs the True Believer
12 Jun 2023 – Milton Keynes

Okay, I’m not writing this in Milton Keynes, and I didn’t even read it in Milton Keynes, but I was in Milton Keynes yesterday and I have to admit that it was rather horrific. I don’t know, but there is something about meticulously planned towns that are actually quite horrible, especially when this planning is built entirely around the car. Sure, the streets were wide, but everything was kind of ugly – sort of like a city of council flats and faceless corporate offices that all looked alike.

Anyway, enough of that and on to the story, which is about a discussion between a horror writer who believes in ghosts and a rationalists who doesn’t (though he does believe in God, but he claims that because theology teaches that then there is some rationality behind it). Mind you, that sort of doesn’t make sense because, well, there are demons and spirits in the Bible, but people do tend to conveniently ignore those passages (or focus too heavily on them). Anyway, the author is talking about something that is basically unnameable, but the rationalist scoffs at this whole idea because reason states that everything is nameable.

So, the author publishes a book, and the Southern States all get up in arms claiming that it is evil and satanic and must be destroyed (sounds like nothing has changed), while New England just shrugs their shoulders and simply say “tell us something we don’t know”. Well, his friend actually hears about something, namely a place where there were some unusual occurrences so they both decide to check it out, each wanting to prove their points. As is typical with Lovecraft stories, they do encounter something, and pretty much only have vague recollections of what they encountered, having woken up in a hospital with some missing time.

So, this author, Randolph Carter (we suspect) is actually supposed to be HP Lovecraft inserting himself into he stories. In fact, it seems as if it is one of those stories where the sceptic is confronted with the reality of the hidden world, and as such becomes a believer. Then again, there is also that theory that we humans are wilfully ignorant of a lot of the supernatural because we simply cannot comprehend that there might exist something that we cannot master.

I guess it has a lot to do with our fear of death, and sure, horror actually plays upon that quite significantly. I won’t go into the whole Christian narrative of ‘Jesus defeated death so you can trust him’ and sure, there are a lot of people, like me, who believe that. The thing however is that it all comes down to our fear of powerlessness. You see, as Arnold Schwarzenegger said in Predator ‘If it bleeds, we can kill it’, meaning that if it has a physical form, and it has life, then we can master it.

I could go on, and on, but I think I’ll leave it at that and pick up this idea sometime down the track.

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe this is the second Lovecraft story featuring the fictional author Randolph Carter as the protagonist and the first time we get to see a glimpse within the fictional city of Arkham in person.

Carter and his friend Joel sit in an eerie graveyard where they share stories about a nearby decaying house rumored to be haunted by a horned humanlike creature that can be seen peering out the window and stalking the outer wilderness of the town of Arkham. Their grim storytelling session quickly becomes a living nightmare.

A simple yet creepy story. It’s like a classic gothic ghost story with a more folklorish horror twist.

[Cathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovecraft can create a thrilling vibe with his prose!

[Martti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Second short story with Randolph Carter, the dream-traveler and a writer, this time happening in the now legendary Arkham, Massachusetts. No dream-traveling in this one, but an incident with an unnamable horror. I'd like to think that had there been couple of actual real scientists with the expedition with some proper equipment, the horror would not be unnamed and would also have been contained or even destroyed. So basically the main thing I take with me here is that HPL likes to describe ill-prepared dumbasses walking into dark places. He seems to have a finite number of story patterns that he insists on rewriting. Doesn't feel very original.

Lovecraft's language is archaic and a bit annoying to read. On the other hand I have a feeling it also contributes to the general atmosphere, so I guess I must forgive him for the verbal laxative that is the Victorian flowery English.

HorrorBabble Youtube channel has a nice audio version of the stories https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyQZ2...

[JL Shioshita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is pretty meta. It's almost like Lovecraft was commenting on his own work, cliches, and techniques. He throws in a little scare at the end just to make sure you know it's all real and then it's over. Featuring Randolph Carter.

