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خلف جدار النوم
لسوف نعيش ساعات مفزعـة مع ( لافكرافت ) أعظم كُتاب الرعب فى القرن العشرين .. سوف نعرف سبب خوفنا من الهواء البارد ورائحـة النشـادر .. سـوف نرى الشجرة العملاقة التى تنمو من ذلك القبـر الغريب .. سـوف نتحدث همسًا عن الذى لا اسـم له خوفًا من أن يسمعنا .. سنناقش الحالة المرضية الغريبة لـ ( تشارلز دكستر وارد ) .. سنرى تلك الصورة المفزعة فى كتاب قديم بكوخ مهجور .. لسوف نعيش أسوأ كوابيسنا التى لم نعتد أن نقابلها إلا ... خلف جدار النوم ..
159 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1919
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
6,495 books19.6k followersHoward 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
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
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October 10, 2018
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Author of the horrific, the Gothic and the fantastic, a man who lived his short life as a recluse in his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island until his premature death at age 47, Beyond the Wall of Sleep is H. P. Lovecraft’s (1890-1939) classic tale of a reality less visible than our everyday earthbound material existence.
A quote from the opening paragraph: “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. Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.”
With this statement from our narrator, a young intern working at a mental hospital in the state of New York during the winter of 1900, we hear echoes of the shamanic worldview of many indigenous tribespeople and, more specifically, the dreamtime of the Australian Aborigines, that is, how the world of dreams is more enduring, more intense, more meaningful and, in terms of our vital spiritual life, more real than the ordinary world perceived by our senses.
However, this general philosophic reflection only sets the stage for the tale’s unfolding; specifically, how a 40-year old mountaineer from the rustic, wild Catskill Mountains by the name of Joe Slater is brought to the mental hospital after he brutally murdered a neighbor in a fit of insane rage.
Then, once at the hospital, Joe has his first episode of supercharged frenzy requiring four orderlies and a straitjacket. The narrator relates, “Slater raved for up to fifteen minutes, babbling in his backwoods dialect of great edifices of light, oceans of space, strange music and shadowy mountains and valleys. But most of all did he dwell upon some mysterious blazing entity that shook and laughed and mocked him.” Since Joe Slater could neither read nor write, nor was he ever acquainted with legends or fairy tales, the doctors remained baffled as to the basis or root cause of Joe’s visions, concluding the source to be nothing more definite than “abnormal dreams.”
Let’s pause here and explore an alternate explanation developed by psychiatrist Carl Jung. As a young doctor, Jung came in contact with a patient in a mental institution whose lack of education was similar to Joe Slater, a patient who suffered from paranoid-schizophrenia and reported seeing the sun’s dangling phallus whose motion caused wind to blow on earth.
As it turns out, this exact ‘phallus dangling from the sun’ imagery is part of the ancient Mithraic religion practiced by many Roman soldiers and having roots going back to very ancient Egypt. Jung concluded such a strikingly similar vision reported by his patient and incorporated into the ancient religion of Mithras arise from a common deep-seated psychic source we all share as humans, a source Jung termed the collective unconscious.
Within the collective unconscious there are certain primal images or motifs, for example, the image of the dangling phallus, and such primal images Jung termed archetypes. And each of these archetypal primal images have their shadow side, a shadow side that can be negative, destructive, and very, very threatening. Thus, employing this Jungian interpretation, the mysterious blazing entity that shook, laughed, and mocked Joe Slater, could be viewed as the shadow of a primal archetype from the collective unconscious.
Returning to the tale, the narrator goes on to relate how Joe Slater is not only a passive recipient of dream images, including the recurring image of some hideous, tormenting being, but when entering the dream world Joe becomes an active participant with an altered identity, that is, amazing as it might seem, Joe becomes himself a being of light. We read: “This thing had done Slater some hideous but unnamed wrong, which the maniac (if maniac he were) yearned to avenge. From the manner in which Slater alluded to their dealings, I judged that he and the luminous thing had met on equal terms; that in his dream existence the man was himself a luminous thing of the same race as his enemy. This impression was sustained by his frequent references to flying through space and burning all that impeded his progress.”
If this weird Lovecraft twist isn’t enough, the tale offers us much more: the narrator’s curiosity prompts him to ask himself if the light being inhabiting Joe Slater is perhaps attempting to directly communicate with him, the sensitive, perceptive, open-minded intern. Such curiosity prompts the narrator to unpack a long forgotten instrument he built back in his college days, a transmitting apparatus somewhat akin to a crude radio where he could, unbeknownst to the doctors or the authorities of his mental hospital, hook up to both Joe Slater’s head and his own head in order to possibly receive transmissions or some mysterious communications from the realm of light.
Of course, since the narrator will be conducting his experiments entirely in secret, he is very well aware he is crossing the line, that his hooking up his transmitting contraption to a mental patient’s head is highly unethical. But his curiosity is simply too strong for him to resist. One wonders if H .P. Lovecraft was making a statement about the moral and ethical integrity of people working with patients in mental hospitals, since, after all, when the author was three years old his own father entered a mental institution where he remained until his death five years later.
Anyway, the experiments are carried out. And the findings? I wouldn’t want to spoil by saying anything more specific, but I will note how the weirdness of this tale isn’t only ratcheted up one notch but, from this point forward we as readers are provided a triple dose of weirdness, that’s right, three more unexpected twists and bizarre turns in the unfolding of the tale’s mysterious and astonishing happening to keep any fan of fantastic Gothic horror in suspense right up until the last sentence.
Coda: I can personally relate to this Lovecraft tale since years ago I myself had a powerful dream were I encountered a luminous being. Fortunately, unlike Joe Slater, my luminous being was blazing with the energy of enlightenment and compassion. Thank goodness!
This tale is available on-line:
http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/t...
Author of the horrific, the Gothic and the fantastic, a man who lived his short life as a recluse in his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island until his premature death at age 47, Beyond the Wall of Sleep is H. P. Lovecraft’s (1890-1939) classic tale of a reality less visible than our everyday earthbound material existence.
A quote from the opening paragraph: “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. Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.”
With this statement from our narrator, a young intern working at a mental hospital in the state of New York during the winter of 1900, we hear echoes of the shamanic worldview of many indigenous tribespeople and, more specifically, the dreamtime of the Australian Aborigines, that is, how the world of dreams is more enduring, more intense, more meaningful and, in terms of our vital spiritual life, more real than the ordinary world perceived by our senses.
However, this general philosophic reflection only sets the stage for the tale’s unfolding; specifically, how a 40-year old mountaineer from the rustic, wild Catskill Mountains by the name of Joe Slater is brought to the mental hospital after he brutally murdered a neighbor in a fit of insane rage.
Then, once at the hospital, Joe has his first episode of supercharged frenzy requiring four orderlies and a straitjacket. The narrator relates, “Slater raved for up to fifteen minutes, babbling in his backwoods dialect of great edifices of light, oceans of space, strange music and shadowy mountains and valleys. But most of all did he dwell upon some mysterious blazing entity that shook and laughed and mocked him.” Since Joe Slater could neither read nor write, nor was he ever acquainted with legends or fairy tales, the doctors remained baffled as to the basis or root cause of Joe’s visions, concluding the source to be nothing more definite than “abnormal dreams.”
Let’s pause here and explore an alternate explanation developed by psychiatrist Carl Jung. As a young doctor, Jung came in contact with a patient in a mental institution whose lack of education was similar to Joe Slater, a patient who suffered from paranoid-schizophrenia and reported seeing the sun’s dangling phallus whose motion caused wind to blow on earth.
As it turns out, this exact ‘phallus dangling from the sun’ imagery is part of the ancient Mithraic religion practiced by many Roman soldiers and having roots going back to very ancient Egypt. Jung concluded such a strikingly similar vision reported by his patient and incorporated into the ancient religion of Mithras arise from a common deep-seated psychic source we all share as humans, a source Jung termed the collective unconscious.
Within the collective unconscious there are certain primal images or motifs, for example, the image of the dangling phallus, and such primal images Jung termed archetypes. And each of these archetypal primal images have their shadow side, a shadow side that can be negative, destructive, and very, very threatening. Thus, employing this Jungian interpretation, the mysterious blazing entity that shook, laughed, and mocked Joe Slater, could be viewed as the shadow of a primal archetype from the collective unconscious.
Returning to the tale, the narrator goes on to relate how Joe Slater is not only a passive recipient of dream images, including the recurring image of some hideous, tormenting being, but when entering the dream world Joe becomes an active participant with an altered identity, that is, amazing as it might seem, Joe becomes himself a being of light. We read: “This thing had done Slater some hideous but unnamed wrong, which the maniac (if maniac he were) yearned to avenge. From the manner in which Slater alluded to their dealings, I judged that he and the luminous thing had met on equal terms; that in his dream existence the man was himself a luminous thing of the same race as his enemy. This impression was sustained by his frequent references to flying through space and burning all that impeded his progress.”
If this weird Lovecraft twist isn’t enough, the tale offers us much more: the narrator’s curiosity prompts him to ask himself if the light being inhabiting Joe Slater is perhaps attempting to directly communicate with him, the sensitive, perceptive, open-minded intern. Such curiosity prompts the narrator to unpack a long forgotten instrument he built back in his college days, a transmitting apparatus somewhat akin to a crude radio where he could, unbeknownst to the doctors or the authorities of his mental hospital, hook up to both Joe Slater’s head and his own head in order to possibly receive transmissions or some mysterious communications from the realm of light.
Of course, since the narrator will be conducting his experiments entirely in secret, he is very well aware he is crossing the line, that his hooking up his transmitting contraption to a mental patient’s head is highly unethical. But his curiosity is simply too strong for him to resist. One wonders if H .P. Lovecraft was making a statement about the moral and ethical integrity of people working with patients in mental hospitals, since, after all, when the author was three years old his own father entered a mental institution where he remained until his death five years later.
Anyway, the experiments are carried out. And the findings? I wouldn’t want to spoil by saying anything more specific, but I will note how the weirdness of this tale isn’t only ratcheted up one notch but, from this point forward we as readers are provided a triple dose of weirdness, that’s right, three more unexpected twists and bizarre turns in the unfolding of the tale’s mysterious and astonishing happening to keep any fan of fantastic Gothic horror in suspense right up until the last sentence.
Coda: I can personally relate to this Lovecraft tale since years ago I myself had a powerful dream were I encountered a luminous being. Fortunately, unlike Joe Slater, my luminous being was blazing with the energy of enlightenment and compassion. Thank goodness!
This tale is available on-line:
http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/t...
September 21, 2020
مجموعة قصص رعب سيئة ربما باستثناء قصة "حالة تشارلز دكستر" .. قد يكون العيب في الترجمة؛ حيث اعترف أحمد خالد توفيق أنه قام باختصار القصص وحذف العديد من المشاهد المزعجة والوحشية، وربما بسبب ذلك ظهرت القصص في تلك الصورة السيئة
May 15, 2019
This story was written in 1919, when Lovecraft was only 29, but it is one of the most concentrated and effective tales of his early maturity. It is based on a passage from an article in The New York Tribune (“How Our State Police Have Spurred Our Way to Fame,” 4/27/19), which uses a particularly degenerate family—the Slaters or Slahters—as a typical example of the decadent dwellers of the remote regions of the Catskills.
In Lovecraft’s story, an unnamed intern in a “state psychopathic institution” describes the strange behavior and visions of one Joe Slater (or Slaader) whom he observed and with whom he conversed. It begins with this description of Slater:
...his appearance was that of the typical denizen of the Catskill Mountain region; one of those strange, repellent scions of a primitive colonial peasant stock whose isolation for nearly three centuries in the hilly fastnesses of a little-travelled countryside has caused them to sink to a kind of barbaric degeneracy, rather than advance with their more fortunately placed brethren of the thickly settled districts. Among these odd folk, who correspond exactly to the decadent element of “white trash” in the South, law and morals are non-existent; and their general mental status is probably below that of any other section of the native American people.Soon, though, our narrator, “a constant speculator concerning dream life,” begins to realize Joe’s ravings and visions are quite extraordinary:
The sum of all my investigation was, that in a kind of semi-uncorporeal dream life Slater wandered or floated through resplendent and prodigious valleys, meadows, gardens, cities, and palaces of light; in a region unbounded and unknown to man. That there he was no peasant or degenerate, but a creature of importance and vivid life; moving proudly and dominantly, and checked only by a certain deadly enemy, who seemed to be a being of visible yet ethereal structure, and who did not appear to be of human shape, since Slater never referred to it as a man, or as aught save a thing. This thing had done Slater some hideous but unnamed wrong, which the maniac (if maniac he were) yearned to avenge.. It is then that the intern, wishing to learn more than the inarticulate speech of Joe can reveal, constructs an electronic apparatus by which he can himself can see and hear Joe’s dreams. His account of what he meets in that dreamworld comprises the rest of the story.
Although I have little use for such cumbersome electronic devices—some inexplicable mental sympathy between two beings is enough explanation for me—I found the rest of the tale engrossing, and the intern’s connection both to Slater and to Slater’s dream-self (who is, in a real sense, not Slater) to be emotionally moving and disturbing at the same time.
All in all, a good tale, worth a try.
June 4, 2019
The line between reality and dreams is blurring in this great short story. Did Joe Slater, a degenerate hick, really kill a man or was he filled by another entity, something cosmic, something from beyond? In this great story Lovecraft comes up with a first person narrator who uses modern radio technology to reveal Slater's secret page by page. His superior doesn't believe him though he's fully convinced that he got a glimpse into another reality flying together with Joe Slater through a strange land. Well written, eerie, fantastic, a symphony of dream and nightmare. I can only recommend this accomplished story. Lovecraft leads you into a dreamland you'll never forget!
