Celephais (Las tierras oníricas nº 3)

Dream Cycle

by H.P. Lovecraft, Diana Gutiérrez (Editor), Ricardo Cebrián (Translator)

"En un sueño Kuranes vio la ciudad en el valle, y el nevado pico que dominaba el mar, y las alegres galeras que partían del puerto hacia regiones distantes donde el mar se encuentra con el cielo..."

Una odisea en busca de un sueño perdido, un relato de Lovecraft que, a su manera, resulta un pequeño esbozo de la que más tarde sería una de sus obras más ambiciosas: "La búsqueda onírica de la desconocida Kadath".

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

7 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1922

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]

Celephaïs was something that was created in a dream by a person called Kuranes.

It is a fictional city that appears in the author's other novellas. This is a simple story with a deeper meaning linked to civilizations.

My favorite three lines from this book.

"He dared not disobey the summons for fear it might prove an illusion like the urges and aspirations of waking life, which do not lead to any goal."

"The village seemed very old, eaten away at the edge like the moon which had commenced to wane, and Kuranes wondered whether the peaked roofs of the small houses hid sleep or death. "

"Endlessly down the horsemen floated, their chargers pawing the aether as if galloping over golden sands; and then the luminous vapours spread apart to reveal a greater brightness, the brightness of the city Celephais, and sea-coast beyond, and the snowy peak overlooking the sea, and the gaily painted galleys that sail out of the harbour toward distant regions where the sea meets the sky."

Lovecraft beautifully narrates the narrow bridge between dreams and reality. This is yet another beautiful creation by the author.

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[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A blue-purple velvet Crown Royal bag full of multi-sided dice sits on a table in the GREAT BEYOND. St. Peter, Charon and Beelzebub sit at the table playing Dungeons and Dragons and discussing H.P. Lovecraft’s 1922 short story Celephaïs.

Charon: I found it delightfully occult and with a bittersweet sense of longing that made me want to drop anchor.

Beelzebub: This is why he belongs with us.

Peter: You’re delusional, it is about a dream, he is dreaming and longing of heaven, of nirvana, of a place better than his world – it demonstrates his connection with the spiritual in a way more celestial than his usual arcane drudgery.

Beelzebub: AND, and … because he cannot reach those lofty heights, because the dream is unattainable, you teaser of humanity, he takes to drugs and stimulants to achieve what is set in his mind by radical ideologists. You will never accept that we are the true humanists, we are the ones who really care about humans as they are, not as they DREAM to be.

Charon: Ha! Twenty! My vorpal blade sings sweetly, another one bites the dust! You’re both wrong, H.P. was 32 when he wrote this and he was exploring a metaphysical dream state wherein the protagonist is set in and among the Dreamlands – Lovecraft’s cycle of stories that were wildly influential on his contemporaries and later writers. The hero connects with the fictional world through dreams – he is disconnecting with reality and growing tangentially with another reality.

Beelzebub: My lesser demon had +3 armor so suck it.

Peter: It is similar in tone and setting to his magnificent The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, but the key to this story is not the connection to the dream, but of his longing for a better reality.

Beelzebub: and sex and drugs and rock and roll.

Charon: You’re incorrigible.

Beelzebub: Thanks!

Peter: While this bears semblances to Lord Dunsany, and Edgar Rice Burroughs and L. Frank Baum, the central component in this, and in all of these dream state stories, is the return to home for each, that “there is no place like home”.

Beelzebub: That’s lovely, it really is. I just rolled a 19. Add +5 with my double bladed bastard sword of Hades and your paladin is toast.

Peter: Damn.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another one of those hypnotic dreamlike tales only Lovecraft could write. Kuranes is the last of his family. He lives more and more in his dreams hoping forever to settle down in the promised land of eternal youth and glory Celephais. Well, in the end (of his money and probably life) he escapes reality and is appointed King of that land, looking back on his terrestrial existence where a millionaire brewer lives the "purchased atmosphere of extinct nobility". A great story with direct criticism of civilization. Absolutely recommended!

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1920 when Lovecraft was thirty, “Celephais” resembles Lord Dunsany’s “The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap” (although their heroes’ fates differ considerably), and the tale is a fine example of Lovecraft’s Dunsanian style.

It tells of a man named Kuranes—later visited by Randolph Carter on his “dream quest”--who midway through life, “the last of his family, and alone among the indifferent millions of London” begins to seek a better city in the land of his own dreams. Here he discovers the port of Celephais, a city which does not change over time, and from which the traveler may journey through the land of dreams, even to the kingdom of Sarranian in the clouds. How he finds the city, loses it, and finds it again (together with his bodily fate in the earthly realm) is the subject of the story.