[{Alexandra} · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10 Lovecraft has a knack for writing very interesting short stories. This one does not fall behind, yet it isn’t the best I’ve read. Loved the conversation, but the explanation in the end felt short.

[Jason Dark · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0

[Gillyz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Unnamable is rather funny than scary and it does look unusual compared to other Lovecraft's stories.

Two friends gather near a dilapidated tomb in an old graveyard. One of the friends, named Manton, criticises the idea of not describing [properly] a thing. The other man disagrees "why is it extravagant to imagine psychically living dead things in shapes—or absences of shapes—[...] “unnamable”?

The end gives the final word to the discussion. The conclusion, at least to me, was hilarious.

[Alexander Sano · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read anything in a while and what better way to get back into reading than this masterpiece? I was terrified reading this at 3 AM, Lovecraft makes exquisite use of flashbacks, time, chronology, and the like herein at it can only be replicated by reading the work itself. I thorough enjoyed the work, though it was but 7 pages in my edition.

[Blackjack605 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good story, but it kind of seems like Lovecraft wrote this story as a sort of "what if" rebuttal in his head, probably to make himself feel better about an argument with a friend. Also I find it very amusing that he names something that he claims can't be named

[Oliver Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah this one is pretty cool I guess. Not one of his better stories, I read this to compare it to the movie and I do think this is much better. I like the idea behind this but it also feels just very similar to a lot of his other works especially because of how specifically unspecific.

[Susie Q · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two bros just telling ghost stories to each other... in a crypt... behind a haunted house... where the monster of said ghost story lived...

These guys are so dumb. 10/10 dumb youtuber ghost hunting energy. Love that for them👏 Good to know dudes were just dumb back then🤣

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two men converse about a monster which is unnamable, with the typical insistence on the part of one that it can be, with the predictable results.

[AyesalyaM · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is totally fantastic, is really excellent book in catalogue.

[Mariana · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was weird

[Teemu Öhman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit of a standard Lovecraft story, and quite short. I didn't even remember that I'd read the first Randolph Carter story. It was OK if you like Lovecraft, but that's all.

3.25/5

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

1923: The Unnamable


“…yet it had shapes, a thousand shapes of horror beyond all memory.”



“The Unnamable” is arguably the forty-seventh oldest surviving fictional work by American weird fiction author H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). According to Joshi & Schultz (2001), it was written in September 1923 and first published in the July 1925 issue of Weird Tales. It is a tough story to categorize. As a monster tale, it’s hackneyed, but as a work of satire “of the stolid bourgeois unresponsiveness to the weird tale” (p. 283), it’s interesting and entertaining.

The story centers around two men: “Carter,” a weird fiction author clearly based on Lovecraft, and Joel Manton, a character based on HPL’s friend Maurice Moe. The friend is complaining about what he sees as a flaw in Carter’s writing, and which was and still is a common criticism of Lovecraft’s own work:

Besides, he added, my constant talk about “unnamable” and “unmentionable” things was a very puerile device, quite in keeping with my lowly standing as an author. I was too fond of ending my stories with sights or sounds which paralysed my heroes’ faculties and left them without courage, words, or associations to tell what they had experienced.

Joel argues that nothing can ever quite be this way. No matter how unearthly a monster is, a human being would be able to give some kind of description:

We know things, he said, only through our five senses or our religious intuitions; wherefore it is quite impossible to refer to any object or spectacle which cannot be clearly depicted by the solid definitions of fact or the correct doctrines of theology … he was almost sure that nothing can be really “unnamable”. It didn’t sound sensible to him.

Carter argues just the opposite. In a truly “weird” situation, there are aspects are reality that are beyond human understanding. What’s more, “it is the province of the artist…to arouse strong emotion by action, ecstasy, and astonishment” whereas Joel argues that the artist’s role is “to maintain a placid interest and appreciation by accurate, detailed transcripts of every-day affairs.”This portion of the story plays out almost like a Socratic dialogue: a story designed to prove a philosophical point. The major difference here is that HPL hardly uses any actual dialogue. Within Lovecraft’s stories, I do tend to find his “unnamable” characteristics to usually be effective. But in other fiction, I sometimes find the tendency to be annoying. After all, isn’t it the author’s just to describe things?