September 3, 2024
4.5 ⭐
„Отвъд стената на съня“ е забележителен сборник! Хауърд Лъвкрафт е сътворил загадъчни и любопитни истории, изпълнени с въздействаща мрачна атмосфера... Той е писал в духа на Едгар По, смесвайки научното със свръхестествено звучене, но и създал оригинални и запомнящи се творби! Единствено ме подразни това, че почти не е използвал пряка реч, понеже намирам липсата на диалози за също толкова крайно и дразнещо авторско решение, колкото и непрекъснатото им използване. Най-яркият хорър елемент, характерен за Лъвкрафт, е този за дълбокия страх от неизвестното, което не подлежи на еднозначно определение и лесно изразяване, поне към настоящия момент от развитието на човечеството. Големият писател е повлиял чрез своето разнообразно творчество не само на хорър жанра, но и на научната фантастика, тъй като определено е вложил космическа визия в него. Абсолютен фаворит от разказите в сборника ми е брилянтният „Кошмарът в Дънуич“... но силно ме впечатлиха също „В стените на Ерикс“ и „Съновидения във вещерския дом“.
„Отвъд стената на съня“ е забележителен сборник! Хауърд Лъвкрафт е сътворил загадъчни и любопитни истории, изпълнени с въздействаща мрачна атмосфера... Той е писал в духа на Едгар По, смесвайки научното със свръхестествено звучене, но и създал оригинални и запомнящи се творби! Единствено ме подразни това, че почти не е използвал пряка реч, понеже намирам липсата на диалози за също толкова крайно и дразнещо авторско решение, колкото и непрекъснатото им използване. Най-яркият хорър елемент, характерен за Лъвкрафт, е този за дълбокия страх от неизвестното, което не подлежи на еднозначно определение и лесно изразяване, поне към настоящия момент от развитието на човечеството. Големият писател е повлиял чрез своето разнообразно творчество не само на хорър жанра, но и на научната фантастика, тъй като определено е вложил космическа визия в него. Абсолютен фаворит от разказите в сборника ми е брилянтният „Кошмарът в Дънуич“... но силно ме впечатлиха също „В стените на Ерикс“ и „Съновидения във вещерския дом“.
July 13, 2015
Газ към книжарницата!
Ликувай, народе, нов сборник с разкази от недостижимия Лъвкрафт на книжния пазар. "Отвъд стената на съня" съдържа 15 истории, издавани за пръв път на български плюс една в нов превод. Издателството е Ибис, преводач е Адриан, корицата е на Пепи Станимиров, сиреч най-добрата комбинация възможна. Защото, ако трябва да сравня математиката с литературата, уравнението Ибис + Лъвкрафт + Адриан + Пепи = неподправено удоволствие. Просто е - всички изброени са най-добри в това, което правят.
И нека ви представя съдържанието на сборника:
1. Отвъд стената на съня - титулният разказ ни среща с един агресивен, простоват човек, затворен в лудница, чиито сънища не са обикновени.
2. Къщата - страховита сграда с богата история, чието зловещо излъчвание е оказало влияние на поколение хора, един от които е самият Едгар Алън По.
3. Котките на Ултар - кратък, но силен разказ, специално за почитателите на котките: животното със свещен статут в Древен Египет.
4. В стените на Ерикс - изненада! Не толкова хорър, колкото фантастика. Разказ с главен герой посетител на Венера, който е затворен в странен, необичаен лабиринт и се мъчи да се измъкне оттам.
5. Обреченият Сарнат - дарк фентъзи с библейски уклон.
6. Артър Джърмин - целият род Джърмин се славят като известни изследователи, антрополози и приключенци, ала са надарени с природна грозота. Младият Артър Джърмин не прави изключение. До какво ще го доведе този път търсенето в историята на собствения му род?
7. Гравюрата - на какво ли няма да се натъкнеш в пустошта, докато търсиш укритие от проливния дъжд...
8. Звярът от пещерата - изправете се срещу Звяра от пещерата, ако смеете!
9. Улицата - "Някои вярват, че местата и предметите, сред които живеем, имат душа; други не споделят този възглед и го подминават със снизходителна насмешка. Аз няма да вземам ролята на съдия в този спор - просто ще ви разкажа за една Улица."
10. В криптата - с такова заглавие може да предположите, че с героя на разказа няма да се случат приятни неща, и ще излезете прави. Но, във всички случаи, възмездието те достига.
11. Той - кой е Той? Какво знае? Какви тайни крие? Какви умения притежава? Ще ви се иска да не бяхте любопитствали толкова.
12. Съновидения във вещерския дом - може би най-дългият разказ в сборника наравно с последния. Злокобно имение, обиталище на вече покойна страховита вещица, чиито стаи сега се отдават под наем. Покойна ли?
13. Неназовимото - що за нещо е Неназовимото? Звяр ли е... или нещо повече?
14. Краят на човечеството - зловещо и ужасно е да останеш сам-самичък на цялата планета.
15. Дебнещият с��рах - така бе озаглавена малката книжка преди години, преведена от Любчо Николов, която бе първият досег на българския читател с Лъвкрафт. Въпреки че бе озаглавена така, тя не съдържаше този разказ. Сега грешката е поправена.
16. Кошмарът в Дънуич - ето го и бонусът, разказ, който съм чел отдавна в сборника "Двойната сянка". Семейство Уейтли са страховит, плашещ род в Дънуич, за чиито членове се разказват какви ли не истории. Кои от тези истории са верни и кои не, ще разберете след като прочетете.
От голямо значение е преводът на една книга да е направен като хората, а Адриан е вече еталон в това отношение. Всяко изречение е изшлайфано до блясък, което не е лесна работа при такъв труден за превод автор. Като добавим и ерудицията на преводача и информацията с която разполага за автора, творбите му, връзките които прави се получава перфектен краен резултат, за което свидетелстват многобройните, богати и изчерпателни бележки под линия.
Нещо, което тача изключително много в огромния ХФЛ. Стилът му е ироничен шамар в лицето на всички съвети по творческо писане - камара хора дават акъл да се избягват прилагателните и че диалозите трябва да са добре развити. При Лъвкрафт е обратното - пищен, разточителен и описателен метод на писане, почти лишен от диалози. И те плаши не с това което виждаш... а с това, което не. Наравно с Толкин е писателят, вдъхновил най-много музиканти, и не само.
Не се подлъгвайте по фалшивото убеждение, че понеже Лъвкрафт е писал преди близо век видиш ли, творбите му не били актуални. Истинската класика никога не излиза от мода, а неговите разкази отдавна са издържали проверката на времето. И Дон Кихот на Сервантес излиза за пръв път преди 400 години, но не е изгубил и грам от очарованието си - когато работиш с непреходни постулати по качествен начин, така се получава. А Лъвкрафт работи със страха, най-древната емоция. Не беше толкова скоро, когато друг писател да успее да ме уплаши и накара да изтръпна.
А, и още нещо. Сега е летен сезон. Внимавайте, докато четете книгата на плажа и после влезете в морето. Усетите ли случайно лигавото докосване на пипало, изобщо няма и да помислите, че е медуза или нещо от подобен безобиден тип.
Ликувай, народе, нов сборник с разкази от недостижимия Лъвкрафт на книжния пазар. "Отвъд стената на съня" съдържа 15 истории, издавани за пръв път на български плюс една в нов превод. Издателството е Ибис, преводач е Адриан, корицата е на Пепи Станимиров, сиреч най-добрата комбинация възможна. Защото, ако трябва да сравня математиката с литературата, уравнението Ибис + Лъвкрафт + Адриан + Пепи = неподправено удоволствие. Просто е - всички изброени са най-добри в това, което правят.
И нека ви представя съдържанието на сборника:
1. Отвъд стената на съня - титулният разказ ни среща с един агресивен, простоват човек, затворен в лудница, чиито сънища не са обикновени.
2. Къщата - страховита сграда с богата история, чието зловещо излъчвание е оказало влияние на поколение хора, един от които е самият Едгар Алън По.
3. Котките на Ултар - кратък, но силен разказ, специално за почитателите на котките: животното със свещен статут в Древен Египет.
4. В стените на Ерикс - изненада! Не толкова хорър, колкото фантастика. Разказ с главен герой посетител на Венера, който е затворен в странен, необичаен лабиринт и се мъчи да се измъкне оттам.
5. Обреченият Сарнат - дарк фентъзи с библейски уклон.
6. Артър Джърмин - целият род Джърмин се славят като известни изследователи, антрополози и приключенци, ала са надарени с природна грозота. Младият Артър Джърмин не прави изключение. До какво ще го доведе този път търсенето в историята на собствения му род?
7. Гравюрата - на какво ли няма да се натъкнеш в пустошта, докато търсиш укритие от проливния дъжд...
8. Звярът от пещерата - изправете се срещу Звяра от пещерата, ако смеете!
9. Улицата - "Някои вярват, че местата и предметите, сред които живеем, имат душа; други не споделят този възглед и го подминават със снизходителна насмешка. Аз няма да вземам ролята на съдия в този спор - просто ще ви разкажа за една Улица."
10. В криптата - с такова заглавие може да предположите, че с героя на разказа няма да се случат приятни неща, и ще излезете прави. Но, във всички случаи, възмездието те достига.
11. Той - кой е Той? Какво знае? Какви тайни крие? Какви умения притежава? Ще ви се иска да не бяхте любопитствали толкова.
12. Съновидения във вещерския дом - може би най-дългият разказ в сборника наравно с последния. Злокобно имение, обиталище на вече покойна страховита вещица, чиито стаи сега се отдават под наем. Покойна ли?
13. Неназовимото - що за нещо е Неназовимото? Звяр ли е... или нещо повече?
14. Краят на човечеството - зловещо и ужасно е да останеш сам-самичък на цялата планета.
15. Дебнещият с��рах - така бе озаглавена малката книжка преди години, преведена от Любчо Николов, която бе първият досег на българския читател с Лъвкрафт. Въпреки че бе озаглавена така, тя не съдържаше този разказ. Сега грешката е поправена.
16. Кошмарът в Дънуич - ето го и бонусът, разказ, който съм чел отдавна в сборника "Двойната сянка". Семейство Уейтли са страховит, плашещ род в Дънуич, за чиито членове се разказват какви ли не истории. Кои от тези истории са верни и кои не, ще разберете след като прочетете.
От голямо значение е преводът на една книга да е направен като хората, а Адриан е вече еталон в това отношение. Всяко изречение е изшлайфано до блясък, което не е лесна работа при такъв труден за превод автор. Като добавим и ерудицията на преводача и информацията с която разполага за автора, творбите му, връзките които прави се получава перфектен краен резултат, за което свидетелстват многобройните, богати и изчерпателни бележки под линия.
Нещо, което тача изключително много в огромния ХФЛ. Стилът му е ироничен шамар в лицето на всички съвети по творческо писане - камара хора дават акъл да се избягват прилагателните и че диалозите трябва да са добре развити. При Лъвкрафт е обратното - пищен, разточителен и описателен метод на писане, почти лишен от диалози. И те плаши не с това което виждаш... а с това, което не. Наравно с Толкин е писателят, вдъхновил най-много музиканти, и не само.
Не се подлъгвайте по фалшивото убеждение, че понеже Лъвкрафт е писал преди близо век видиш ли, творбите му не били актуални. Истинската класика никога не излиза от мода, а неговите разкази отдавна са издържали проверката на времето. И Дон Кихот на Сервантес излиза за пръв път преди 400 години, но не е изгубил и грам от очарованието си - когато работиш с непреходни постулати по качествен начин, така се получава. А Лъвкрафт работи със страха, най-древната емоция. Не беше толкова скоро, когато друг писател да успее да ме уплаши и накара да изтръпна.
А, и още нещо. Сега е летен сезон. Внимавайте, докато четете книгата на плажа и после влезете в морето. Усетите ли случайно лигавото докосване на пипало, изобщо няма и да помислите, че е медуза или нещо от подобен безобиден тип.
January 10, 2015
'How little does the earth-self know of life and its extent!'Dreams play an important role in Lovecraft's stories. This one doesn't belong to Cthulhu mythos. It is about the importance of dreaming and an opinion on what exactly the dreams mean. The narrator labels Freud's dream analysis as silly (puerile is the word used). He allows that some dreams are not that important, but there are others that have deeper meaning, the ones that show us something that most ordinary people wouldn't understand.
'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.'
Told by a narrator who works at an asylum, Beyond the Wall of Sleep tells a story of a disturbed man whose case woke up the narrator's old interest in dreams.
Joe Slater is committed to the asylum where our narrator works. He seemed to have two separate lives: the one when he is awake and the stranger one when he is dreaming. He is uneducated, dull, violent and an alcoholic. Oh, and a murderer. He gets worse as the time goes by and the narrator decides to get to the bottom of his bizarre behaviour. And he has just the right instruments to do it ('Now, in my intense desire to probe into the dream life of Joe Slater, I sought these instruments again.')
July 9, 2024
Inspired by a short story in You Like It Darker, I returned to an old companion from my youth.
It was very interesting to re-read this short story written in 1919, but yet feels very contemporary.
The eerie atmosphere combined with a hint of sci-fi still feels very modern, even more than a century later.
I see how this has inspired the short story "The Dreamers" and I would recommend to read it after the story by Stephen King.
It was very interesting to re-read this short story written in 1919, but yet feels very contemporary.
The eerie atmosphere combined with a hint of sci-fi still feels very modern, even more than a century later.
I see how this has inspired the short story "The Dreamers" and I would recommend to read it after the story by Stephen King.
April 20, 2014
I love H.P. Lovecraft but HOLY SHIT he is extremely racist.
October 9, 2015
Read Here (hattip to Glenn)
Opening: I have frequently wondered if the majority of mankind ever pause to reflect upon the occasionally titanic significance of dreams, and of the obscure world to which they belong. Whilst the greater number of our nocturnal visions are perhaps no more than faint and fantastic reflections of our waking experiences—Freud to the contrary with his puerile symbolism—there are still a certain remainder whose immundane and ethereal character permits of no ordinary interpretation, and whose vaguely exciting and disquieting effect suggests possible minute glimpses into a sphere of mental existence no less important than physical life, yet separated from that life by an all but impassable barrier.
