Beyond the wall of sleep

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beyond the Wall of Sleep , illustration in Weird Tales magazine , 1938

Beyond the Wall of Sleep (English title Beyond the Wall of Sleep ) is a short story of American writer HP Lovecraft from the year 1919th

It is one of the first published short stories by Lovecraft, later known for his horror stories , and is also considered to be his earliest science fiction story. It is about an apparently crazy man from the Catskill Mountains who is admitted to a mental hospital after a murder. The narrator, an assistant doctor at the institution, tries to get to the bottom of the madness. While the man is asleep, the doctor therefore comes into contact with a cosmic being that is trapped in the patient's body and seeks revenge on the demon star Algol .

content

Audio file Beyond the Wall of Sleep (English)

Beyond the Wall of Sleep is about a man named Slater (or Slaader) from the Catskill Mountains , who is admitted to a mental hospital after a seizure and the brutal murder of another person in 1900. Slater is portrayed as crazy and dangerous. He is temporarily possessed by an inhuman power, chats about otherworldly levels and an opponent from the stars on whom he seeks revenge. During one of those episodes in which the alien takes control of him, Slater kills a neighbor and is admitted to the clinic after being arrested. When he arrives, he appears calm, stupid and indifferent; a few days later he had a fit of rage and had to be reassured. During his frenzy "he babbled in his hillbilly dialect of large buildings of light, oceans full of stars, strange music and shady mountains and valleys." In addition, he described a "mysteriously radiant being [...] who trembled and laughed and mocked him." wanted to "float up through the abyss of emptiness and burn down every obstacle that stood in his way" in order to kill the being.

The story is written from the first person perspective of a clinic assistant who suspects a deeper hidden secret behind Slater's obvious madness and his dreams and fantasies. He invents a device, a "cosmic radio", with which he hopes to gain access to Slater's spirit. After several attempts, he succeeds in communicating telepathically with the being in Slater. So he learns that Slater was taken over by an unearthly and timeless being and that this was trapped in him. During his communication, Slater dies, and the being in him can break out of the body:

“'Joe Slater is dead,' came the soul-petrifying voice or agency from beyond the wall of sleep. [...] 'He is better dead, for he was unfit to bear the active intellect of the cosmic entity. His gross body could not undergo the adjustments needed between ethereal life and planet life. He was too much of an animal, too little a man; yet it is through his deficiency that you have come to discover me, for the cosmic and planet souls rightly should never meet. He has been my torment and diurnal prison for forty-two of your terrestrial years. '"

“'Joe Slater is dead,' was the message from the petrifying voice or the transmitter from Beyond the Wall of Sleep. […] 'Death is better for him because he could not bear the waking spirit of a cosmic being. His coarse body could not make the necessary adjustments between ethereal life and earth life. He was too much of an animal, too little human; but you discovered me because of its shortcomings, because cosmic and earthbound souls should never actually meet. For forty-two of your earth years he has been my torture and my daily prison. '"

Remains of the Nova GK Persei from 1901, created in 2015 from the superposition of images in the X-ray range (blue), in the visible range (yellow) and in the radio wave range (pink). The images come from the Chandra and Hubble space telescopes and the Very Large Array .

The creature informs him that it seeks revenge on the star Algol and that it can only carry it out after Slater's death:

"'Of the oppressor I cannot speak. You on earth have unwittingly felt its distant presence - you who without knowing idly gave to its blinking beacon the name of Algol, the Daemon-Star. It is to meet and conquer the oppressor that I have vainly striven for aeons, held back by bodily encumbrances. Tonight I go as a Nemesis bearing just and blazingly cataclysmic vengeance. Watch me in the sky close by the Daemon-Star. '"

“'I cannot speak of the tyrant. You have unknowingly sensed its distant presence on earth - you have given its flashing beacon the name Algol, the demon star. For eons I have tried in vain to meet and defeat the tyrant, but have been held back by the weight of this body. Tonight I go as a nemesis for righteous and radiant cataclysmic retribution. Find me in the sky near the demon star. '"

The story openly ends with a quote from the work of Garrett P. Serviss that astronomers observed the formation of a new star, Nova Persei on February 22, 1901, near Algol:

"On February 22, 1901, a marvelous new star was discovered by Dr. Anderson, of Edinburgh, not very far from Algol. No star had been visible at that point before. Within twenty-four hours the stranger had become so bright that it outshone Capella. In a week or two it had visibly faded, and in the course of a few months it was hardly discernible with the naked eye. "

“On February 22, 1901, Dr. Anderson from Edinburgh discovered a new star not very far from Algol. A star had never been seen at this point before. Within 24 hours the stranger had become so bright that it outshone Capella . After a week or two it was visibly faded, and after a few months you could hardly see it with the naked eye. "