A tale well told, with less flowery adornment than is usual in Lovecraft’s Dunsanian tales, “Celephais” should please all Lovecraft readers, both the novice and the fan. But for those with an interest in Lovecraft development, it holds a particular importance, showing us how his attitude toward dreams and personal memory changes over time. In “Celephais” (1920), Kuranes prizes his dreamed city more than the recollections of his native Cornwall, but later, when he meets Randolph Carter in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (1927), his attitudes have changed. As S.T. Joshi remarks in his notes to “Celephais” in The Call of Cthulhu and other Weird Stories:

We are now told that Kuranes ‘could no more find content in those places [of his imagination], but had formed a mighty longing for the English cliffs and downlands of his boyhood’...Just as Lovecraft felt the need to return to his New England roots after two years in New York, so too does Randolph Carter in the novel find that the ‘sunset city’ of his dreams is nothing more than the memories of his boyhood in Boston. Both Lovecraft and his imagination have come home.

.

[Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovecraft's less-known Dream Cycle keeps amazing me. Markedly different from the typical Cthulhu horror (although still heavily connected to it), they provide a new angle on Lovecraft's work that's refreshing, thought-provoking, and hauntingly beautiful.

Celephaïs centres on a man lost in the dreary labyrinth of modernity and his search for the lost city of his otherworldly past. Or does it? The perfect ending adds a whole other element to an already excellent tale.

The only real criticism I have of these dreamy stories is that they tend to be very similar to each other; bearing a closer semblance to a writer's half-finished attempts at fantastic thought experiments. Yet, they're very short and absolutely enchanting, so what's not to love?

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wonderful, but a bittersweet dream story.
Kuranes dreamed of a wonderful city of Celephaïs when he was a child. He almost made it to a galley that was waiting in the harbour.

Today he doesn't have any money, his lands are gone too, he doesn't like the contemporary life, but his dreams are more vivid with each new dreaming. He even starts using drugs to speed up the process.

'The more he withdrew from the world about him, the more wonderful became his dreams;'

The thing is, Kuranes realized that the stories from our childhood hold wonders. People lose the ability to see them thanks to 'the poison of life'.
The ending is both wonderful and sad. Almost most of the story has wonderful imagery. The sad part, though, mentions Innsmouth and it suits the ending well.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many didn't like this but...damn! Makes me Love his Craft more than ever.

[Michael Kress · Rating 5 out of 5]

The dream-world is something I am fascinated by and want to learn and read more about. It's a common theme in Lovecraft's writing, with my introduction being "Beyond the Wall of Sleep." It's one of my favorite short-stories ever, and "Celephais" is also amazing. "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" entertains the idea that the dream-world is our primary world, with the waking world being secondary. This principle can also apply to "Celephais," especially since the protagonist tries to spend most of his time asleep in order to achieve his mission in the dream-world. He is trying to find the city of Celephais, which he visited in his youth but cannot find back. I too have had the sensation of permanent fixtures in my dreams. There is a house in my dream-world that has always been there; I visit it from time to time, and its location and structure remain constant. I'm also in the middle of The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud. It's more psychological and scientific than Lovecraft's fiction. Because of my obsession with this topic, I have to have the best of both worlds. I'll grab anything I can get my hands on. These books make me think about and remember my own dream-world a lot more during my waking hours, and how bizarre it really is.

[David Sarkies · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Deadly Addiction to Dreams
20 Aug 2022 – Aachen

Well, now I’m sitting at a cafe in the town (or is it a city, I’m not quite sure with these European places) of Aachen waiting for a couple of friends with whom I will be going on a tour of the city. I actually think it’s pretty cool to meet up with people I know on the otherside of the world because, well, being so distant from Australia means that there is an element that I’m disconnected from everything happening there. Okay, there was the time that I ran into a couple of people I knew at Hong Kong airport, so it does happen.

This is another of the stories that seem to be a part of Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle (at least that is what Goodreads calls it). The stories seem to follow a similar pattern in that the central character goes into an imaginary world, and then gets a rude shock at the end. Well, I would probably say that we as the reader gets a rude shock. In this story the main character enters these worlds through his dreams, and he finds one he loves so much, the Celephais of the title, that he wants to return. The problem is that everytime he dreams he goes to a different world.

To solve this problem he starts taking drugs to make him sleep so that he can get to this world, and he does, but sure enough he awakens, and when he goes back to sleep he is in a different world. Thus what we have is a character that is spiralling ever further into destitution just so that he can return to this dream world.