Joe Slaader is white trash from the isolated region of the Catskills Mountains...Lovecraft's stories are seriously unsettling yet this one held a wonderment.
A month of Halloween 2015 reads:#1: 3* Nobody True by James Herbert: fraudio
#2: 4* The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard: fraudio
#3: 1* Brain Child by John Saul: fraudio
#4: 3* Domain (Rats #3) by James Herbert: fraudio
#5: 3* The Mourning Vessels by Peter Luther: paperback
#6: 2* The Doom of the Great City: ebook short-story
#7: 5* Long After Midnight by Ray Bradbury: fraudio
#8: 5* The Dead Zone by Stephen King: fraudio
#9: CR The Chalice: hardback
#11: CR Tales of Men and Ghosts: gutenberg
#12: 2* Shattered by Dean Koontz: fraudio
#13: 5* The Dunwich Horror: e-book: gutenberg
#14: CR Death At Intervals: paperback
#15: 3* Alone: gutenberg
#16: CR The Shunned House: gutenberg
#17: CR The Thing on the Doorstep: ebook
#18: 2* Shadows by Saul: fraudio
#19: CR Precious Cargo: paperback
#20: 2* The Magicians of the Golden Dawn: ebook
#21: 2* The Book of Black Magic
#22: 4* Beyond the Wall of Sleep
September 24, 2024
One of Lovecraft’s simpler tales. It’s the story of a man - native to Appalachia - who seemingly went mad and killed someone. He is acquitted by reason of insanity and sent to an asylum. The man has incredibly intense and vivid waking dreams. A young doctor there does experiments on the man, trying to link their minds, so that he too may experience these dreams. He suspects - rightly it turns out - that they may be much more than just dreams.
This is Lovecraft at his simplest and most effective. No frill, but creepy as hell. It bringing you a vastly expanded sense of the universe and an equally diminished sense of your self in it.
One thing to add about this tale is that is argues somewhat against HPL’s notorious well known racism. The dreamer in the tale is a white, poor, unlettered Appalachian. It is clear that Lovecraft has an equally disdainful view of these white folk. A fair amount of his racism may really have been an almost equally unpleasant classism or grotesque snobbery. Just a thought.
This is Lovecraft at his simplest and most effective. No frill, but creepy as hell. It bringing you a vastly expanded sense of the universe and an equally diminished sense of your self in it.
One thing to add about this tale is that is argues somewhat against HPL’s notorious well known racism. The dreamer in the tale is a white, poor, unlettered Appalachian. It is clear that Lovecraft has an equally disdainful view of these white folk. A fair amount of his racism may really have been an almost equally unpleasant classism or grotesque snobbery. Just a thought.
November 6, 2017
Stumbling my way back from my personal 40 Days & Nights, a book lover's arid reading slump, I seem to have made the unconscious decision to plunge into the vortex of sci-fi/fantasy in the form of both classic 'I've been meaning tos' & those more recently added to my ever-towering TBR. What can I say, quests & monsters from the mysterious depths seem to be the perfect cure for even the most stubborn of slumps.
That being said, I thought this was the perfect time for one of my biggest 'I've been meaning tos:' H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft short stories have been stacking up on my kindle since time immemorable (reading slumps make me a tad hyperbolic) & I spotted a decent collection at the library to fill in some of the gaps– fate! So I cracked open a notebook, preparing to record the random bits of genius I was sure to encounter, and set to reading.
I definitely haven't been disappointed in Lovecraft's writing up to this point. I've dipped a toe into the depths of Cthulhu with The Tomb, sworn off any future explorations of slimy isles with a preponderance of dead fish whilst reading Dagon, and enjoyably questioned in which reality I was reading Lovecraft's Polaris because, let's face it, reading is probably what consumes any sleep-worlds I might encounter just as it does this waking one. I've become fond of his prose and I can see the ripples towards current sci-fi and fantasy in each storyline.
I didn't end up falling down the Research Rabbit Hole until I read the following in Beyond the Wall of Sleep:
Now, I'm not going to plead ignorance but rather admit to it. Lovecraft has been back-burnered for me for years so I've not delved much further into Lovecraftian history and lore than being able to recognize a Cthulhu plushie if one should cross my path.
I've read my fair share of classics and am decently versed in that sinking feeling when you realize an incredibly intelligent author that has had a large influence in shaping the context & content of literature was also a raging idiot that foamed at the mouth along with the crowd when it came to certain social issues. Classism, sexism, racism, the list goes on and on and on. There's little more to do than to scratch your head in wonder unless you feel lead to seek out their resting place for a bit of a tantrum or requisition a Ouija board for the scholarly pursuit of a conversation that might explain some of their more glaring deficiencies.
For most authors I stand firmly in the middle of "they were a result of their era" & "they should have risen above their era because I respect their work & how dare they entertain the idiocies of mere mortals." Okay, possibly slightly skewed towards the latter. Still, I didn't actually know whether to take the above quote as racism from Lovecraft or part of his characterization of an unreliable narrator. Hence, the Research Rabbit Hole & subsequent sinking feeling.
As I was reading, I took the quote in stride with the rest of the narrator's remarks about Slater. His denigration of Slater seems to be part and parcel of his clinical nature. He philosophizes while being the unenlightened one; his interest is piqued by Slater because he realizes that Slater is more than what he sees him as. True, the 'more' is the culmination of the fantastical element but a reader could see this as part of the dereliction of an unreliable narrator. The character's racism being part of that which eclipses his view of the totality of Slater– his "brother of light." Of course, Lovecraft's letters and poem (poems? I'm only aware of the one & don't wish to mention the title) provide context that seemingly obliterate my initial takeaways from Beyond but I truly do wish Lovecraft's flaws had cleared from his vision so that he could have seen that sort of kinship betwixt all people.
To be honest, had Lovecraft been working on that level, Beyond would probably merit a five-star rating from me. I guess it says something of how much I've loved the handful of short stories I've read so far that I thought that, despite his era, he might have the propensity to layer this particular story in such a way. So, to that question of whether Lovecraft and his ilk retain their quality when they prove to be flawed humans...
In Julien Barnes' The Send of an Ending, there is a discussion between a teacher & his students about history, i.e. what is history. One student, the one esteemed as a genius by teachers and peers, replies, “That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.”
While literature skews that slightly– I don't believe readers must know the history of an author to find enjoyment or understanding in a story because those shades of enjoyment and understanding vary from person to person and, as such, are supremely subjective –I think it's an apt quote in the argument of quality. I don't see my foray into Lovecraft subsiding because of his racism but it does change the tenor of his voice & what I might get from his other stories. I don't think an artist's character should be separated from his work; an artist's character gives another layer of understanding to what we're seeing & what might be learned from it. Even if that layer of understanding is the realization that talented writers are simply flawed human beings like the rest of us or that talent, even genius, though achieved in one area of a one's life doesn't remove one from striving to better ourselves & the world around us, to being challenged by one's time instead of surrendering to it.
In all fairness, my rating might well be influenced by my research but I tried to focus on rating in comparison to the other short stories read. Without that layer that I initially heard entwined throughout this character, the previous stories have been more enjoyable. I do think I'll recall this short story if I ever find myself glaring a little too harshly at any future idols, however. It's the first instance where I've had that experience of initial interpretation vs. author context and I'm not quite sure whether it was just a matter of that being where my head was at the moment or, as mentioned above, I was just enjoying the previous stories to that extent & seeing such a kinship with modern writing that Lovecraft's era & potential personality didn't factor into things immediately.
That being said, I thought this was the perfect time for one of my biggest 'I've been meaning tos:' H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft short stories have been stacking up on my kindle since time immemorable (reading slumps make me a tad hyperbolic) & I spotted a decent collection at the library to fill in some of the gaps– fate! So I cracked open a notebook, preparing to record the random bits of genius I was sure to encounter, and set to reading.
I definitely haven't been disappointed in Lovecraft's writing up to this point. I've dipped a toe into the depths of Cthulhu with The Tomb, sworn off any future explorations of slimy isles with a preponderance of dead fish whilst reading Dagon, and enjoyably questioned in which reality I was reading Lovecraft's Polaris because, let's face it, reading is probably what consumes any sleep-worlds I might encounter just as it does this waking one. I've become fond of his prose and I can see the ripples towards current sci-fi and fantasy in each storyline.
I didn't end up falling down the Research Rabbit Hole until I read the following in Beyond the Wall of Sleep:
Among these odd folk, who correspond exactly to the decadent element of 'white trash' in the South, law and morals are non-existent; and their general mental status is probably below that of any other section of the native American people.
Now, I'm not going to plead ignorance but rather admit to it. Lovecraft has been back-burnered for me for years so I've not delved much further into Lovecraftian history and lore than being able to recognize a Cthulhu plushie if one should cross my path.
I've read my fair share of classics and am decently versed in that sinking feeling when you realize an incredibly intelligent author that has had a large influence in shaping the context & content of literature was also a raging idiot that foamed at the mouth along with the crowd when it came to certain social issues. Classism, sexism, racism, the list goes on and on and on. There's little more to do than to scratch your head in wonder unless you feel lead to seek out their resting place for a bit of a tantrum or requisition a Ouija board for the scholarly pursuit of a conversation that might explain some of their more glaring deficiencies.
For most authors I stand firmly in the middle of "they were a result of their era" & "they should have risen above their era because I respect their work & how dare they entertain the idiocies of mere mortals." Okay, possibly slightly skewed towards the latter. Still, I didn't actually know whether to take the above quote as racism from Lovecraft or part of his characterization of an unreliable narrator. Hence, the Research Rabbit Hole & subsequent sinking feeling.
As I was reading, I took the quote in stride with the rest of the narrator's remarks about Slater. His denigration of Slater seems to be part and parcel of his clinical nature. He philosophizes while being the unenlightened one; his interest is piqued by Slater because he realizes that Slater is more than what he sees him as. True, the 'more' is the culmination of the fantastical element but a reader could see this as part of the dereliction of an unreliable narrator. The character's racism being part of that which eclipses his view of the totality of Slater– his "brother of light." Of course, Lovecraft's letters and poem (poems? I'm only aware of the one & don't wish to mention the title) provide context that seemingly obliterate my initial takeaways from Beyond but I truly do wish Lovecraft's flaws had cleared from his vision so that he could have seen that sort of kinship betwixt all people.
To be honest, had Lovecraft been working on that level, Beyond would probably merit a five-star rating from me. I guess it says something of how much I've loved the handful of short stories I've read so far that I thought that, despite his era, he might have the propensity to layer this particular story in such a way. So, to that question of whether Lovecraft and his ilk retain their quality when they prove to be flawed humans...
In Julien Barnes' The Send of an Ending, there is a discussion between a teacher & his students about history, i.e. what is history. One student, the one esteemed as a genius by teachers and peers, replies, “That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.”
While literature skews that slightly– I don't believe readers must know the history of an author to find enjoyment or understanding in a story because those shades of enjoyment and understanding vary from person to person and, as such, are supremely subjective –I think it's an apt quote in the argument of quality. I don't see my foray into Lovecraft subsiding because of his racism but it does change the tenor of his voice & what I might get from his other stories. I don't think an artist's character should be separated from his work; an artist's character gives another layer of understanding to what we're seeing & what might be learned from it. Even if that layer of understanding is the realization that talented writers are simply flawed human beings like the rest of us or that talent, even genius, though achieved in one area of a one's life doesn't remove one from striving to better ourselves & the world around us, to being challenged by one's time instead of surrendering to it.
In all fairness, my rating might well be influenced by my research but I tried to focus on rating in comparison to the other short stories read. Without that layer that I initially heard entwined throughout this character, the previous stories have been more enjoyable. I do think I'll recall this short story if I ever find myself glaring a little too harshly at any future idols, however. It's the first instance where I've had that experience of initial interpretation vs. author context and I'm not quite sure whether it was just a matter of that being where my head was at the moment or, as mentioned above, I was just enjoying the previous stories to that extent & seeing such a kinship with modern writing that Lovecraft's era & potential personality didn't factor into things immediately.
August 28, 2017
Най-добрият сборник! Любими разкази: Отвъд стената на съня, Артър Джърмин, Гравюрата, Съновидения във вещерския дом, Дебнещият страх и Комшарът в Дънуич
November 29, 2017
Сега вече си говорим. Жанровото разнообразие в сборника, хем показва Лъвкрафт в друга светлина, хем помага на по-мрачните му истории да изпъкнат и да те хванат за гърлото.
Отвъд стената на съня – Тъмна мистерия с технологичен привкус, която смесва научното и митологичното. Един пациент на санаториум получава видения, които не може да опише. С помощта на технологията един учен ще проникне отвъд стената на сънищата. Какво ще види там обаче?
Къщата – Разказът е като студентско проучване за тайните на една стара къща и обитателите и през годините. Много атмосферен.
Котките на Ултар – Възмездието е вкусно нещо, питайте котките.
В стените на Ерикс – Фантастика за планетата Венера, която е повлияла на десетки автори, начело с Борхес и има собствено място в субултурите и до днес. Един първопроходник отива да търси изгубен олега в джунглите на Венера. Това което намира... не бих виго разказал, защото изненадата е пълна.
Обреченият Сарнат – Мрачна легенда, която само чичо Хауърд може да акушира. Фентазийна приказка с трагичен край.
Артър Джърмин – Тук Дарвин сигурно се смее с пълни гърди. Авторът ни показва странната история на едно още оп-странно семейство. История, която дори наследниците не могат да понесат.
Гравюрата – Това сигурно е майката на слашерите, макар разказът да е омекотен от сладкодумието на Лъвкрафт. За пореден път, деца, ако попаднете в пустоща, не влизайте в стари къщи на сухо и топло.