Origin and publications

According to ST Joshi and David E. Schultz , the story was largely inspired by an April 27, 1919 article in the New York Tribune entitled How Our State Police Have Spurred Their Way to Fame , which referred to a family as "The Slaters “And was described as an example of the decadent misery of the mountain people. Lovecraft combined the story with impressions gained from Garrett P. Serviss' astronomical work Astronomy with the Naked Eye , which belonged to his library and explains the date. Serviss described, among other things, the Nova Persei of 1901, which is also mentioned at the end of the story. The nova was an important astronomical event, since phenomena comparable to the supernovae of 1054 and 1572 had occurred a long time ago, and appeared shortly before Lovecraft's interest in the subject began.

HP Lovecraft, photograph from 1915
March 1938 Weird Tales cover page that published Beyond the Wall of Sleep .

The short story Beyond the Wall of Sleep first appeared in the amateur magazine Pine Cones , Issue 6, edited by John Clinton Pryor , in October 1919. It was published in Fantasy Fan in October 1934 and reappeared in March 1938 Weird tales . In the version in the Fantasy Fan from 1934 an insert "Freud to the contrary with his puerile symbolism" ("Freud's childish symbolism in spite of") was added, which refers to the sexual interpretation of many dreams by Sigmund Freud . This was also adopted in Weird Tales and in later editions, although the original did not exist.

In most versions, the work is introduced by a line from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare :

"I have an exposure of sleep come upon me"

"An exposure to sleep is important to me."

- Shakespeare ( A Midsummer Night's Dream , 4th act, 1st scene)

In Weird Tales it was introduced with the marker:

"What strange, splendid yet terrible experiences came to the poor mountaineer in the hours of sleep? —A story of a supernal being from Algol, the Demon-Star."

“What strange, overwhelming, yet terrible experiences did the poor mountain dweller have during the hours of sleep? - a story about a supernatural being from Algol, the demon star. "

- Translation according to Klinger 2017

In 1943 the story was included in the anthology Beyond the Wall of Sleep published by Arkham House , after which it appeared several times in other anthologies with Lovecraft texts. 2014 story in the collection was The New Annotated HP Lovecraft by Leslie S. Klinger added, in 2017 she also appeared in the translated into German version of HP Lovecraft - The work in a new translation by Andreas Fliedner and Alexander Pechmann .

Interpretation and reception

interpretation

Joshi and Schultz point out that there is no content-related overlap with Beyond the Wall by Ambrose Bierce , as the latter is a conventional ghost story. An influence could through history Before Adam by Jack London have passed, but there is no indication that Lovecraft had read this. London's story is about a man who dreams of an ancestor from earlier times and who expresses himself with the sentence "Nor ... did any of my human kind ever break through the wall of my sleep". According to Joshi and Schultz, there are other parallels in the stories. You see Lovecraft's story as a mirror image of Before Adam .

For ST Joshi, the short story presents some “effective ideas”, but it suffers from the sometimes confusing plot, the precious style and the self-satisfied sense of class of the author. He points out that Lovecraft did not know the mountain landscape firsthand and was probably made aware of it by the amateur poet Jonathan E. Hoag, who lived in New York state and whom he had known since about 1916. Joshi suspects that Lovecraft chose the unknown region as the setting to be able to express his social superiority towards the degenerate "backwoodsmen". It is also strange for him that Lovecraft considered it unnecessary to explain why the entity chose Slater's body of all things. On the other hand, he appreciates the work for the fact that it anticipated motifs for later works. Unlike Dagon , it contains “cosmic” elements, in that the universe forms the background of a story that initially revolves around a simple crime. She connects the motif of the dream with other early works such as Polaris and The Tomb .

Garrett Putnam Serviss, November 1925; Lovecraft used his work Astronomy with the Naked Eye as inspiration and quotes him at the end of his story.