Reviewer Anne M. Pillsworth (2014) makes an interesting point about about the differences between the two speakers in “The Unnamable”:

...the distinctions between our combatants are in fact more complex and thought-provoking. Manton may be pragmatic and rational, but he’s also conventionally religious and credulous of certain bits of folklore. He believes more fully in the supernatural, thinks Carter, than Carter himself. A contradiction on the surface, unless one supposes that Carter has seen enough to believe nothing is beyond nature, though it may be beyond present understanding. Carter argues for nuance, for attention to “the delicate overtones of life,” for the imagination and the metaphysical. But he appears to be a religious skeptic, and it’s he who tries to buttress his ideas with research and investigation. Manton listens to old wives’ tales. Carter delves into historical documents and visits the sites of supposed horror.

“The Unnamable” ends with our two characters experiencing a genuine supernatural occurrence. Carter, the skeptic who enjoys writing weird fiction, is provided with proof of the supernatural. Joel, the person who believes in the supernatural but believes in a more materialistic form of fiction, learns that there can be aspects of existence that are truly “unnamable” and indescribable. This is ironic in the sense that it is a “combination of circumstances or a result that is opposite of what might be expected or considered appropriate” (Becker, 2005, p. 215). Irony is always nice to have in a story.

Viewed as a work of satire, I rather like “The Unnamable.” Lovecraft’s sense of humor is on display and I appreciate that. I surmise that he wrote the story to push back against his critics and prove a point. Sure, it’s self-indulgent; but at least it is fun.

As a side note, the Carter in this story is presumably the same “Carter” from “The Statement of Randolph Carter,” (1919). However, this character begins “The Unnamable” (1923) disbelieving in the supernatural. If it is our Randolph, then the events of this 1923 story took place before the events of the 1919 story.

Title: “The Unnamable”
Author: H.P. Lovecraft
Dates: September 1923 (written), July 1925 (first published)
Genre: Fiction - Short story, horror, satire
Word count: 2,970 words
Date(s) read: 3/8/22-3/9/22
Reading journal entry #87 in 2022

Sources:
Link to the story: https://hplovecraft.com/writings/fict...

First publication citation: Weird Tales vol. 6, no. 1 (July 1925): 78–82.

Becker, J. (2006). The Complete Guide to low-budget feature filmmaking. Pointblank.

Joshi, S. T., & Schultz, D. E. (2001). An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press.

Pillsworth, A. M., & Emrys , R. (2014, December 30). Thought-Provoking Self-Indulgence: “The Unnamable” [web log]. Retrieved March 9, 2022, from https://www.tor.com/2014/12/30/hp-lov....

Link to the image used in this review: https://www.deviantart.com/muzski/art...

[Mika (Hiatus) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story didn't feel anyhow special or unique. I'm only wondering now what the story wanted to tell me 'cause I honestly don't know. It sounds like Carter was once more in trouble but this time with the devil (my own interpretation after reading the description of how the entity was supposed to look like). This story definitely discusses faith vs scepticism as one of the characters believes in an entity while the other is sceptical about it as it can't possibly exist in scientific terms.

Wasn't really creepy. It felt like I just watched people argue over some beliefs which I could also do in real life without having to read a book.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The horror isn't really memorable and is part of his standard repertoire, but I like how he self-inserts himself into the story to defend his work and cosmic horror in general against his critics. Very meta :D

[loqueleohoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

dos amigos se juntan en el cementerio a contar historias de terror/sucesos inexplicables y pasan cosas muy creepys, that's it

[osoi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ладно, вот теперь я немножко испугалась. Виновата в этом аудиокнига с подобающим случаю музыкальным сопровождением и совершенно невменяемым чтецом, от монотонного полушепота которого хотелось спрятаться под кровать. В следующий раз, чтобы уж точно проникнуться Лавкрафтом, заведу свою загробную шарманку (она же dark ambient playlist).