Звярът от пещерата – А звяр лие? А миличкият Том Сойер само успя да се загуби някога.
Улицата – Отново жанровополагащо произведение, просто виждам след него неща на Кинг, Матисън и една камара други. Запознайте се с една улица, ама да сте си предупредени.
В криптата – Сигурно любимият ми разказ от сборника, психологически кошмар, примесен с физическо наказание. Един стиснат гробар попада в една от криптити. Измъква се, но има цена и тя е справедлива.
Той – Отново любим сюжет, използван от десетки автори (Фредерик Браун ми е най-пресен). Доказателство, че гениалната идея колкото и пъти да се преработва, остава гениална. Ню Йорк крие много тайни. Една от тях ще бъде разкрита, но дали човекът който има тази възможност може да го понесе?
Съновидения във вещерския дом – Една от най-емблематичните творби на автора изобщо. Плашеща смес от сънища и реалност, суеверие и рационалност, страх и надежда. Разкошен. В евтиния разпадащ се бордей винаги са се случвали странни неща. Един студент ще предизвика ескалирането им. Как? Кой? Нищо повече няма да кажа.
Неназовимото – Есе диалог, чрез което Лъвкрафт директно говори на читателите си. Как се хваща неназовимото? Защо ни привлича? Какво е?
Краят на човечеството – Мрачен прогностичен разказ, който показва, че авторът далеч не е бил толкова самовглъбен и отнесен, колкото се опитват да го искарат мнозина, които не могат да му стъпят и на малкия пръст. Просто не е харесвал човечеството, както и приятелят му и съвременик Робърт хХауърд между другото, но е завил в различна посока.
Дебнещият страх – Тук нещата ескалират много бързо, много. Чутовна мрачна фантазия. Какво се крие в имението на хълма и защо го избягват хората?
Кошмарът в Дънуич – Титанично произведение, което съчетава всички позитиви на лъвкрафтовата литература. Просто задължително.
Държа да отбележа, че след нелепата смърт на Адриан в преводната литература на ужаса се отвори такава яма, че незнам дали някой от моето поколение ще може даже да почне да я запълва. Лъвкрафт, макар и да няма стотици произведения, така и остана недопреведен, а десетките други автори, творящи в неговите селения даже не се споменават на български.
Може и да не се окажа прав (дано), защото ми загатнаха, че нещо зло се задава догодина.
Отвъд стената на съня – Тъмна мистерия с технологичен привкус, която смесва научното и митологичното. Един пациент на санаториум получава видения, които не може да опише. С помощта на технологията един учен ще проникне отвъд стената на сънищата. Какво ще види там обаче?
Къщата – Разказът е като студентско проучване за тайните на една стара къща и обитателите и през годините. Много атмосферен.
Котките на Ултар – Възмездието е вкусно нещо, питайте котките.
В стените на Ерикс – Фантастика за планетата Венера, която е повлияла на десетки автори, начело с Борхес и има собствено място в субултурите и до днес. Един първопроходник отива да търси изгубен олега в джунглите на Венера. Това което намира... не бих виго разказал, защото изненадата е пълна.
Обреченият Сарнат – Мрачна легенда, която само чичо Хауърд може да акушира. Фентазийна приказка с трагичен край.
Артър Джърмин – Тук Дарвин сигурно се смее с пълни гърди. Авторът ни показва странната история на едно още оп-странно семейство. История, която дори наследниците не могат да понесат.
Гравюрата – Това сигурно е майката на слашерите, макар разказът да е омекотен от сладкодумието на Лъвкрафт. За пореден път, деца, ако попаднете в пустоща, не влизайте в стари къщи на сухо и топло.
Звярът от пещерата – А звяр лие? А миличкият Том Сойер само успя да се загуби някога.
Улицата – Отново жанровополагащо произведение, просто виждам след него неща на Кинг, Матисън и една камара други. Запознайте се с една улица, ама да сте си предупредени.
В криптата – Сигурно любимият ми разказ от сборника, психологически кошмар, примесен с физическо наказание. Един стиснат гробар попада в една от криптити. Измъква се, но има цена и тя е справедлива.
Той – Отново любим сюжет, използван от десетки автори (Фредерик Браун ми е най-пресен). Доказателство, че гениалната идея колкото и пъти да се преработва, остава гениална. Ню Йорк крие много тайни. Една от тях ще бъде разкрита, но дали човекът който има тази възможност може да го понесе?
Съновидения във вещерския дом – Една от най-емблематичните творби на автора изобщо. Плашеща смес от сънища и реалност, суеверие и рационалност, страх и надежда. Разкошен. В евтиния разпадащ се бордей винаги са се случвали странни неща. Един студент ще предизвика ескалирането им. Как? Кой? Нищо повече няма да кажа.
Неназовимото – Есе диалог, чрез което Лъвкрафт директно говори на читателите си. Как се хваща неназовимото? Защо ни привлича? Какво е?
Краят на човечеството – Мрачен прогностичен разказ, който показва, че авторът далеч не е бил толкова самовглъбен и отнесен, колкото се опитват да го искарат мнозина, които не могат да му стъпят и на малкия пръст. Просто не е харесвал човечеството, както и приятелят му и съвременик Робърт хХауърд между другото, но е завил в различна посока.
Дебнещият страх – Тук нещата ескалират много бързо, много. Чутовна мрачна фантазия. Какво се крие в имението на хълма и защо го избягват хората?
Кошмарът в Дънуич – Титанично произведение, което съчетава всички позитиви на лъвкрафтовата литература. Просто задължително.
Държа да отбележа, че след нелепата смърт на Адриан в преводната литература на ужаса се отвори такава яма, че незнам дали някой от моето поколение ще може даже да почне да я запълва. Лъвкрафт, макар и да няма стотици произведения, така и остана недопреведен, а десетките други автори, творящи в неговите селения даже не се споменават на български.
Може и да не се окажа прав (дано), защото ми загатнаха, че нещо зло се задава догодина.
August 21, 2016
Това, което страшно харесвам в Х. Ф. Лъвкрафт е неговия безформен, безименен, често безплътен ужас! Страхът от неопределеното, от неизвестното, от неосъзнатото... Сенки, спотайващи се в най-дълбоките дебри на подсъзнанието. Лепкавият мрак на кошмарите, заради който те е страх да затвориш очи. А сега майсторът отново е тук, с цели шестнадесет новопреведени (от Адриан Лазаровски) разказа, събрани под заглавието „Отвъд стената на съня” (изд. „Ибис”).Прочетете ревюто на "Книжни Криле":
https://knijnikrile.wordpress.com/201...
https://knijnikrile.wordpress.com/201...
July 29, 2016
Книга, която е прекрасен образец на майсторството на Лъвкрафт. Чудесни разходи, заредени с толкова реална и фантастична, толкова гъста атмосфера, че читателят наистина попада на местата, където се развива действието.
В Кинг винаги ми е допадало изграждането на образите на героите и тяхната човешка многопластовост, а в Лъвкрафт - пресъздаването на обстановката, където се развива действието. Предполагам, че на някои читатели, описателността ще им дойде по-тежичка, но за мен беше като много дълга глътка тежко, червено вино, което ме замайваше с всеки един от разказите. Перфектен Лъвкрафт.
В Кинг винаги ми е допадало изграждането на образите на героите и тяхната човешка многопластовост, а в Лъвкрафт - пресъздаването на обстановката, където се развива действието. Предполагам, че на някои читатели, описателността ще им дойде по-тежичка, но за мен беше като много дълга глътка тежко, червено вино, което ме замайваше с всеки един от разказите. Перфектен Лъвкрафт.
March 14, 2026
This is a story about a guy working in an asylum who suspects that one of his patients is sometimes influenced or even possessed by a separate, alien intelligence. The way our narrator figures out what’s happening with his patient is by observing changes in the patient’s behavior and speech patterns.
A criticism of Lovecraft’s writing that I see a lot of people make is that he goes pretty far out of his way to avoid writing dialogue. As a general criticism that line of thought doesn’t hold a lot of weight for me. An author’s style is an author’s style and the fact that we’re still reading and talking about Lovecraft a century after the fact speaks to the author figuring out how to make his style work for him.
But in this specific instance I do think the lack-of-dialogue criticism has merit. It is a very odd thing to write a story which hinges on a character speaking like they’re two separate people and not actually portray that. I think this story fails on a fundamental level because of that lack.
Despite calling it a failure I don’t think this is completely without worth though. The idea at the root of it is certainly cool. Also eventually the second intelligence living in this guy’s head gives a monologue and that speech is pretty great. It’s evocative of all kinds of cosmic strangeness, I liked it a lot. None of this is enough to save the story for me, but it’s enough to get it to two stars.
A criticism of Lovecraft’s writing that I see a lot of people make is that he goes pretty far out of his way to avoid writing dialogue. As a general criticism that line of thought doesn’t hold a lot of weight for me. An author’s style is an author’s style and the fact that we’re still reading and talking about Lovecraft a century after the fact speaks to the author figuring out how to make his style work for him.
But in this specific instance I do think the lack-of-dialogue criticism has merit. It is a very odd thing to write a story which hinges on a character speaking like they’re two separate people and not actually portray that. I think this story fails on a fundamental level because of that lack.
Despite calling it a failure I don’t think this is completely without worth though. The idea at the root of it is certainly cool. Also eventually the second intelligence living in this guy’s head gives a monologue and that speech is pretty great. It’s evocative of all kinds of cosmic strangeness, I liked it a lot. None of this is enough to save the story for me, but it’s enough to get it to two stars.
November 4, 2025
I have copied the book blurb of this short story of H. P. Lovecraft’s:
”Beyond the Wall of Sleep" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft written in 1919 and first published in the amateur publication Pine Cones in October 1919.
Lovecraft said the story was inspired by an April 27, 1919 article in the New York Tribune. Reporting on the New York state police, the article cited a family named Slater or Slahter as representative of the backwards Catskills population. The nova mentioned at the end of Lovecraft's story is a real star, known as GK Persei; the quotation is from Garrett P. Serviss' Astronomy with the Naked Eye (1908).
The title of the story may have been influenced by Ambrose Bierce's "Beyond the Wall"; Lovecraft was known to be reading Bierce in 1919. Jack London's 1906 novel Before Adam, which concerns the concept of hereditary memory, contains the passage, "Nor...did any of my human kind ever break through the wall of my sleep.”
The narrator is an intern who is helping the doctors (alienists, as psychiatrists used to be called) at a state psychiatric institution deal with a murderer called Joe Slater. Slater attacked and murdered a man with his bare hands, and maybe teeth, after waking up (perhaps) from sleeping late in the day as was his habit after a night of heavy drinking. But the intern did not believe he was simply experiencing some sort of sleep disorder or was mentally ill. The intern believed Slater’s mind was mentally transported into a dream realm where his body was taken over by another, smarter, more worldly being. In order to experience whatever Slater was experiencing while asleep, the intern uses what he calls his cosmic dream-radio. The intern fits a transmitter to Slater’s forehead and a receiver to his own forehead. The intern was right! He also makes the interesting discovery stars are living beings.
Ok then.
The short story ‘Beyond the Wall of Sleep’ causes me to wonder if Lovecraft was oblivious of the effects of certain mushrooms and other natural hallucinatory substances on the brain when ingested. Did they have refrigeration in his day? If so, was it available to only wealthy people only or was it possible for regular people to have? In any case, I read in a biography he suffered from hypnopompic hallucinations.
From Google:
”The hallucinatory effects experienced during awakenings with paralysis are known as hypnopompic hallucinations, which are vivid, frightening, and often seem real. These hallucinations can include the perception of a dangerous presence in the room, feeling pressure on the chest, or even sensations of movement. They occur when the brain is transitioning from sleep to wakefulness and has not fully re-established muscle control.”
I have suffered this same waking paralysis! Twice! Once when I was a child, and one other time as an adult in my 40’s. I could not move my body, only my eyes, when I woke up in the middle of the night. To my terror when this happened to me as an adult, I saw a vague figure in black at the foot of my bed. As a child, when I woke up paralyzed, I felt an evil presence, and I felt what I interpreted as a hand on my chest pressing me down. I struggled against my paralysis both times it happened. Then I must have fallen asleep again both times. At any rate, when I woke up hours later feeling quite normal and unparalyzed, I was fine, but more than a little disturbed by what had happened. Did I have a nightmare? When it happened to me as an adult, I googled what had happened, and I was shocked to discover this was an observed brain hiccup which had been given a name due its commonality of occurrence and of being reported by people. I can attest to the scariness during the paralysis. I still find it extremely fascinating, and I can’t help but think of it now and then. I also think about sleepwalkers. I have heard marvelous and amazing stories about the exciting dangers sleepwalkers have discovered themselves in.
It was the paralysis that gave it away to me as some sort of incomplete transition from sleeping to waking. I have a cat now, gentler reader, and I almost always have had a cat in my life. I have seen how in deep sleep her body was inert and seemingly paralyzed, particularly while dreaming, when she was obviously performing a slight twitchy movement of running or eating but without actually getting up to run or eat. I had read people also have some sort of brain/body mechanism while dreaming to minimize the physical body from physically acting out in response to dreams. So even though I did experience fear both times, once I was fully awake after the incident I had as an adult, I suspected this was some sort of mistiming of sorts of my brain/body transition from sleeping to waking. As a child, though, I thought a ghost had roused me at first, then I wondered if my cat had jumped on me. I also woke up, just once, babbling, in my 40’s, or as most people call it, talking in my sleep. I vaguely recall talking to someone in a dream as I woke. I couldn’t stop laughing about this occurrence. It seemed very funny to me, but also, like, wow! Right? Sleep disturbances! Very likely many authors have gotten their best ideas for a story from them…
When I was in 8th grade, I had forgotten about an assignment given by my language arts teacher to write a short story. I ran to the school library, sat down at one of the tables there, and wrote down in ten minutes about a nightmare I had had just that morning before the alarm had gone off. It involved vampires and being chased and defeating them. It was sort of a comedy in my retelling. Why was I dreaming about vampires? Shut up. I got an A, right? And yes, I think Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are gorgeous in that movie, and I love Ann Rice’s vampire series. You know which one.
