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This month's Lovecraft story is the first one that he wrote in his Dream Cycle. For more information about Lovecraft's Dream Cycle and why we are now reading it, consult the first (lead) topic in this folder: "Lovecraft Fiction Marathon". The Wikipedia page devoted to the Dream Cycle is a great source of information.

"Polaris" is a fantasy short story written in 1918 and first published in the December 1920 issue of amateur journal: The Philosopher. This story introduces Lovecraft's fictional Pnakotic Manuscripts, the first of his arcane tomes.

One factor I find particularly intriguing regarding this story is that it has autobiographical elements. World War One had just ended. Lovecraft was really dissatisfied with the role he played, of lack thereof, and this apparently comes through in this story. It's also definitely one of his less well-known stories. Care to give it a try? Here is one possible source for the text if you are, like me, waiting for the book The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death to arrive: It is only a dozen paragraphs long.

Lovecraft's writing here is so powerful and atmospheric. I love the way he sets the stage:

Well do I remember the night of the great Aurora, when over the swamp played the shocking coruscations of the daemon-light. After the beams came clouds, and then I slept.
And it was under a horned waning moon that I saw the city for the first time.

Wow! What he said about “Esquimaux��. Not a story that can be written that way in today's cultural climate, I allow.

Nevertheless, I loved this! I envision a scene almost out of The Game of Thrones, a sentry on the North Wall being unable to sound the alarm. So well written!

Since I have the aforementioned book, I will read this story very soon. I must admit, though, that Polaris will be my very first Lovecraft story, so I haven't completed the lower level undergraduate course titled "HP101 - Introduction to Lovecraft". I hope I'm not about to do myself a disservice.

But based on your description of the Dream Cycle ("Lovecraft is at his wordiest and least plotful (...) They are all about atmosphere and beautiful (detractors might say flowery or purple) word choices, not action, protagonist survival, or antagonist defeat"), it seems like the perfect place for me to start! I must say I'm excited!

I'm not sure I understand what it means, though, that Pnakotic Manuscripts is the first of his arcane tomes. Should I keep this in mind in some way when I read Polaris?

I'm glad you have the book I mentioned: The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death. I think it's a good place to start Lovecraft if you're open to the less conventional notions of storytelling an already highly original writer uses in these Dream Cycle stories.

My copy arrived a few days ago and I must admit to some surprise that "Polaris" starts on page 15. It is the first story qua story, but the preceding matter is of interest as well, at least to me. Neil Gaiman wrote an introduction that while it didn't break new ground was interesting for its modern and personal perspective.

I don't agree with Gaiman that early Lovecraft is Lovecraft trying to find a voice or is just a pastiche of Poe and Dunsany. That's what one might expect to find, but it's not what I've observed in my reading of early Lovecraft. I find early Lovecraft already surprisingly complete in terms of command of his writing craft, tone, word choices, and his conceptions of how to relate the story he wants to tell. If anything, later Lovecraft seems less sophisticated in terms of writing style to me. The three fragments that precede "Polaris" are cases that perfectly make my point. The first is early Lovecraft; it may be only three paragraphs, but the writing is absolutely stunning. The second fragment is middle Lovecraft. Still good writing, but not quite as carefully crafted in terms of word choices; more concern in what information is being conveyed. The third fragment is late Lovecraft and it's almost standard fiction writing of any author. Still good, but not as identifiably Lovecraft in style.

Don't take my word for it though. Read those three fragments before "Polaris" and see what you think!

P.S. I am not sure what Pnakotic Manuscripts are either. I hope we find out.

I’ve finished reading the three fragments and Polaris.

The fragment of Azatoth was wonderful. I had to read it twice to get a proper feel for it and get some sense of its intent and meaning. It felt like a cryptic prose poem at first, and then like a summary of a nightmarish dream (which it is?), or a vision of the future. Or both.

I must note that there were some long sentences here (which didn’t bother me), and lots of conjunctions, specifically “and��, which I guess one might use when retelling a dream or experience from memory (like: “and then this happened, and then this, and then there was a…��). Anyway, his style doesn’t seem as complex as his imagination appears to be - which at the moment, to me, seems vast and promising.


