H.P. Lovecraft: "The Rats in the Walls" {read by Andy Sames}
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- čas přidán 6. 10. 2022
- "The Rats in the Walls" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in August-September 1923, it was first published in Weird Tales, March 1924. Long after writing "The Rats in the Walls", Lovecraft wrote that the story was "suggested by a very commonplace incident-the cracking of wall-paper late at night, and the chain of imaginings resulting from it." Another entry in Lovecraft's commonplace book also seems to provide a plot germ for the story: "Horrible secret in crypt of ancient castle-discovered by dweller."
"The Rats in the Walls" is loosely connected to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos stories; toward the end, the narrator notes that the rats seem "determined to lead me on even unto those grinning caverns of earth's centre where Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls blindly to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players." In this reference to Nyarlathotep, the first after his introduction in the prose poem of the same name, the entity seems to have many of the attributes of the god Azathoth.
Before moving to Exham Priory, Delapore lives in Bolton, Massachusetts, a factory town where the title character of "Herbert West-Reanimator" performs some of his experiments. The town is also mentioned in "The Colour Out of Space"; it is not thought to be the same place as the real-world Bolton, Massachusetts.
It is notable in that Lovecraft uses the technique of referring to a text (in this case real life works by Petronius and Catullus) without giving a full explanation of its contents, so as to give the impression of depth and hidden layers to his work. He later refined this idea with the Necronomicon, prevalent in his Cthulhu Mythos stories.
Kingsley Amis listed "Rats" (along with "The Dunwich Horror") as one of the Lovecraft stories "that achieve a memorable nastiness". Lin Carter called "Rats" "one of the finest stories of Lovecraft's entire career." S. T. Joshi describes the piece as "a nearly flawless example of the short story in its condensation, its narrative pacing, its thunderous climax, and its mingling of horror and poignancy."
The name of the cat seen to be a dark breed of Ragdoll, "Nigger-Man", has often been cited in discussions of Lovecraft's racial attitudes. Lovecraft owned a cat by that name until 1904. The cat had likely been given its name when Lovecraft was about age nine.
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(Voice Recording)
Read by Andy Sames for LibriVox
Short Ghost and Horror Collection 060
librivox.org/short-ghost-and-...
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Music: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com), (timkulig.com/albums/petrifications)
Album: Petrifications
"After the Blast"; "Ancient Basement"; "Children Eating Corn"; "Edge of Forever"; "Forbidden Resurrection"; "Late Night Country Road"; "Lucid Nightmare"; "Mortician's Hat Trick" & "They're Coming"
Contact: timkuligfreemusic@gmail.com
Phone: 941-567-7121
ALL MUSIC Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
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If you like this video subscribe to my channel. There are many more videos like this one lovingly prepared and edited by myself for your enjoyment! Check out my extensive playlist collections as well. - Hudba
what an interesting sounding man! i wonder if he has a cat with a unique name!
l believe he did.
The music may have been a little too intense at the end, but a good job overall.
Oh boy, i wonder whats his cat's name
Lovecraft had some issues in that area... I debated bleeping it out while editing, but in the end left it uncensored. I think this is the right decision, but I hope I don't live to regret it.
@@christophermacintyre5890 you did the correct, scholarly thing. It's interesting that Lovecraft incorporated a real creature into this story: his father's cat.
@@christophermacintyre5890 Unfortunately Librivox readings have to be verbatim, I think it is conected to copyright issue's. I had a very dark black cat myself, I called him Spider.😊
Normal people's reaction to discovering they have welsh ancestry: Oh cool.
Lovecraft's reaction:
Funny to think, but that's not the correct sequence of events; just an internet rumour.
De dechets et du sang... ...brulant... ...tus.... Of offal and of the blood... ...burning... ...still.... it is free with kindle unlimited it is a collection of English/French poems and short stories hope you like something if you read
Here is one of the poems it is a poetic interpretation of head of a dead young man painting by theodore gericault
Head of a dead young man
Beneath a canvas coarse and crass, the head of a young man upon a cushion soft and of care; feminine chin; upon the lower lip the blood of God; fine nose; hair of an infant here...and...down there; upon his front, the sublime illumination, that descends, intimately as though of ivory flame.... ...when, of lavender and of rose, ascending vaguely towards the exegetic darkness, the offal; disclosed thus, profound and grave, an immense lesion, as though of a dolourous ulcer...from where all comes...where all returns....