According to Leslie S. Klinger, the story is “pure science fiction, written before this genre existed.” The focus is on the technical explanation of the transmission of brain waves and the description of an event that can be verified using astronomical data. In his view, “Lovecraft is trying to fathom the idea of ​​thought transmission for the first time, which he will later pursue more profoundly in The Whisperer in the Dark and The Shadow from Time .” Accordingly, he pursues “an idea that opens the door to travel through space and Opened up time in a way that could not be imagined before. "

In addition, this story reveals, in Klinger's view, "not least Lovecraft's deep-rooted aversion to people who did not have a flawless New England family tree." He refers to the description of Joe Slater from the Catskill Mountains , who wrote history as a typical inhabitant of this region becomes:

“His name, as given on the records, was Joe Slater, or Slaader, and 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-traveled 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. "

“His name on record was Joe Slater or Slaader, and his outward appearance resembled that of a typical inhabitant of the Catskill Mountains: He was one of those peculiar, repulsive offspring of a primitive colonial peasant people, whose isolation lasted for almost three centuries in the mountainous expanse of a rarely traveled province caused it to descend into a kind of barbaric degeneration instead of evolving along with its happier brothers who live in the more densely populated areas. There is no law or morality among these curious folks, who resemble the depraved southern population known as "White Trash," and their average intelligence is arguably below that of any other American-born man. "

In general, people from the Catskill Mountains were considered backward and uneducated by the residents of the cities at the time the story was written. For this prejudice, Klinger lists an article from the Catskill Mountain News , which describes the case of a family who were fined for killing a fox in their chicken coop, and another about the New York State Troopers , in which the Residents of the region were described in a manner similar to that of Lovecraft: “The Catskills and their foothills, whose valleys harbor a people as lawless and depraved as those of the highlands in the south and the Adirondacks, whose residents have for years a heartfelt aversion to all of humans In a place called Polly Hollow, where "many families are called Slater (pronounced Slaater)", according to this article, "none of the residents can read or write" and they are described as "depraved". Klinger further writes that this white trash population never existed. According to his information, according to a census of 1910, only 1.6% of the native white rural population could not read and the proportion of young people between 15 and 20 who attended school was even higher than the proportion at 41.3% in rural areas of 34% in the city.

Technical and astronomical content

In its history, Lovecraft deals with technical-medical content on electrophysiology as well as with the measurement and interpretation of brain waves during the patient's dream phase. In the story, the protagonist uses a converted radio to make contact with the patient's subconscious and receive brain waves. At the time the story was settled (1900 to 1901), the electrical activity of the brain was still largely unexplored, and even at the time of its creation around 1919 it was only partially explored. The first descriptions of electrical changes in the brain came from the British physiologist Richard Caton in 1875. In 1890 Adolf Beck described oscillation patterns in the activity of animal brains. Radio waves, which the narrator compares with brain waves, were postulated by James Clerk Maxwell in 1865, but only detected in the laboratory by Heinrich Hertz in 1887 .

When describing astronomical content, Lovecraft used contemporary scientific literature and built it into his narrative. As already mentioned, he used the book Astronomy with the Naked Eye by Garrett P. Serviss and cited it at the end of the story. Klinger points out in his comment that the new star, if it could be seen for the first time in 1901, could not have formed in the same year. Since Algol is 93 light years away from Earth, a star in its vicinity must have formed 89 years before it was sighted, in this case around 1808. The thoughts of the cosmic being could be a possibility of how this could correlate with history also wandered at the speed of light and through space and time.

The demon star Algol

The star Algol was named after the Arabic name 'al-Ghul' because of its fluctuating brightness, which translates as “mischief maker”. This is also the name of a demon-like creature, the ghoul ( Arabic غُول ghūl , DMG ġūl ), as well as the 'Ra's al Ghul' (Latin transliteration of the Arabic Ra's al-Ghul  /رأس الغول / Raʾs al-Ġūl  / 'head of the demon'), the "head of the demon" or "demon head". According to the work Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning by Richard H. Allen , 'Ra's al Ghul' is also the actual origin for the name of Algol, which should originally come from Ptolemy . He mentions that the ghoul also appears as a character in the Tales of the Arabian Nights as a demonic figure. According to all, astrologers claimed that "the star is the most ominous, strongest and most dangerous in the sky."

Ghouls are also later used in horror stories and in works derived from them such as role-playing games , where they appear as corpse-eating undead. In DC Comics , Ra's al Ghul is the leader of a secret organization and an opponent of Batman .

Derivative works

Musical reception

Black Sabbath 1970; Copywriter Geezer Butler (left) was inspired by the short story for Behind the Wall of Sleep .

The English band Black Sabbath in 1970 released their debut album Black Sabbath with the song Behind the Wall of Sleep , which was inspired by the eponymous short story. The lyrics describe the life and the escape of the being from the dead body:

"Now from darkness, there springs light
Wall of sleep is cool and bright
Wall of sleep is lying broken
Sun shines in, you have awoken"

It was probably the first reference by a metal band to the works of HP Lovecraft. Songwriter and bassist for the band Geezer Butler said he was inspired by both the Lovecraft story and a personal dream for the song. The song was covered by the death metal band Macabre and the industrial metal band Static-X , among others .