The ‘scientific’ (I use the term loosely) plot of this short story is one which is constantly being rebooted today in some form. So, ‘Beyond the Wall of Sleep’ seems dull to me because of its overexposure as a plot of many movies and thriller science fiction novels. I suppose it was original when Lovecraft wrote it? Whatever. It IS a well written version as imagined by Lovecraft. Today, many science fiction movies or series STILL use the weird-wired-helmet-transferrence-of-Brains/Personality-to-another-while-tied-up-to-a-table story.
I know some readers will take issue with how Lovecraft sees what my generation called hillbillies, but us baby boomers saw these depictions of poor southerners/Catskills residents/Appalachian towns all of the time on TV and movies up through the 1970’s.
This is the pilot episode for the long-running hit TV show, The Hillbillies:
https://youtu.be/WrPwGXk69vs?si=eIfhP...
Hmmm. Many of us can’t seem to stop wondering how Lovecraft got his ideas. It appears I am in the company of many of the literary Greats!
”Beyond the Wall of Sleep" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft written in 1919 and first published in the amateur publication Pine Cones in October 1919.
Lovecraft said the story was inspired by an April 27, 1919 article in the New York Tribune. Reporting on the New York state police, the article cited a family named Slater or Slahter as representative of the backwards Catskills population. The nova mentioned at the end of Lovecraft's story is a real star, known as GK Persei; the quotation is from Garrett P. Serviss' Astronomy with the Naked Eye (1908).
The title of the story may have been influenced by Ambrose Bierce's "Beyond the Wall"; Lovecraft was known to be reading Bierce in 1919. Jack London's 1906 novel Before Adam, which concerns the concept of hereditary memory, contains the passage, "Nor...did any of my human kind ever break through the wall of my sleep.”
The narrator is an intern who is helping the doctors (alienists, as psychiatrists used to be called) at a state psychiatric institution deal with a murderer called Joe Slater. Slater attacked and murdered a man with his bare hands, and maybe teeth, after waking up (perhaps) from sleeping late in the day as was his habit after a night of heavy drinking. But the intern did not believe he was simply experiencing some sort of sleep disorder or was mentally ill. The intern believed Slater’s mind was mentally transported into a dream realm where his body was taken over by another, smarter, more worldly being. In order to experience whatever Slater was experiencing while asleep, the intern uses what he calls his cosmic dream-radio. The intern fits a transmitter to Slater’s forehead and a receiver to his own forehead. The intern was right! He also makes the interesting discovery stars are living beings.
Ok then.
The short story ‘Beyond the Wall of Sleep’ causes me to wonder if Lovecraft was oblivious of the effects of certain mushrooms and other natural hallucinatory substances on the brain when ingested. Did they have refrigeration in his day? If so, was it available to only wealthy people only or was it possible for regular people to have? In any case, I read in a biography he suffered from hypnopompic hallucinations.
From Google:
”The hallucinatory effects experienced during awakenings with paralysis are known as hypnopompic hallucinations, which are vivid, frightening, and often seem real. These hallucinations can include the perception of a dangerous presence in the room, feeling pressure on the chest, or even sensations of movement. They occur when the brain is transitioning from sleep to wakefulness and has not fully re-established muscle control.”
I have suffered this same waking paralysis! Twice! Once when I was a child, and one other time as an adult in my 40’s. I could not move my body, only my eyes, when I woke up in the middle of the night. To my terror when this happened to me as an adult, I saw a vague figure in black at the foot of my bed. As a child, when I woke up paralyzed, I felt an evil presence, and I felt what I interpreted as a hand on my chest pressing me down. I struggled against my paralysis both times it happened. Then I must have fallen asleep again both times. At any rate, when I woke up hours later feeling quite normal and unparalyzed, I was fine, but more than a little disturbed by what had happened. Did I have a nightmare? When it happened to me as an adult, I googled what had happened, and I was shocked to discover this was an observed brain hiccup which had been given a name due its commonality of occurrence and of being reported by people. I can attest to the scariness during the paralysis. I still find it extremely fascinating, and I can’t help but think of it now and then. I also think about sleepwalkers. I have heard marvelous and amazing stories about the exciting dangers sleepwalkers have discovered themselves in.
It was the paralysis that gave it away to me as some sort of incomplete transition from sleeping to waking. I have a cat now, gentler reader, and I almost always have had a cat in my life. I have seen how in deep sleep her body was inert and seemingly paralyzed, particularly while dreaming, when she was obviously performing a slight twitchy movement of running or eating but without actually getting up to run or eat. I had read people also have some sort of brain/body mechanism while dreaming to minimize the physical body from physically acting out in response to dreams. So even though I did experience fear both times, once I was fully awake after the incident I had as an adult, I suspected this was some sort of mistiming of sorts of my brain/body transition from sleeping to waking. As a child, though, I thought a ghost had roused me at first, then I wondered if my cat had jumped on me. I also woke up, just once, babbling, in my 40’s, or as most people call it, talking in my sleep. I vaguely recall talking to someone in a dream as I woke. I couldn’t stop laughing about this occurrence. It seemed very funny to me, but also, like, wow! Right? Sleep disturbances! Very likely many authors have gotten their best ideas for a story from them…
When I was in 8th grade, I had forgotten about an assignment given by my language arts teacher to write a short story. I ran to the school library, sat down at one of the tables there, and wrote down in ten minutes about a nightmare I had had just that morning before the alarm had gone off. It involved vampires and being chased and defeating them. It was sort of a comedy in my retelling. Why was I dreaming about vampires? Shut up. I got an A, right? And yes, I think Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are gorgeous in that movie, and I love Ann Rice’s vampire series. You know which one.
The ‘scientific’ (I use the term loosely) plot of this short story is one which is constantly being rebooted today in some form. So, ‘Beyond the Wall of Sleep’ seems dull to me because of its overexposure as a plot of many movies and thriller science fiction novels. I suppose it was original when Lovecraft wrote it? Whatever. It IS a well written version as imagined by Lovecraft. Today, many science fiction movies or series STILL use the weird-wired-helmet-transferrence-of-Brains/Personality-to-another-while-tied-up-to-a-table story.
I know some readers will take issue with how Lovecraft sees what my generation called hillbillies, but us baby boomers saw these depictions of poor southerners/Catskills residents/Appalachian towns all of the time on TV and movies up through the 1970’s.
This is the pilot episode for the long-running hit TV show, The Hillbillies:
https://youtu.be/WrPwGXk69vs?si=eIfhP...
Hmmm. Many of us can’t seem to stop wondering how Lovecraft got his ideas. It appears I am in the company of many of the literary Greats!
July 15, 2015
Две години след излизането на великолепната колекция "Планините на безумието", императорът на ужаса Х.Ф. Лъвкрафт се завръща на българския пазар. Основен виновник затова отново е великолепният преводач Адриан Лазаровски, подбрал непревеждани текстове от прокълнатия гений на Провидънс, но издателят на новия сборник, носещ заглавието "Отвъд стената на съня" по първия разказ в съдържанието този път е "Ибис". Преди да продължа с прегледа на самата книга, искам да похваля специално издателите. Когато започнах да следя "Ибис" те издаваха основно тийн литература за вампири, макар да имаха попадения и в други жанрове като "Рептилия" например. Последните година и нещо обаче те отбелязват огромно развитие като подбор на заглавията, като предлагат на българския читател класически произведения на ужаса като стари романи на Стивън Кинг с нов, по-адекватен превод и, разбира се, Лъвкрафт. Подозирам, че това е до голяма степен заради съветите на Адриан, който за пореден път заслужава поздравления за труда, който е свършил. Работата му по Лъвкрафт далеч надхвърля обичайните задължения на преводача - трябва да се направи подбор от разказите на автора, след това да се интрепретира текста на български по такъв начин, че да се запази архаичното звучене, което той е гонил дори в началото на миналия век, когато е творил, да се открият всичките препратки към други писатели, които той прави. Лазаровски се справя с това по блестящ начин и доказателството е в новия сборник...
Цялото ревю на линка:
http://www.citadelata.com/index.php?s...
Цялото ревю на линка:
http://www.citadelata.com/index.php?s...
July 2, 2016
Демоните на безпокойствието
(Цялото ревю е тук: https://knijenpetar.wordpress.com/201...)
Кой е Лъвкрафт и защо се е заел да плаши хората? Всъщност той само пише за онова, което всички ние крием дълбоко в безсъзнателната част от себе си. Преди милиони години природата се е погрижила за оцеляването ни, като ни е „накарала“ да се страхуваме. Това е инстинкт за самосъхранение с необикновена сила, не напълно съзнавана, но с непреодолимо въздействие. С този магнетичен сборник, Лъвкрафт за пореден път доказва, че умовете ни са пълни с кошмарни създания, като само част от тях са сътворени от човешкото въображение. „Отвъд стената на съня“ („Ибис“, 2015, с превод на Адриан Лазаровски) съдържа едни от най-провокативните и смислени произведения на автора, много от които почукват директно на портите на Ада. С удоволствие писах за всички тях, като се постарах да вградя своето реално усещане за текстовете.
(Продължава в блога: https://knijenpetar.wordpress.com/201...)
(Цялото ревю е тук: https://knijenpetar.wordpress.com/201...)
Кой е Лъвкрафт и защо се е заел да плаши хората? Всъщност той само пише за онова, което всички ние крием дълбоко в безсъзнателната част от себе си. Преди милиони години природата се е погрижила за оцеляването ни, като ни е „накарала“ да се страхуваме. Това е инстинкт за самосъхранение с необикновена сила, не напълно съзнавана, но с непреодолимо въздействие. С този магнетичен сборник, Лъвкрафт за пореден път доказва, че умовете ни са пълни с кошмарни създания, като само част от тях са сътворени от човешкото въображение. „Отвъд стената на съня“ („Ибис“, 2015, с превод на Адриан Лазаровски) съдържа едни от най-провокативните и смислени произведения на автора, много от които почукват директно на портите на Ада. С удоволствие писах за всички тях, като се постарах да вградя своето реално усещане за текстовете.
(Продължава в блога: https://knijenpetar.wordpress.com/201...)
June 22, 2015
Отвъд стената на съня дебнат всички страхове: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/o...
Доста вече се изписа и изговори за този сборник, затова ще си позволя да бъда кратък. Чудесно е, че има не само воля да се издаде, но и е налице достатъчна фен база за класически хорър творби, Лъвкрафт далеч не е единственият велик автор, който има неиздавани на български произведения (вижте каква трагедия бе доскоро положението с “Дракула” и “Кралят в жълто” на Чеймбърс). Признавам, “Отвъд стената на съня” ми се поопъна, мудно ми течеше, тегаво, особено “Съновидения във вещерския дом” направо ме измъчи. Но това си има причина – предвидимостта е налице, ако си изчел това-онова от Лъвкрафт, си наясно какво следва, той не обича да излиза вън от схемата. Но няма драма, като цяло сборникът си струва.
Издателство ИБИС
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/o...
Доста вече се изписа и изговори за този сборник, затова ще си позволя да бъда кратък. Чудесно е, че има не само воля да се издаде, но и е налице достатъчна фен база за класически хорър творби, Лъвкрафт далеч не е единственият велик автор, който има неиздавани на български произведения (вижте каква трагедия бе доскоро положението с “Дракула” и “Кралят в жълто” на Чеймбърс). Признавам, “Отвъд стената на съня” ми се поопъна, мудно ми течеше, тегаво, особено “Съновидения във вещерския дом” направо ме измъчи. Но това си има причина – предвидимостта е налице, ако си изчел това-онова от Лъвкрафт, си наясно какво следва, той не обича да излиза вън от схемата. Но няма драма, като цяло сборникът си струва.
Издателство ИБИС
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/o...
February 3, 2016
Гениално. Точно както очаквах.
June 5, 2019
A short but intriguing tale of a psychologist studying a hill billy who has psychotic episodes but doesn't recall them afterward.
March 17, 2020
Now this one was, admittedly, a little more up my alley.
With an air of light speculative fiction, we follow and unnamed narrator--an intern at a mental hospital--on a groping exploration of the nature of dreaming and the unconscious mind. The MC has become fixated on one particular patient named Slater--a crazed murderer, and degenerate denizen of the Catskill Mountain region. Slater experiences nightly "attacks" in which he awakens and rants about otherworldly entities and imagery. Such fantastic ravings from a dim, illiterate man pique the MC's interest.
"Whilst the greater number of our nocturnal visions are perhaps no more than faint and fantastic reflections of our waking experiences—Freud to the contrary with his puerile symbolism—there are still a certain remainder whose immundane and ethereal character permit of no ordinary interpretation, and whose vaguely exciting and disquieting effect suggests possible minute glimpses into a sphere of mental existence no less important than physical life, yet separated from that life by an all but impassable barrier."
For some indiscernible reason, the patient also seems to be dying. There is some hand-waving about a machine the narrator comes up with that allows him to telepathically communicate with Slater as he is on the brink of death, connecting him to the man's dreams.
Which reminded me of something...
But this story came first... and it takes a more straight-forward approach to explaining itself. So I'm not declaring anything derivative. Perhaps just faintly inspired.
Broad sci-fi concepts are touched on, with an air of vastness that both satisfies and leaves things wide open. This one's orbit swings closer to wonderment than most of Lovecraft's more broody, melancholic pieces. And maybe that's why I found more enjoyment in it than usual.
With an air of light speculative fiction, we follow and unnamed narrator--an intern at a mental hospital--on a groping exploration of the nature of dreaming and the unconscious mind. The MC has become fixated on one particular patient named Slater--a crazed murderer, and degenerate denizen of the Catskill Mountain region. Slater experiences nightly "attacks" in which he awakens and rants about otherworldly entities and imagery. Such fantastic ravings from a dim, illiterate man pique the MC's interest.