In fact, it reminds me of when I have pleasant dreams, and then we are rudely awakened to suddenly discover that I am back in reality. Mind you, the dream itself pretty quickly disappears from my mind and then I end up going back to my life. There is still one dream that I vividly remember for some reason though, but maybe that had to do with a couple of things that it predicted that ended up coming true. Oh, I do remember the dream I had last night, but that was because it was last night, and that I went to a party where all of my cousin’s children were present, and the kids were all absolute ratbags.

It also makes me wonder about other worlds of imagination, such as Dungeons and Dragons, and computer videos games. I have noted that some people really didn’t like us playing these games because they took us out of the real world and placed us into a world purely of our imagination. Then again, some of us lived pretty horrid lives at the time, and the only way we could escape was to go into the worlds where things weren’t anywhere near as bad (such as when a bully decided to push you around you could either chop their head off with your sword, or simply send a fireball in their direction). The problem is that like the main character in this book, we can end up getting so obsessed with these imaginary worlds that we end up losing touch with reality.

[Tempo de Ler · Rating 4 out of 5]

«(...) the foul thing that is reality»

«There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life.»

«(...) that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy»

[Gary Jaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Celephaïs By H. P. Lovecraft (1920/1922)

This is a short exploration of the Waking World individual and his falling into the lure of Dreamland. The focus of the story is escape. The main character is set up with despair at his current life:
"His money and lands were gone, and he did not care for the ways of people about him, but preferred to dream and write of his dreams."
Without any purpose to ground him in the Waking World by his lose of his identity – money and land, he becomes unmoored and needs an escape. This is found in dreams. It is clear that in the "The more he withdrew from the world about him, the more wonderful became his dreams; and it would have been quite futile to try to describe them on paper. Kuranes was not modern, and did not think like others who wrote. Whilst they strove to strip from life its embroidered robes of myth, and to shew in naked ugliness the foul thing that is reality, Kuranes sought for beauty alone. When truth and experience failed to reveal it, he sought it in fancy and illusion, and found it on his very doorstep, amid the nebulous memories of childhood tales and dreams."
The theme of childhood tales, myths, and legends, shows up here as it does in the Dream Quest (1926/1927). Dreamland is a way to access his preferred escape into childhood and leave behind adult failures.
"There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life."
The allure of escape is strong.
"He dared not disobey the summons for fear it might prove an illusion like the urges and aspirations of waking life, which do not lead to any goal."
He recalled a childhood event of seeming successful escape but where he was by adults supposedly rescued back into the gray ordinary Waking World.
"...where his spirit had dwelt all the eternity of an hour one summer afternoon very long ago, when he had slipt away from his nurse and let the warm sea-breeze lull him to sleep as he watched the clouds from the cliff near the village. He had protested then, when they had found him, waked him, and carried him home, for just as he was aroused he had been about to sail in a golden galley for those alluring regions where the sea meets the sky."
He despaired of his failed life and the misery that he found himself in and thus the allure of escape was extreme and powerful.
"In time he grew so impatient of the bleak intervals of day that he began buying drugs in order to increase his periods of sleep. Hasheesh helped a great deal, and once sent him to a part of space where form does not exist, but where glowing gases study the secrets of existence. And a violet-coloured gas told him that this part of space was outside what he had called infinity. The gas had not heard of planets and organisms before, but identified Kuranes merely as one from the infinity where matter, energy, and gravitation exist. Kuranes was now very anxious to return to minaret-studded Celephaïs, and increased his doses of drugs; but eventually he had no more money left, and could buy no drugs. Then one summer day he was turned out of his garret, and wandered aimlessly through the streets, drifting over a bridge to a place where the houses grew thinner and thinner. And it was there that fulfilment came, and he met the cortege of knights come from Celephaïs to bear him thither forever."
He used drugs to push that escape and to facilitate it. Then his failed life engulfed him, and he could not even afford the drugs that were his only means to escape into the world of dreams and Dreamland.
Now here Lovecraft creates a ‘happily-ever-after’ fantasy of escape succeeding. Allowing his character to jump from death into eternity in the projection of his dreams.
This happy allure is the ultimate escape and presumably something that Lovecraft himself desires. To live a life not as it is but as it once was.
Lovecraft creates the illusion of life beyond death. Why not, does not Christianity offer heaven as the eternal resting place of a soul in some never-never-land of bliss? Why not allow death to be transcended by the ultimate escape that it is? Do not all childhood stories end in: And they lived happily ever after?

[Britt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huh! So finally after all this time I am diving into HP Lovecraft! And I’m in. This story was very atmospheric and I love how it just melts into a dreamscape where anything can happen. The story was well paced and intriguing. Innsmouth was mentioned towards the end, and I’m reading that story as well, so I’m excited to see how they connect.