Other bands who were inspired by the story to make songs were Sentenced , Manticora , The Smithereens and Opeth as well as the guitarist Christian Muenzner . The gothic rock band Beyond the Wall of Sleep , founded in 1994, was named after the story.

Cinematic implementation

The short story was filmed in 2006 and 2009. In 2006 a film of the same name by Barrett J. Leigh and Thom Maurer was released , in which William Sanderson played the role of the patient Joe Slaader and Fountain Yount played the role of the young doctor Edward Eischel. In 2009 a short film by Nathan Fisher based on the story was also released.

Others

In 1991, Beyond the Wall of Sleep was edited by the writer Steven Philip Jones together with the illustrator Octavio Cariello as a comic book that was published by Malibu Graphics. In 2016, Caliber Comics reprinted this in the anthology HP Lovecraft's Worlds and its own graphic novel.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Illustration from Beyond the Wall of Sleep , Weird Tales 31 (3), 1938; P. 331. ( Digitized edition on Wikimedia Commons )
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Beyond the wall of sleep." In: Leslie S. Klinger : HP Lovecraft - The work. Translation by Andreas Fliedner and Alexander Pechmann, original title The New Annotated HP Lovecraft . Fischer TOR, Frankfurt / Main 2017; Pp. 86-96. ISBN 978-3-596-03708-7 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Beyond the Wall of Sleep , full text on wikisource.org from Weird Tales 31 (3), 1938; P. 331. ( Digitized edition on Wikimedia Commons ) (en); accessed on February 3, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b c “Beyond the Wall of Sleep.” In: ST Joshi, David E. Schultz: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001; P. 19.
  5. ↑ So Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. German by Andreas Fliedner, Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 332.
  6. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. German by Andreas Fliedner, Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 332
  7. ↑ Sunand T. Joshi: HP Lovecraft - life and work. Volume 1. German by Andreas Fliedner, Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, p. 333
  8. ↑ a b "Beyond the wall of sleep." In: Leslie S. Klinger: HP Lovecraft - The work. Translation by Andreas Fliedner and Alexander Pechmann, original title The New Annotated HP Lovecraft . Fischer TOR, Frankfurt / Main 2017: Note 3, p. 87.
  9. ^ "Beyond the wall of sleep." In: Leslie S. Klinger: HP Lovecraft - The work. Translation by Andreas Fliedner and Alexander Pechmann, original title The New Annotated HP Lovecraft . Fischer TOR, Frankfurt / Main 2017: Note 6, pp. 92–93.
  10. ^ "Beyond the wall of sleep." In: Leslie S. Klinger: HP Lovecraft - The work. Translation by Andreas Fliedner and Alexander Pechmann, original title The New Annotated HP Lovecraft . Fischer TOR, Frankfurt / Main 2017: Note 13, p. 96.
  11. ↑ a b "Beyond the wall of sleep." In: Leslie S. Klinger: HP Lovecraft - The work. Translation by Andreas Fliedner and Alexander Pechmann, original title The New Annotated HP Lovecraft . Fischer TOR, Frankfurt / Main 2017: Note 13, p. 95.
  12. ↑ Lyrics for Beyond the Wall of Sleep. from Black Sabbath ; accessed on November 24, 2018.
  13. ^ Joseph Norman: "Sounds Which Filled Me: with an Indefinable Dread": The Cthulhu Mythopoeia of HP Lovecraft in "Extreme" Metal. In: David Simmons (Ed.) New Critical Essays on HP Lovecraft. Springer Verlag, 2003; Pp. 193-208. doi : 10.1057 / 9781137320964_11
  14. ↑ Beyond the Wall of Sleep (2006) in the Internet Movie Database (English); accessed on February 27, 2019.
  15. ↑ Beyond the Wall of Sleep (2009) in the Internet Movie Database (English); accessed on February 27, 2019.
  16. ↑ Worlds of HP Lovecraft, Caliber Comics interview with Steven Philip Jones, Jan. 20, 2016; accessed on February 27, 2019.

literature

  • “Beyond the Wall of Sleep.” In: ST Joshi, David E. Schultz: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001; P. 19.
  • Sunand T. Joshi . HP Lovecraft - Life and Work. Volume 1, German by Andreas Fliedner, Golkonda-Verlag, Munich 2017, ISBN 3944720512 , pp. 331–335
  • “Beyond the wall of sleep.” In: Leslie S. Klinger : HP Lovecraft - The work. Translation by Andreas Fliedner and Alexander Pechmann, original title The New Annotated HP Lovecraft . Fischer TOR, Frankfurt / Main 2017; Pp. 86-96. ISBN 978-3-596-03708-7 .

Web links

This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 4, 2019 in this version .