"Whilst the greater number of our nocturnal visions are perhaps no more than faint and fantastic reflections of our waking experiences—Freud to the contrary with his puerile symbolism—there are still a certain remainder whose immundane and ethereal character permit of no ordinary interpretation, and whose vaguely exciting and disquieting effect suggests possible minute glimpses into a sphere of mental existence no less important than physical life, yet separated from that life by an all but impassable barrier."
For some indiscernible reason, the patient also seems to be dying. There is some hand-waving about a machine the narrator comes up with that allows him to telepathically communicate with Slater as he is on the brink of death, connecting him to the man's dreams.
Which reminded me of something...
But this story came first... and it takes a more straight-forward approach to explaining itself. So I'm not declaring anything derivative. Perhaps just faintly inspired.
Broad sci-fi concepts are touched on, with an air of vastness that both satisfies and leaves things wide open. This one's orbit swings closer to wonderment than most of Lovecraft's more broody, melancholic pieces. And maybe that's why I found more enjoyment in it than usual.
December 14, 2019
"Amidst this elysian realm I dwelt not as a stranger, for each sight and sound was familiar to me; just as it had been for uncounted aeons of eternity before, and would be for like eternities to come."
This is a perfect short story, and I do not say this lightly. Lovecraft's (in)famous purple prose is at its best in 'Beyond the Wall of Sleep'. One of the reasons for this is the author's immense, cyclopean vocabulary and talent for musicality and harmony when writing prose.
The story itself is beyond eerie. What if our bodies are actually hosts to unnameable entities that we can only see in the vague images of our sleep? In 'Beyond the Wall of Sleep', a "thing" inhabits the body of a simple and rustic man, eventually driving the latter virtually insane.
Even to this day Lovecraft continues to amaze me. What an intellect!
This is a perfect short story, and I do not say this lightly. Lovecraft's (in)famous purple prose is at its best in 'Beyond the Wall of Sleep'. One of the reasons for this is the author's immense, cyclopean vocabulary and talent for musicality and harmony when writing prose.
The story itself is beyond eerie. What if our bodies are actually hosts to unnameable entities that we can only see in the vague images of our sleep? In 'Beyond the Wall of Sleep', a "thing" inhabits the body of a simple and rustic man, eventually driving the latter virtually insane.
Even to this day Lovecraft continues to amaze me. What an intellect!
September 17, 2016
ظهرت امامى بالصدفة البحتة .. أو تورطت بها بالمعنى الأدق ربما لصغر حجمها أو للحاجة لقراءة قصص من تلك النوعية من وقت لأخر ..هي عبارة عن مجموعة من القصص القصيرة التى ستلمس فيها القدم ليس فقط بسبب كتابتها منذ سنين طويلة ولكن بسبب قدم الأفكار التى جاءت بها والتى لاتثير الرعب حتى فى نفس طفل صغير .. حتى القصة التى جاءت بعنوان ( حالة تشارلز دكستر وارد ) لم تكن كافية لاصلاح الانطباع السئ الذى تركته باقى قصص الكتيب .. حسنا لا تستمع كثيرا لترشيحات بائعى الكتب فربما توجد يوجد مثل تلك الكتب والتى يريدون أن يتخلصوا منها ..
August 11, 2022
The Horrors of Dreaming
6 August 2022 - Eton
Well, I’m sitting in a pub in Eton, the same Eton where the most exclusive school in England is located, drinking a traditional English ale (fortunately not all of the pubs have been taken over by those hipster IPAs, which means that the traditional English craft ales that I experienced the last time I was here still exist), though I am somewhat annoyed that half of the places don’t take cash anymore, which means I get screwed by the fees and charges paying by card (I probably should have taken a multi-currency card, but the last time I used them I still got screwed, though that was SE Asia where cash is king, and highly recommended, anyway).
So, this is one of Lovecraft’s asylum stories (a term I just came up with, namely because it takes place in an asylum, and from my experience with Lovecraft, a lot of his protagonists end up going mad). Anyway, we have this southern hick that seems to be carrying on about these beings that seem to come straight out of fairy tales. I do find it odd that they don’t seem to think that hicks have any understanding of fairy tales considering that these days many of them seem to be living in the world of fairy tales (such as a stolen election that wasn’t actually stolen). Then again, this does happen to have been written back in 1917, and I also suspect that Lovecraft is referring to ideas that only the intelligentsia are exposed to.
He seems to be exploring this idea of ‘beings of light’, something that humans happen to be, but unfortunately are trapped in a world of flesh. This sounds pretty gnostic to me, though it isn’t as if this is something that doesn’t occur in our world – Heaven’s Gate immediately comes to mind. Anyway, he is discussing this idea that when people dream they actually go into their incorporeal form and are able to interact with other incorporeal beings. Actually, it does remind me that there are a lot of theories about the nature of dreams, some of them pretty crazy actually.
The end section of the story is rather interesting, because there is also this idea about the stars in the sky representing gods and other beings. Once again, this is nothing new, but it came about when the protagonist, who happens to be unnamed, and we only know his as the Intern, used a device to enable him to communicate with this inmate telepathically. Ironically, it only worked with him, not with others.
I guess there is also an exploration of the nature of insanity. Obviously a lot of Lovecraft’s characters go insane, but that is because we as humans can’t handle the fact that there are beings out there that simply make up feel like ants. Probably the reason ants don’t go insane when they encounter a human is because ant’s aren’t sentient, but humans are, and not being exposed to other sentient beings no doubt gives us the mistaken idea that we are gods. On the other hand, this story suggests that insanity comes about other ways. The character here seems to be transitioning from being a being of flesh to being a being of spirit, and the section at the end suggests that there was more truth to that than people realised.
6 August 2022 - Eton
Well, I’m sitting in a pub in Eton, the same Eton where the most exclusive school in England is located, drinking a traditional English ale (fortunately not all of the pubs have been taken over by those hipster IPAs, which means that the traditional English craft ales that I experienced the last time I was here still exist), though I am somewhat annoyed that half of the places don’t take cash anymore, which means I get screwed by the fees and charges paying by card (I probably should have taken a multi-currency card, but the last time I used them I still got screwed, though that was SE Asia where cash is king, and highly recommended, anyway).
So, this is one of Lovecraft’s asylum stories (a term I just came up with, namely because it takes place in an asylum, and from my experience with Lovecraft, a lot of his protagonists end up going mad). Anyway, we have this southern hick that seems to be carrying on about these beings that seem to come straight out of fairy tales. I do find it odd that they don’t seem to think that hicks have any understanding of fairy tales considering that these days many of them seem to be living in the world of fairy tales (such as a stolen election that wasn’t actually stolen). Then again, this does happen to have been written back in 1917, and I also suspect that Lovecraft is referring to ideas that only the intelligentsia are exposed to.
He seems to be exploring this idea of ‘beings of light’, something that humans happen to be, but unfortunately are trapped in a world of flesh. This sounds pretty gnostic to me, though it isn’t as if this is something that doesn’t occur in our world – Heaven’s Gate immediately comes to mind. Anyway, he is discussing this idea that when people dream they actually go into their incorporeal form and are able to interact with other incorporeal beings. Actually, it does remind me that there are a lot of theories about the nature of dreams, some of them pretty crazy actually.
The end section of the story is rather interesting, because there is also this idea about the stars in the sky representing gods and other beings. Once again, this is nothing new, but it came about when the protagonist, who happens to be unnamed, and we only know his as the Intern, used a device to enable him to communicate with this inmate telepathically. Ironically, it only worked with him, not with others.
I guess there is also an exploration of the nature of insanity. Obviously a lot of Lovecraft’s characters go insane, but that is because we as humans can’t handle the fact that there are beings out there that simply make up feel like ants. Probably the reason ants don’t go insane when they encounter a human is because ant’s aren’t sentient, but humans are, and not being exposed to other sentient beings no doubt gives us the mistaken idea that we are gods. On the other hand, this story suggests that insanity comes about other ways. The character here seems to be transitioning from being a being of flesh to being a being of spirit, and the section at the end suggests that there was more truth to that than people realised.
August 25, 2017
Impressive! I've read a few Lovecraft stories. This unique story stands out to me with a positive insinuation rather than a manipulation of horror. Lovecraft explains, in fantastic terms (as an atheist), another world exists, and our souls have always been and will always be. You see the physical manifestation in the stars. An evil star oppresses life, and many war against It. When people speak and write of Lovecraftian mythos, I realize, they refer to this kind of fictional world-building, set behind stage of our world. Lovecraft could have started his own religion if he'd lived long, long ago in a country far, far away.
October 17, 2012
اول خمس قصص يستحقوا 3 نجمات
لكن النجمه الرابعه لقصة (( حالةتشارلز دكستر وارد)):)
لكن النجمه الرابعه لقصة (( حالةتشارلز دكستر وارد)):)
October 31, 2020
كتيب رائع جداً..وجميل جداً..فيكفي أن غلافه مُزين بإسم كاتبي المفضل وعزيزي الذي يشاركني مرارة هذه الأيام المختلفة الغريبة..
يتكون الكتيب من خمس قصص قصيرة، ورواية قصيرة بل ومختصرة أيضاً ومليئة بالتصرف كما ذكر المترجم في البداية، وتوجد أيضاً مقدمة لا بأس بها عن الكاتب وحياته المثيرة للريبة، وأن قراءة المقدمة لمثير تماماً كقراءة العمل ذات نفسه، وهذا طبعاً إذا كنت تحب "لافكرافت" بجنون مثلي..
أحلي ما في قراءتي لهذا العمل هو أن كل قصة قد قراءتها في مكان مختلف، وتعددت المواقف الغريبة التي كانت تتدفعني للهروب من عالم الواقع المخيف والأكثر رعباً من هذه القصص المرعبة الغامضة، والآن نبدأ المراجعة مع ذكر كل موقف علي حدي، حتي أبين لكم كم كان "لافكرافت" معي في كل وقت وكل زمان، وأنه بلا أدني مبالغة قد جعل أيامي تسير بسهولة نحو سعادة ممتزجة بالأثارة لأنني سأقرأ هذه الأعمال المدهشة!
أولاً: المقدمة:
قرأت المقدمة في الحافلة التي توصلني الي الكلية صباح أول يوم بالدراسة، وكنت متوترة مكتئبة لأنني وحيدة وذاهبة نحو المجهول، بل والأسوأ أيضاً أنني كنت أجلس بجوار أحد أوغاد الدفعة! وغد آخر بسروال مقطع نري من خلاله مدي خشونة ركبتيه! ما هذا.. طبعاً فتحت الهاتف وبدأت أقرأ حتي أتغافل عن هذا الهم، قرأت المقدمة والتعريف بالكاتب وانا علي شفاهي ابتسامة خرقاء عريضة..رغم أنني أعرف أصلاً كل هذه المعلومات مسبقاً التي أقرأها، وتعليقي الوحيد أن طليقة "لافكرافت" كانت تدعي "سونيا جرين" وليست "سارة" كما كُتِب في الكتيب، كما أن هذا الطلاق تم بعد عامين فقط من الزواج وليس بعد عدة أعوام كما في الكتيب، أن والدته والتي كانت عقدة حياته هي التي كانت تدعي "سارة".
ثانياً: القصة الأولي (هواء بارد):
"من الخطأ أن نحسب الرعب مرتبطاً دائماً بالظلام والصمت والوحدة، فقد وجدته أنا في ضياء العصر، في ضوضاء المدن.."
هذا الأقتباس مناسب تماماً للأجواء التي كنت أقرأ بها القصة! حيث الدور الخامس الملئ بالحيوانات المحنطة وقت العصر، وزميلتي الكئيبة الجديدة "والجبانة" أيضاً التي أنطلقت تركض الي نهاية الممر تاركةً إياي جالسة بكل بساطة بجانب النعامة الضخمة في قفصها الزجاجي..
من أحلي القصص في الكتيب! نهايتها صادمة مبهرة..كما أنني لأتعجب من جنتلة أبطال "لافكرافت" وأعجب بها في الوقت ذاته! لقد أصيب البطل بنوبة قلبية، فذهب الي جاره الطبيب يصف له العلاج، ولما أصبح بخير، صار يتردد عليه، ودار في البلد كلها حتي يجلب له ميكانيكي حينما وقعت الكارثة..كل هذا وقد تعرف عليه خلال شهرين فقط! لو كنت مكان البطل لما كلفت نفسي كل هذه المعاناة من أجل شخص لا أعرفه بالكاد..
أضف إلي كّونهم جنتل فهم أيضاً يفكرون بطريقة عملية بحتة وغير مضيعة للوقت، فلما أحس البطل بقرب النهاية بعد أن أصيب بالنوبة القلبية، قرر الذهاب الي هذا الطبيب جاره ليس فقط من أجل طلب العلاج، بل من أجل إستكشاف ما يقوم به دكتور "مونوز" غريب الأطوار التي تنبعث رائحة الأمونيا الكريهة من شقته الباردة التي تتواجد بها ماكينة تعمل بالجازولين..أجواء مثيرة ممتازة، ومن سمات أبطاله أيضاً العنصرية البحتة..صاحبة النزل إمرأة أسبانية قبيحة المنظر قذرة توشك أن تكون لها لحية، حتي الوصف بالقصة به الكثير من التنمر..ولكن لا مشكلة، لا مشكلة طبعاً لأن "ابننا لافكرافت يعمل اللي هو عايزه".
ثالثاً: القصة الثانية: "الذي لا اسم له":
"الذي لا اسم له" ذكرتني علي الفور باللورد فولدمورت، الشئ الذي لا يجب أن يُذكر اسمه حتي لا يحضر بيننا، والذي ظل مختفياً في صندرة منزل الرجل العجوز، شئ تشيب له الرؤوس من كثرة الهلع..أنه يقبع أمام الأديب وصديقه المعلم "جويل" الذي لا يصدق كل هذا الهراء.. حتي يحضر الذي لا اسم له ليترك ل "جويل" التذكار الذي لا يمكن نسيانه أو محو أثره..
