TYSON, Donald, The Dream World of H.P. Lovecraft – His Life,
His Demons, His Universe, Llewellyn Publications/ Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.,
Woodbury, MN, USA, 2010.
Octavo;
paperback; 313pp. (with 8pp. of adverts) with a monochrome portrait
frontispiece. Very minor wear. Near fine.
Lovecraft’s
popularity derives from many different sources and we live in a world where
each of these facets is abundantly catered for. Those who admire his writings
have a wealth of material to troll through; for those who take an interest in
his life and other biographical details, there are works which focus on his
personal life; his works, and those of his peers and later imitators, are
always in print; and for those who want to believe that Cthulhu is actually out
there somewhere, dreaming under the Pacific, there is Donald Tyson.
From
what I can gather, Tyson would have us think that the Old Ones are actually a
manifest part of the universe, and that HPL tapped into their presence by being
a “lucid dreamer”. In this work he grinds away at this thesis providing
biographical details to support the notion that HPL was in fact dispensing some
kind of half-glimpsed truth disguised as “weird fiction”.
Now,
having grown up, myself, looking for some kind of reality behind the
supernatural/paranormal/magical legendry that suffuses the planet, I feel I
know where Tyson is coming from: it would be nice to know that there was
something extraordinary and wondrous out there in the cosmos; however, reality
is as HPL repeatedly painted it: soulless, indifferent, and uncaring. Wanting
Cthulhu and Co. to be real does not, in fact, make it so; this hasn’t stopped
Tyson from earning a buck out of the Mythos.
It
breaks down like this: HPL was a lucid dreamer – i.e. an individual who is able
to take control of the elements of his subconscious narratives and alter them
to suit. Such dreamers are frequently known to experience flying sensations
within their dreamscapes and are able to vividly recall the visions they
receive. So far, so good: textual evidence shows that HPL dreamt at an
extraordinary level of comprehension and has left behind fragments of his detailed
dreams which he passed on to others to incorporate in their own tales (see
Belknap Long’s Horror from the Hills,
for example). It is known that he also suffered from night terrors – this is a
condition where the normal neurological functions which disconnect muscles from
fight or flight responses during REM sleep fail to cut in, and the subject
thrashes and otherwise moves violently about whilst dreaming. It’s not a
stretch to think that lucid dreaming and night terrors might be somehow
associated with each other, but I’m prepared to leave sleep researchers to work
on that one.
Tyson
uses this premise to imply that the Necronomicon
actually exists on some extradimensional level, and is able to be contacted by
subconscious individuals capable of manipulating their dreams. He pulls this
notion from the fact that HPL couldn’t definitively pin down from where he
coined the book’s title and was never completely satisfied with the various attempts
to translate the word into English. Having created this “origin story”, Tyson
then goes on to lay out his notion that HPL’s writings were all attempts to
warn humanity of Things Better Left Alone. To this end, he petulantly disposes
of such terms as “Cthulhu Mythos”, and even HPL’s own preferred term “Yog-Sothery”,
and champions his own invention, “Necronomicon Mythos”, thereby accurately – to
his way of thinking – identifying the source of the malevolence.
To
me, this reads as something akin to those early Egyptological researchers who
looked at the Pyramids and said ‘no human being could have moved those blocks,
let alone put them all in place’. These days, we know that human beings are creative
and ingenious when forced to come up with a solution to a problem. The ‘von Däniken Assumption’
(if we can call it that) leads to all kinds of wacky theories about ‘Aliens’
and ‘forgotten magic’ and relegates humanity to a herd-like status; further, it’s
a patronising position which holds that all of our forebears were clueless
idiots incapable of discovery or innovation. Our species is no smarter because
we have iPads and Facebook; arguably, we are more stupid as a result.
Tyson,
in effect, is saying that HPL was simply a rather dull recluse with a yen to
scratch out some fiction in his spare time: without the Cosmic Revelation from Beyond
the Wall of Sleep that is the NECRONOMICON(!), he wouldn’t have amounted to
much. Personally, I find this position untenable and insulting. Mr Tyson
probably didn’t intend for it to be; I’m assuming that he just didn’t think it
through. HPL was a gifted writer with a tremendous imaginative force which he
brought to bear on his creations. He was also a troubled individual with a
whole bunch of unfortunate and debilitating quirks, but to take away his creative
power is to rob him, I think, of his legacy.
I
have read Tyson’s Necronomicon – The Wanderings
of Alhazred and I found it diverting: as a riff upon a book that doesn’t
exist (despite the author’s eager contention that it does) it was amusing
enough. Was it the real Necronomicon?
Not at all. Let me reiterate: the Necronomicon
does not exist outside the writings of HPL and his circle. Taking any other
position is just wishful thinking, and earns you the right to attend UFO
Festivals and Cryptozoology Conventions with impunity.
Tyson
falls into the camp of desperate believers who feel that a “system of magical
working” can be built out of any coherent body of symbols with an integrated
process of manipulation. This is, essentially, taking the standard concepts of “Magick”
and dressing-them up with new faces. You can do it with vegetables; you can do
it with comic book characters; you can – obviously – do it with the Great Old
Ones. We’ve been doing it since at least the Renaissance with the Commedia del’Arte characters and – of course
– as early as people have been able and inclined to daub splotches on cave
walls. Those of you who are Mythos orientated will recall that August Derleth
tried something similar when he tried to codify HPL’s “Yog-Sothery” into a
system of Good and Evil entities bound by the Ancient Greek concept of the four
elements. Tyson hasn’t forgotten this and he denigrates Derleth for taking this
route; however, I notice that he has developed his own “Necronomicon Tarot”, so it looks like he enjoys having his cake
and eating it too.
The
Mythos is out there for anyone who cares to, to turn their hand to it
creatively – it’s like open source horror material. I don’t begrudge Tyson for
making a buck; but don’t take this stuff seriously, folks. At its fundamental
level, it’s antithetical to everything that HPL was writing about, so that’s
got to give you pause; but it’s also based on a whole bunch of tenuous and
unsupportable fairy-floss. Tyson gives a solid reportage of HPL’s life and
peculiarities and – it has to be said – he deals out this stuff with skill and
a measured hand. He establishes a format whereby he provides a chapter of
biographical detail followed by a chapter of wishful-thinking along the lines
outlined above. In this way he serves those fans who are fascinated by The Man
as well as those who crave The Mystical Possibilities – like I said, you can’t
fault him for wanting to make a quid. But HPL’s life and peccadilloes aren’t
hard to find – many authors have provided biographies, from L. Sprague de Camp,
to S.T. Joshi, to Michel Houllebecq – and arguably, those other authors aren’t
as enamoured of the ‘cut-and-paste’ function on their computers as is Mr Tyson.
Still,
if you’re convinced that the Great Old Ones are only a dream away, and that by
using magic you can get them to reveal the Lotto numbers to you, then this book
is probably for you. And also the Tarot deck; and the Grimoire of the Necronomicon; and the 13 Gates of the Necronomicon magical workbook; all at reasonable
prices!
Two
tentacled horrors.
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