[Mika · Rating 3 out of 5]

About Kuranes dreaming of the city Celephaïs where he lived in his childhood.

Once more a story heavily focused on the dream of a protagonist. The nobility aspect made it appealing, otherwise I would have given it 2/5 since I already read something similar from H.P. Lovecraft.

[Montserrat♨️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

De mis favoritos de Lovecraft.

[Marc D. ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75/5 estrellas.

Es tan bello que me dejó sin palabras.

[Monika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Detta är två väldigt korta noveller och efter att ha läst dem så förstår jag varför de satts ihop i samma e-bok. De har väldigt mycket gemensamt, även om nu Azathoth sägs höra till Cthulhu-mytologin, vilket Celephaïs inte sägs göra. Båda rör sig i alla fall i drömmarnas värld. Läs mer på min blogg

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting enough. Typical Lovecraftian tale about fantastic dream cities.

[Love of Hopeless Causes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many have wondered if dream life is primary and waking the secondary. Perhaps that's why the Dream Cycles are my favorites. Beautiful artistic wonder in the autobiographical eternity of an hour.

True cosmic horror leaves the reader's perspective changed.

Plus The Yellow King, Hastur of Leng.

[Jonas Salonen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short story by Lovecraft. This story is quite different from many other Lovecraft stories. The atmosphere is very relaxed and as many others have pointed out, bittersweet. I would say the story is actually romantic.

So, not your usual Lovecraft but a nice little atmospheric read.

[Maxwell Frasher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I dont even like short stories why do I keep reading them

[Scott Doherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There are so many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and proasic with the poison of life.”

The title refers to a fictional city that later appears in Lovecraft's Dream Cycle or "Dreamlands" which is a vast, alternate dimension that can only be entered via dreams. The story itself as with many of his tales was inspired by a dream that Lovecraft had himself. Reading this is like a dream itself the words flow so eloquently and I always am amazing that Lovecraft finds the one word that no one else would ever use that just fits so perfectly creating the sentence. Lovecraft is a joy to read.

[Timothy Ball · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In a dream Kuranes saw the city in the valley, and the sea-coast beyond, and the snowy peak overlooking the sea, and the gaily painted galleys that sail out of the harbour toward the distant regions where the sea meets the sky. In a dream it was also that he came by his name of Kuranes, for when awake he was called by another name. Perhaps it was natural for him to dream a new name; for he was the last of his family, and alone among the indifferent millions of London, so there were not many to speak to him and remind him who he had been. His money and lands were gone, and he did not care for the ways of people about him, but preferred to dream and write of his dreams. What he wrote was laughed at by those to whom he shewed it, so that after a time he kept his writings to himself, and finally ceased to write. The more he withdrew from the world about him, the more wonderful became his dreams; and it would have been quite futile to try to describe them on paper."

[mira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Іноді випадково натрапляючи на щось коротке нічого від нього не очікуєш. Це мала бути просто маленька історія, яку я читатиму, щоб не готуватись до тесту, але це виявилось якимось новим світом, чимось абсолютно чарівним. Щойно я прочитала це двічі: в англійському та українському варіантах, але це прекрасно настільки, що, думаю, повернусь до Селефаїсу ще.

Історія про те, як чоловік, що у своїх снах має ім'я Куранес, створив своєю уявою чарівне місто, до якого постійно повертався думками, і в яке мріяв потрапити щоразу, як засинав

[Per · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://archive.org/details/weird-tal...
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Celephaïs

https://reactormag.com/lovecraft-rere...
https://web.archive.org/web/202210150...

[Jota Salamanca · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5
Que relato tan fantástico!
Uno de los temas que siempre me ha gustado del autor es cuando escribe sobre lo onírico y este relato explota mucho ese aspecto. Un relato muy mágico y con unas descripciones y conceptos espectaculares. Este es de los relatos en que más me he perdido en el mundo que crea, sin duda yo iría a celephais. A pesar de que presentía lo que ocurreria a lo ultimo no quita que su final es muy bueno y da ese toque turbio que le faltaba a la historia.

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Short story read in The Garden of Fear and Other Stories of the Bizarre and Fantastic]

A dream tale of dreams becoming a bit too real. It's beautiful and ethereal. Not really sure what it all adds up to, on its own its a pleasant short story.

[Walter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story couldn't really keep my attention

[Milly Gribben]

In hindsight, probably NOT the best place to start with Lovecraft.

[Steven Rainbow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful!

[Tobias Nilsson]

Clearly autobiographical wishfulfillment in places. Very nicely descriptive, and a well done twist.