""الذي لا اسم له" و "الذي لا داعي لذكر اسمه" هي طريقة خشنة تتناسب مع مستواي المتواضع كأديب..فأنني أنهي قصصي دائماً بأصوات ومشاهد مفزعة، تشل أبطال قصصي وتتركهم بلا قدرة علي سرد ما رأوه بالضبط.."
نعم يا عزيزي "لافكرافت" هذا ما تفعله بالضبط وتنقله علي لسان بطل قصتك الأديب.
رابعاً: القصة الثالثة (خلف جدار النوم):
هذه القصة أحببتها كثيراً من الصفحة الأولي للأخيرة، فهي تثبت فقط أن كاتب هذا العمل شخص حالم الي أقصي الدرجات، تبدأ القصة بالطبيب النفسي الذي يدرس حالة "جو سلادر" وهو واحد من سكان الجبال البدأيين، فكيف له أن يحلم بهذه الأحلام المدهشة التي يحكي عنها؟ هو لم يتأثر أو يري أياً من هذه العوالم حتي يحلم بها، ولأنه بدائي ساذج فأن هذه العوالم كانت فوق استيعابه، وارتكب الفظائع والجرائم وهو لا يدري، ومن ثم يأتي جزء الخيال العلمي بالقصة عندما حاول الطبيب رؤية احلام "جو"، كان جزءاً مروعاً!
"أنت صديقي الوحيد في هذا العالم.."
تخيل أن يقول لك تلك الجملة كيان غامض مخيف! شئ مدهش أن تصبح رفيقاً للكيانات الغامضة..أري أن القصة كلها إستناداً علي ما قاله دكتور الفلك الحقيقي الذي لا أذكر اسمه عن النجم الذي ظهر بجوار نجم العفريت، وهذا أعجبني كثيراً أيضاً.
"لطالما تساءلت عما إذا كان أكثر البشر قد توقفوا ليتأملوا أهمية الأحلام الهائلة، والعالم المبهم الذي تنتمي إليه، وإذا كان عدد كبير من رؤانا الليلية ربما لا يزيد عن انعكاسات لخبرات صحونا كما قال فرويد"
خامساً: القصة الرابعة "الشجرة":
قصة بلا نهاية مفسرة لأنه يمكن استنتاجها بسهولة ومعرفة مخزاها، عن الصديقين الحميمين أمام العالم ولكن فيما بينهما أنت لا تعرف كم الحقد والغيرة التي يحملها "موسيدس" تجاه "كالوس"، ولكن "كالوس" ليس بالفتي الأبله! كما أنه عملي أيضاً ويعرف أن الموت مصير لا مفر منه، لذلك يأتي الأنتقام في صورة درامية وبعد مرور سنوات وسنوات علي موته..شجرة الزيتون بكل التأكيد شيطانية تحمل بين فروعها نيران الأنتقام التي لا يمكن إطفائها.
سادساً: القصة الخامسة "صورة في المنزل":
محاضرة دكتور "مطران"- كما تطلق عليه زميلة جديدة بلهاء- وملل محاضرة دكتور "مطران"، دكتور "مطران" لا يأتي إلا في العشر دقائق الأخيرة من المحاضرة، وعندما يأتي فأنه يظل يأكل في الكلام من وراء الكمامة فلن يخلعها لأن لديه وسواس قهري من نوع خاص..دكتور "مطران" لا يشرح أبداً ولكنه يمضي يتحدث عن أهمية القراءة! قائلاً أن القراءة ما هي إلا قراءة الكتب..يا سلام، والروايات محض هراء طبعاً بالنسبة له!
لذلك وجب تعويض نفسي عن كل فقع المرارة هذا وقراءة هذه القصة! في هذه القصة لعبت الترجمة دوراً كبيراً في جعل قلبي لها يطرب وبها أسعد، من المفترض أن أحد الأبطال يتكلم بلهجة أهل الشمال القديمة وهي لهجة مختلفة عن التي يتحدث بها البطل، وهنا قرر المترجم أن تكون لهجة الترجمة العامية المصرية، وهذا جعلني أضحك كثيراً وأخرجني من جو التوتر الذي يسود القصة.. ودائماً البطل مضطر يا حبة قلبي الي الذهاب بكل إرادته الحرة الي الهلاك وهو يعرف ذلك، مسلم أمره لله والباقي علي الله..فما الأفضل مثلاً؟ أن تقف تحت الأمطار أم تحتمي بمنزل قديم مهجور يوجد به كتاب يُفتح من تلقاء نفسه علي صورة توضح "آكلي لحوم البشر"؟ بالتأكيد أقف تحت الأمطار وأصاب بالبرد، ولا أقابل رجل غريب الشكل يقول لي "متخفش يا بني دة كان مجرد تفكير! أنا معملتش حاجة! أنا بس دبحت خرفان..بس حسيت أن دة مش كفاية، حسيت أني عايز أجرب حاجة مينفعش أشتريها.."
كانت قصة ممتازة كالعادة!
سابعاً وأخيراً: الرواية القصيرة "حالة تشارلز ديكستر وارد":
تمنيت عدم وجود تصرف بالترجمة، فكنت أريد قراءة القصة بكل ما فيها من بشاعة وشناعة، ولكن أنا أعلم حرص العراب دائماً علي تقديم محتوي محتمل وملائم لجميع القراء، قرأت هذه القصة قبل النوم، حكاية قبل النوم يجب أن تكون لطيفة وليست مثل هذه القصة المفزعة! وكانت ليلة سوداء علي رأسي مليئة بالكوابيس الفظيعة، بإستثناء حلم ظريف واحد أذكره بنهاية المراجعة لأنه أسعدني حقاً.
البطل المسير نحو الهلاك -كالعادة- مستر تشارلز ديكستر وارد، يبحث في ماضيه وماضي أسلافه حتي يعرف ما لا يجب أن يعرفه، حتي يعرف هول الأهوال، جده المريب "جوزيف كوروين"..
ماذا كان يفعل "جوزيف كوروين" في مزرعة فيرن؟ وما سر الأصوات المنبعثة من قبو المنزل وكأن أحدهم يستجوب شخصاً ما بطريقة قاسية مستخدماً أدوات التعذيب لمحاكم التفتيش؟ وما سر كميات اللحم الكبيرة التي تفد للمزرعة؟ وماذا حل بالضبط بالشاب الواعد تشارلز المهتم بالأثار؟ منذ متي وأصبح يكتب بهذه الطريقة القديمة وقد تغيرت نبرات صوته أيضاً، ولماذا لم نر تشارلز ودكتور ألين معاً في موقف واحد؟
كل هذا وأكثر تعرفونه عند قراءة هذه المغامرة الشيقة، من أجمل الأجزاء في الحكاية هي استكشاف د".ويليت" لقبو مزرعة "بوتكست" وسر الزجاجات والقوارير في المعمل الكيميائي تحت الأرض، د.ويليت..رجل شجاع في قصة "لافكرافت" استطاع التغلب علي الجانب الشرير، أعتقد أن هذا هو بطله الشجاع الأول والأخير والغير مسير نحو الهلاك! بالنسبة للترجمة فأنها ممتازة ولا غبار عليها إطلاقاً.
إذا كنت من محبين الشخصيات الشريرة أمثالي، فلا أعدك أن تحب كثيراً الشخصيات الشريرة في روايات "لافكرافت"، لأنهم بكل بساطة عبارة عن أشباح وكيانات غامضة مبهمة ولا نتعامل مثلاً مع بشري شرير، وحتي إذا كان بشرياً فأنه يمارس الدجل والشعوذة التي جعلته شئ أبعد ما يكون عن البشرية، ولكن أعدك أن تحب شخصياته الجنتل المتعجرفة نوعاً رغم فقرها الجالي، فقير ومتعجرف! خليط عجيب لن تجده إلا هنا.
وبالنهاية..أحب أن أقول:
عزيزي لافكرافت،،،
تحية وطيبة وبعد،،،
حالياً أنت بالنسبة لي أكثر من كاتب أعشق قصصه وأنتهي الأمر عند هذا الحد، أنت لا تعلم كم كنت أخشي الوحدة دون أصدقائي المقربين الأعزاء وقد فرقتنا الثانوية العامة عليها لعنة الله، ولكنك كنت بجواري دائماً والشئ الوحيد الذي يسري عني..وجودك كان طاغياً كفيلاً بأن يجعلني أنسي وحدة طريقي، أنت تمثل أهمية كبري بحياتي لا يمكن وصفها بالكلمات، وأعترف بالتحيز لك وأنني قبل أن أقرأ القصة أعلم في قرارة نفسي أنني سأعطيها العلامة الكاملة وأنا مغمضة العينين ..ليتني كنت في زمنك، ولكني لم أكن لأرضي أن تقول لأصدقائك أنك تفضل أن تصاحب قطة علي أن تصاحب أمرأة، لقد تحملتك الست "سونيا" بما فيه الكفاية أعتقد..ولكني مازالت عند اعتقادي أنه لم يتواجد من حولك أي شخص قد يتفهمك بطريقة صحيحة، فكيف كتبت لأصدقائك الأوغاد هؤلاء في أكثر من رسالة أنك تعاني من أسنانك وتحتاج لطبيب أسنان؟ بالطبع من كثرة الأيس كريم والحلويات وأربع ملاعق كاملة من السكر في فنجان قهوة يتيم واحد! لقد رأيتك في أحلامي بعد أن قرأت قصة "تشارلز ديكستر وارد"، لقد كنت بطلاً! فلقد صفعت معيدة السكشن الفاشلة التي لا تستطيع رسم الأنسجة الطلائية وتكتب بخط أشبه بخطوط الأطفال، لكم كم تمنيت أن يكون هذا الحلم حقيقياً! فبعد أن صفعتها سقطت لتصطدم بالنبش خلفها حيث تتواجد الميكروسكوبات الخرفانة المخربة، لا لا أن ضعف نظري وعويناتي ذات العدسات السميكة ليست السبب في عدم رؤيتي العينات! أن المجهر في حالة بالية ككل شئ بالي قديم في الكلية، كتبت أنت في إحدي قصصك "أحياناً أحسب أن تلك الحياة الغير مادية قد تكون هي الحياة الحقيقية، وأن وجودنا علي هذه الكرة المائية هو الشئ التخيلي"، نعم أنت محق..ليتنا نعيش في هذه الأحلام والحياة الغير مادية، ليتك كنت موجوداً اليوم حتي تصفع المعيدة.
أتمانع أن أهديك بعض أبيات شاعري المفضل؟
نعم أراك تمانع..لأنك لست رومانسياً، وأنا أيضاً لست كذلك وأبغض كل ما يمت للرومانتيكية بصلة، كما أن أبيات الشاعر لحبيبته ويخاطب أنثي وليس رجلاً! ولكن ما سأكتبه من أبيات لا يتضح فيه أن الحديث لأنثي، وبالنهاية أعتذر عن الأطالة وعن كل هذ�� الحب في أخر المراجعة والذي لا يمت للقصة بصلة!
سوف ألقاك عبيراً بين يأس الناس..
عذب الأمنيات..
دائماً أنت بقلبي..
رغم أن الأرض ماتت!
رغم أن الحلم..مات
ربما ألقاك يوماً في دموع الكلمات..
٢٠٢٠/١٠/٣١
يتكون الكتيب من خمس قصص قصيرة، ورواية قصيرة بل ومختصرة أيضاً ومليئة بالتصرف كما ذكر المترجم في البداية، وتوجد أيضاً مقدمة لا بأس بها عن الكاتب وحياته المثيرة للريبة، وأن قراءة المقدمة لمثير تماماً كقراءة العمل ذات نفسه، وهذا طبعاً إذا كنت تحب "لافكرافت" بجنون مثلي..
أحلي ما في قراءتي لهذا العمل هو أن كل قصة قد قراءتها في مكان مختلف، وتعددت المواقف الغريبة التي كانت تتدفعني للهروب من عالم الواقع المخيف والأكثر رعباً من هذه القصص المرعبة الغامضة، والآن نبدأ المراجعة مع ذكر كل موقف علي حدي، حتي أبين لكم كم كان "لافكرافت" معي في كل وقت وكل زمان، وأنه بلا أدني مبالغة قد جعل أيامي تسير بسهولة نحو سعادة ممتزجة بالأثارة لأنني سأقرأ هذه الأعمال المدهشة!
أولاً: المقدمة:
قرأت المقدمة في الحافلة التي توصلني الي الكلية صباح أول يوم بالدراسة، وكنت متوترة مكتئبة لأنني وحيدة وذاهبة نحو المجهول، بل والأسوأ أيضاً أنني كنت أجلس بجوار أحد أوغاد الدفعة! وغد آخر بسروال مقطع نري من خلاله مدي خشونة ركبتيه! ما هذا.. طبعاً فتحت الهاتف وبدأت أقرأ حتي أتغافل عن هذا الهم، قرأت المقدمة والتعريف بالكاتب وانا علي شفاهي ابتسامة خرقاء عريضة..رغم أنني أعرف أصلاً كل هذه المعلومات مسبقاً التي أقرأها، وتعليقي الوحيد أن طليقة "لافكرافت" كانت تدعي "سونيا جرين" وليست "سارة" كما كُتِب في الكتيب، كما أن هذا الطلاق تم بعد عامين فقط من الزواج وليس بعد عدة أعوام كما في الكتيب، أن والدته والتي كانت عقدة حياته هي التي كانت تدعي "سارة".
ثانياً: القصة الأولي (هواء بارد):
"من الخطأ أن نحسب الرعب مرتبطاً دائماً بالظلام والصمت والوحدة، فقد وجدته أنا في ضياء العصر، في ضوضاء المدن.."