The Descendant

This was certainly different in style and tone. I agree with you that it didn’t seem as carefully crafted. I got confused a little bit. About the characters. Who is that first character in the beginning? And then the story seems to be about some random man, and then Williams, and then Lord Northam (who actually is that random man!), and then a little bit about Luneus Gabinius Capito. And then the first unnamed character and Williams is never mentioned again. I guess the story was supposed to continue, so that makes sense, but as it stands, it’s less fulfilling then Azatoth, which at the same time actually feels complete.

I enjoyed the mystery surrounding the Necronomicon and its powers, though. Curious and scary. Love it. I’d love to learn more about the book and the life of Lord Northam.

“Demesnes�� was a new word for me here, by the way. Never encountered it before. I really liked the sentence where it occurs: “Filled with a feeling (��) that unknown demesnes press on and permeate the sphere of the known av every point (��)��. Poignant. Thrilling.


The Thing in the Moonlight

You know, there is this unspoken rule, this general notion or law of nature that compels us to lose interest the moment someone tells us about a dream they had. Well, it depends who shares their dream and in what manner, but for some reason, I am generally quick to mentally withdraw. In this case, though, I gave Lovecraft the benefit of the doubt. Maybe because it’s him or because it’s different with literature, but I’m glad I remained focused. Things happened very quickly here, and the ending was not as I expected. I was positively surprised! I do think you’re right in that it seems almost like standard fiction writing, but it did nevertheless become eerie in a non-standard kind of way.


Polaris had some great, nocturnal atmosphere. I wonder what the Pole Star symbolizes, if it’s alive and what it is doing. If anything. Or maybe it’s just an illusion or a feeling of anxiousness, despair or restlessness. I guess that’s something Lovecraft loved doing: describe something that is beyond human comprehension?

I really enjoyed that poem too. And it relates to “lore of the skies�� in the Pnakotic manuscripts? Mysterious!


By the way, you mentioned that you disagreed with Gaiman’s assessment of early Lovecraft writing. I don’t have the prerequisite knowledge to have an opinion on that, but it would have been interesting to know exactly when or what stories Gaiman referred to with “He was pretty dreadful when he started out�� or “Lovecraft in the beginning��, and also when the following occurs: “Somewhere in there (��) Lovecraft’s voice begins to emerge��. That would just make it easier to agree or disagree with him.

I found his writing very poetic and atmospheric-which I enjoyed.

Is this a reincarnation story or a very vivid dream?

I don't think reincarnation enters into the story at any point. No one has died and there is nothing about a previous life, only a different life.

The way I read the story is that you have a narrator sitting in some attic room writing at night. An oil lamp is burning, and the stars are shining. Out the window the narrator can see Polaris, the North Star, and seeing this starts the narrator's reverie. He remembers of a time when he slept in this room and dream the events of the third paragraph. After awakening in the next paragraph, the narrator wonders if it were really all just dream, or if maybe he had been somehow transported across space. He then describes more scenes from the dream that make it seem pretty real. Certainly, where he was under those red skies of Aldebaran would make for a more interesting story than some guy sitting in a garret having dreams and merely writing of them.

One aspect of the story I really like is of this rich world behind everything Lovecraft writes of it, yet that world is only hinted at. Who is this Charles Wain and Coma Berenices that Lovecraft only mentions once in a way that makes it seem we should know them? They are in the narrator's life here on Earth. He does much the same thing when he describes features of his dream life on the red world, only more. Who are these Inutos that attempt to gain the citadel by the narrow pass behind the peak Noton, and why are the Inutos making this attack?

We never find out. The point Lovecraft is trying to make is that for the narrator his life on the red planet to which he gets spiritually translated and only dreams of is as real as his supposedly real life on Earth.

'Gradually I came to wonder what might be my place in that city on the strange plateau betwixt strange peaks. At first content to view the scene as an all-observant uncorporeal presence, I now desired to define my relation to it, and to speak my mind amongst the grave men who conversed each day in the public squares. I said to myself, “This is no dream, for by what means can I prove the greater reality of that other life in the house of stone and brick south of the sinister swamp and the cemetery on the low hillock, where the Pole Star peers into my north window each night?�� '