Да-да, кладбища. Картер снова шляется по местам упокоения усопших, но на этот раз его не ведут туда за ручку в поисках приключений. Оказывается, кладбище может стать отличным местом для послеобеденных дебатов, да и всякие безымянные могильные камни и дыры в плитах настраивают на философский лад. Картер спорит с другом относительно некоторых вопросов восприятия, а под конец даже рассказывает страшилку собственного сочинения. Друг выступает в рассказе чурбаном, признающим реальность только того, чему дано имя – и ни он, ни даже Картер, более-менее одаренный фантазией, оказались не готовы к тому, что явилось им в тот день на кладбище. О да. Нагнетание овер 200% – сначала спор (крипота про окна – это вообще красота, я раза четыре переслушала), следом рассказ, а потом кульминация, которая ну просто ни в какие ворота не лезет. В итоге вся их болтовня оказалась фигней, когда наконец нагрянуло великое и ужасное НЕИМЕНУЕМОЕ.

Отлично же. Сколько ни спорь с другом, что оставлять свет на ночь – иррационально и глупо.. когда придет серенький волчок – скушает ведь всех без разбору.

annikeh.net

[Ringman Roth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely Horrible. Probably one of Lovecraft's worse, up there with the tomb, and the first Nyarlathotep. I'm a huge Lovecraft fan, but this is silly, stupid, and feels like it was written by Frank Belknap Long and not Lovecraft.

The very opening begins with the 2 main characters discussing how something could be "unnamable" which is a really stupid idea if you think about it, but IMHO it would have to be something so borderline incomprehensible that you just didn't have words to describe it. Having a fully detailed description of the creature kind of defeats that purpose.
The first thing I thought after reading the creatures initial description was, it's not unnamable! It's clearly a Gorriffalo! After that, I couldn't take this story seriously. If you are new to Lovecraft, don't start with this story.

Its a shame for this to be Randolph Carter's second appearance, as its a horrible follow-up to the delightfully eerie "Statement of Randolph Carter" which is a great short story to read at a campfire.

[Andrew Pixton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story responding to criticism of his use of anti-descriptions. Indescribable, unfathomable, etc are common adjectives Lovecraft uses about his monsters. On the surface these might look like cop-outs to giving a disappointing description of his aliens. Not so, says he, because some of these things aren't completely in our dimension or aren't totally perceptible. It's like, how do you describe a brand new color you've never seen before? That's what this is. I could grant him that, except that he also uses words about things that seem more describable: "blasphemous torso" or "tenebrous wings" which make for eloquent prose, but also purple and non-descriptive. It also sort of bends his own mythos, if they're not totally perceptible, then how do they perceive them at all? Wouldn't he just not see it? Well, his effort is imaginative and original enough, I think. My favorite is the impossible geometric angles.

[Netanella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovecraft is sitting at the pub, having a draft with his homies. He starts his story:

We were sitting on a dilapidated seventeenth-century tomb in the late afternoon of an autumn day at the old burying-ground in Arkham, and speculating about the unnamable.

Of course you were, Howie. You could have been sitting at the bar having a draft with your homies, and you still would have been speculating about the unnamable.

That's what's so damn sexy about your writing, you just can't describe it.

Whatever it is.

And then, your characters get all queasy and crazy and faint-y. Because, you know -- oh God! I just can't describe it!

[Honesty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how self-aware of his own storytelling tendencies HP Lovecraft is in this one. Randolph Carter is so clearly a self-insert character, and as an amateur writer who can be equally self-indulgent, I’m all about it. While the horror aspect was a little underwhelming, the meta fictional aspects and trying to convince a Puritanical skeptic of this “unnamable” thing made it a fun read.

On a side note, if you don’t want to be mauled by a monster, don’t hang out with Randolph Carter. It happens with such frequency I’m surprised he has any friends at all.