هذا الأقتباس مناسب تماماً للأجواء التي كنت أقرأ بها القصة! حيث الدور الخامس الملئ بالحيوانات المحنطة وقت العصر، وزميلتي الكئيبة الجديدة "والجبانة" أيضاً التي أنطلقت تركض الي نهاية الممر تاركةً إياي جالسة بكل بساطة بجانب النعامة الضخمة في قفصها الزجاجي..
من أحلي القصص في الكتيب! نهايتها صادمة مبهرة..كما أنني لأتعجب من جنتلة أبطال "لافكرافت" وأعجب بها في الوقت ذاته! لقد أصيب البطل بنوبة قلبية، فذهب الي جاره الطبيب يصف له العلاج، ولما أصبح بخير، صار يتردد عليه، ودار في البلد كلها حتي يجلب له ميكانيكي حينما وقعت الكارثة..كل هذا وقد تعرف عليه خلال شهرين فقط! لو كنت مكان البطل لما كلفت نفسي كل هذه المعاناة من أجل شخص لا أعرفه بالكاد..
أضف إلي كّونهم جنتل فهم أيضاً يفكرون بطريقة عملية بحتة وغير مضيعة للوقت، فلما أحس البطل بقرب النهاية بعد أن أصيب بالنوبة القلبية، قرر الذهاب الي هذا الطبيب جاره ليس فقط من أجل طلب العلاج، بل من أجل إستكشاف ما يقوم به دكتور "مونوز" غريب الأطوار التي تنبعث رائحة الأمونيا الكريهة من شقته الباردة التي تتواجد بها ماكينة تعمل بالجازولين..أجواء مثيرة ممتازة، ومن سمات أبطاله أيضاً العنصرية البحتة..صاحبة النزل إمرأة أسبانية قبيحة المنظر قذرة توشك أن تكون لها لحية، حتي الوصف بالقصة به الكثير من التنمر..ولكن لا مشكلة، لا مشكلة طبعاً لأن "ابننا لافكرافت يعمل اللي هو عايزه".
ثالثاً: القصة الثانية: "الذي لا اسم له":
"الذي لا اسم له" ذكرتني علي الفور باللورد فولدمورت، الشئ الذي لا يجب أن يُذكر اسمه حتي لا يحضر بيننا، والذي ظل مختفياً في صندرة منزل الرجل العجوز، شئ تشيب له الرؤوس من كثرة الهلع..أنه يقبع أمام الأديب وصديقه المعلم "جويل" الذي لا يصدق كل هذا الهراء.. حتي يحضر الذي لا اسم له ليترك ل "جويل" التذكار الذي لا يمكن نسيانه أو محو أثره..
""الذي لا اسم له" و "الذي لا داعي لذكر اسمه" هي طريقة خشنة تتناسب مع مستواي المتواضع كأديب..فأنني أنهي قصصي دائماً بأصوات ومشاهد مفزعة، تشل أبطال قصصي وتتركهم بلا قدرة علي سرد ما رأوه بالضبط.."
نعم يا عزيزي "لافكرافت" هذا ما تفعله بالضبط وتنقله علي لسان بطل قصتك الأديب.
رابعاً: القصة الثالثة (خلف جدار النوم):
هذه القصة أحببتها كثيراً من الصفحة الأولي للأخيرة، فهي تثبت فقط أن كاتب هذا العمل شخص حالم الي أقصي الدرجات، تبدأ القصة بالطبيب النفسي الذي يدرس حالة "جو سلادر" وهو واحد من سكان الجبال البدأيين، فكيف له أن يحلم بهذه الأحلام المدهشة التي يحكي عنها؟ هو لم يتأثر أو يري أياً من هذه العوالم حتي يحلم بها، ولأنه بدائي ساذج فأن هذه العوالم كانت فوق استيعابه، وارتكب الفظائع والجرائم وهو لا يدري، ومن ثم يأتي جزء الخيال العلمي بالقصة عندما حاول الطبيب رؤية احلام "جو"، كان جزءاً مروعاً!
"أنت صديقي الوحيد في هذا العالم.."
تخيل أن يقول لك تلك الجملة كيان غامض مخيف! شئ مدهش أن تصبح رفيقاً للكيانات الغامضة..أري أن القصة كلها إستناداً علي ما قاله دكتور الفلك الحقيقي الذي لا أذكر اسمه عن النجم الذي ظهر بجوار نجم العفريت، وهذا أعجبني كثيراً أيضاً.
"لطالما تساءلت عما إذا كان أكثر البشر قد توقفوا ليتأملوا أهمية الأحلام الهائلة، والعالم المبهم الذي تنتمي إليه، وإذا كان عدد كبير من رؤانا الليلية ربما لا يزيد عن انعكاسات لخبرات صحونا كما قال فرويد"
خامساً: القصة الرابعة "الشجرة":
قصة بلا نهاية مفسرة لأنه يمكن استنتاجها بسهولة ومعرفة مخزاها، عن الصديقين الحميمين أمام العالم ولكن فيما بينهما أنت لا تعرف كم الحقد والغيرة التي يحملها "موسيدس" تجاه "كالوس"، ولكن "كالوس" ليس بالفتي الأبله! كما أنه عملي أيضاً ويعرف أن الموت مصير لا مفر منه، لذلك يأتي الأنتقام في صورة درامية وبعد مرور سنوات وسنوات علي موته..شجرة الزيتون بكل التأكيد شيطانية تحمل بين فروعها نيران الأنتقام التي لا يمكن إطفائها.
سادساً: القصة الخامسة "صورة في المنزل":
محاضرة دكتور "مطران"- كما تطلق عليه زميلة جديدة بلهاء- وملل محاضرة دكتور "مطران"، دكتور "مطران" لا يأتي إلا في العشر دقائق الأخيرة من المحاضرة، وعندما يأتي فأنه يظل يأكل في الكلام من وراء الكمامة فلن يخلعها لأن لديه وسواس قهري من نوع خاص..دكتور "مطران" لا يشرح أبداً ولكنه يمضي يتحدث عن أهمية القراءة! قائلاً أن القراءة ما هي إلا قراءة الكتب..يا سلام، والروايات محض هراء طبعاً بالنسبة له!
لذلك وجب تعويض نفسي عن كل فقع المرارة هذا وقراءة هذه القصة! في هذه القصة لعبت الترجمة دوراً كبيراً في جعل قلبي لها يطرب وبها أسعد، من المفترض أن أحد الأبطال يتكلم بلهجة أهل الشمال القديمة وهي لهجة مختلفة عن التي يتحدث بها البطل، وهنا قرر المترجم أن تكون لهجة الترجمة العامية المصرية، وهذا جعلني أضحك كثيراً وأخرجني من جو التوتر الذي يسود القصة.. ودائماً البطل مضطر يا حبة قلبي الي الذهاب بكل إرادته الحرة الي الهلاك وهو يعرف ذلك، مسلم أمره لله والباقي علي الله..فما الأفضل مثلاً؟ أن تقف تحت الأمطار أم تحتمي بمنزل قديم مهجور يوجد به كتاب يُفتح من تلقاء نفسه علي صورة توضح "آكلي لحوم البشر"؟ بالتأكيد أقف تحت الأمطار وأصاب بالبرد، ولا أقابل رجل غريب الشكل يقول لي "متخفش يا بني دة كان مجرد تفكير! أنا معملتش حاجة! أنا بس دبحت خرفان..بس حسيت أن دة مش كفاية، حسيت أني عايز أجرب حاجة مينفعش أشتريها.."
كانت قصة ممتازة كالعادة!
سابعاً وأخيراً: الرواية القصيرة "حالة تشارلز ديكستر وارد":
تمنيت عدم وجود تصرف بالترجمة، فكنت أريد قراءة القصة بكل ما فيها من بشاعة وشناعة، ولكن أنا أعلم حرص العراب دائماً علي تقديم محتوي محتمل وملائم لجميع القراء، قرأت هذه القصة قبل النوم، حكاية قبل النوم يجب أن تكون لطيفة وليست مثل هذه القصة المفزعة! وكانت ليلة سوداء علي رأسي مليئة بالكوابيس الفظيعة، بإستثناء حلم ظريف واحد أذكره بنهاية المراجعة لأنه أسعدني حقاً.
البطل المسير نحو الهلاك -كالعادة- مستر تشارلز ديكستر وارد، يبحث في ماضيه وماضي أسلافه حتي يعرف ما لا يجب أن يعرفه، حتي يعرف هول الأهوال، جده المريب "جوزيف كوروين"..
ماذا كان يفعل "جوزيف كوروين" في مزرعة فيرن؟ وما سر الأصوات المنبعثة من قبو المنزل وكأن أحدهم يستجوب شخصاً ما بطريقة قاسية مستخدماً أدوات التعذيب لمحاكم التفتيش؟ وما سر كميات اللحم الكبيرة التي تفد للمزرعة؟ وماذا حل بالضبط بالشاب الواعد تشارلز المهتم بالأثار؟ منذ متي وأصبح يكتب بهذه الطريقة القديمة وقد تغيرت نبرات صوته أيضاً، ولماذا لم نر تشارلز ودكتور ألين معاً في موقف واحد؟
كل هذا وأكثر تعرفونه عند قراءة هذه المغامرة الشيقة، من أجمل الأجزاء في الحكاية هي استكشاف د".ويليت" لقبو مزرعة "بوتكست" وسر الزجاجات والقوارير في المعمل الكيميائي تحت الأرض، د.ويليت..رجل شجاع في قصة "لافكرافت" استطاع التغلب علي الجانب الشرير، أعتقد أن هذا هو بطله الشجاع الأول والأخير والغير مسير نحو الهلاك! بالنسبة للترجمة فأنها ممتازة ولا غبار عليها إطلاقاً.
إذا كنت من محبين الشخصيات الشريرة أمثالي، فلا أعدك أن تحب كثيراً الشخصيات الشريرة في روايات "لافكرافت"، لأنهم بكل بساطة عبارة عن أشباح وكيانات غامضة مبهمة ولا نتعامل مثلاً مع بشري شرير، وحتي إذا كان بشرياً فأنه يمارس الدجل والشعوذة التي جعلته شئ أبعد ما يكون عن البشرية، ولكن أعدك أن تحب شخصياته الجنتل المتعجرفة نوعاً رغم فقرها الجالي، فقير ومتعجرف! خليط عجيب لن تجده إلا هنا.
وبالنهاية..أحب أن أقول:
عزيزي لافكرافت،،،
تحية وطيبة وبعد،،،
حالياً أنت بالنسبة لي أكثر من كاتب أعشق قصصه وأنتهي الأمر عند هذا الحد، أنت لا تعلم كم كنت أخشي الوحدة دون أصدقائي المقربين الأعزاء وقد فرقتنا الثانوية العامة عليها لعنة الله، ولكنك كنت بجواري دائماً والشئ الوحيد الذي يسري عني..وجودك كان طاغياً كفيلاً بأن يجعلني أنسي وحدة طريقي، أنت تمثل أهمية كبري بحياتي لا يمكن وصفها بالكلمات، وأعترف بالتحيز لك وأنني قبل أن أقرأ القصة أعلم في قرارة نفسي أنني سأعطيها العلامة الكاملة وأنا مغمضة العينين ..ليتني كنت في زمنك، ولكني لم أكن لأرضي أن تقول لأصدقائك أنك تفضل أن تصاحب قطة علي أن تصاحب أمرأة، لقد تحملتك الست "سونيا" بما فيه الكفاية أعتقد..ولكني مازالت عند اعتقادي أنه لم يتواجد من حولك أي شخص قد يتفهمك بطريقة صحيحة، فكيف كتبت لأصدقائك الأوغاد هؤلاء في أكثر من رسالة أنك تعاني من أسنانك وتحتاج لطبيب أسنان؟ بالطبع من كثرة الأيس كريم والحلويات وأربع ملاعق كاملة من السكر في فنجان قهوة يتيم واحد! لقد رأيتك في أحلامي بعد أن قرأت قصة "تشارلز ديكستر وارد"، لقد كنت بطلاً! فلقد صفعت معيدة السكشن الفاشلة التي لا تستطيع رسم الأنسجة الطلائية وتكتب بخط أشبه بخطوط الأطفال، لكم كم تمنيت أن يكون هذا الحلم حقيقياً! فبعد أن صفعتها سقطت لتصطدم بالنبش خلفها حيث تتواجد الميكروسكوبات الخرفانة المخربة، لا لا أن ضعف نظري وعويناتي ذات العدسات السميكة ليست السبب في عدم رؤيتي العينات! أن المجهر في حالة بالية ككل شئ بالي قديم في الكلية، كتبت أنت في إحدي قصصك "أحياناً أحسب أن تلك الحياة الغير مادية قد تكون هي الحياة الحقيقية، وأن وجودنا علي هذه الكرة المائية هو الشئ التخيلي"، نعم أنت محق..ليتنا نعيش في هذه الأحلام والحياة الغير مادية، ليتك كنت موجوداً اليوم حتي تصفع المعيدة.
أتمانع أن أهديك بعض أبيات شاعري المفضل؟
نعم أراك تمانع..لأنك لست رومانسياً، وأنا أيضاً لست كذلك وأبغض كل ما يمت للرومانتيكية بصلة، كما أن أبيات الشاعر لحبيبته ويخاطب أنثي وليس رجلاً! ولكن ما سأكتبه من أبيات لا يتضح فيه أن الحديث لأنثي، وبالنهاية أعتذر عن الأطالة وعن كل هذ�� الحب في أخر المراجعة والذي لا يمت للقصة بصلة!
سوف ألقاك عبيراً بين يأس الناس..
عذب الأمنيات..
دائماً أنت بقلبي..
رغم أن الأرض ماتت!
رغم أن الحلم..مات
ربما ألقاك يوماً في دموع الكلمات..
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