H.P. Lovecraft: "The Unnamable" {read by Andrew Gaunce}

"The Unnamable" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in September 1923, first published in the July 1925 issue of Weird Tales, and first collected in Beyond the Wall of Sleep. The corrected text appears in Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, (revised ed, 1986). The story's locale was inspired by the Charter Street Historic District Burying Ground in Salem.
Carter is usually identified with Randolph Carter, a recurring, autobiographical character in Lovecraft's fiction. The incident in "The Unnamable" is alluded to in "The Silver Key" (1926), which records that Carter "went back to Arkham...and had experiences in the dark, amidst the hoary willows, and tottering gambrel roofs, which made him seal forever certain pages in the diary of a wild-minded ancestor." However, the Carter of "The Unnamable" does not believe in the supernatural, which would conflict with the supernatural events of "The Statement of Randolph Carter." The Carter of this story also seems to be a reflection of Lovecraft himself, as shown when: "he added, my constant talk about 'unnamable' and 'unmentionable' things was a very puerile device, quite in keeping with my lowly standing as an author. I was too fond of ending my stories with sights or sounds which paralysed my heroes’ faculties and left them without courage, words, or associations to tell what they had experienced." This is quite in standing with Lovecraft's work up to this point in his career, much of which uses similar plot devices to those described, such as entities beyond comprehension and protagonists driven mad by their experiences.
Joel Manton: The character of Joel Manton is based on Lovecraft's friend Maurice W. Moe. Manton is principal of the "East High School", while Moe taught at Milwaukee's West Division High School; Moe, like Manton, is a religious believer, in contrast to Carter's (and Lovecraft's) skepticism.
The Unnamable: Lovecraft leaves the exact nature and origins of the Unnamable itself vague. It is hinted that it was born in the late 17th or early 18th century, and kept hidden away in the attic of the now-abandoned house associated with the legend. The original reports of the creature, as told by Carter, indicate a devil-like figure. There are references throughout the story to the creature having horns and hooves, and Carter, when relating how he found the thing's bones in the attic of the old house, mentions "four-inch horns, but a face and jaw something like yours and mine." There are also references to the thing's "blemished eye," and a "screaming drunken wretch that they hanged for having such an eye." Eventually, the legends, in the words of Carter, "take on a spectral character - I suppose the thing, if it was a living thing, must have died." After their encounter in the cemetery, Manton describes the monster as "everywhere -- a gelatin -- a slime -- yet it had shapes, a thousand shapes of horror beyond all memory. There were eyes -- and a blemish." Tellingly, the men are left with wounds of hooves and horns.
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(Voice Recording):
*read for LibriVox by Andrew Gaunce
LibriVox (Short Ghost and Horror Collection 049)
librivox.org/s...
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(Music):
"Despair and Triumph", "Land of Phantoms", "Piece for Disaffected Piano One", & "String Impromptu No. 1"
by Kevin MacLeod (www.incompetech.com)
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommon...
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[@keithmacintyre1889]

Nice spooky music and images to go with the story.

[@christophermacintyre5890]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@bridypow1947]

❤