Connections

[j d worthington]

A few things which have been mentioned in some of the discussions of HPL's work here lately, plus some of my own work on that front, have got me to thinking....

Tinsel's remarks, particularly -- especially the mention of a potential connection between the lack of footprints in the snow in "The Festival" and the lack of rats in the sprung traps in "The Rats in the Walls", and the possible significance of such a connection -- aroused my interest and, as I have just recently made some oddball connections of another sort myself, I got to thinking that it might be interesting to have a little game of sorts on such a theme....

What I have in mind is for people to put forth a query where they name the things which they have connected, but then other posters have to guess what the connection(s) may be. These connections may be between characters, themes, phrasing, motifs, scenes, or any other aspect of the writing; nor do they have to be overt connections. In fact, they may be something which only that one person may have seen from their own unique perspective. However, once a certain span of time has passed, should no one guess correctly, they will then explain the connections and posit another in its place. If someone does guess, the original poster of that set of connections can clarify any points not discussed, and then the one who has got the right answer gets to pose a set of connections of their own... and so on.

The purpose of this is both for entertainment and to help us each get a better idea of how each of us "reads" Lovecraft; what lenses we see his work through, and what sort of things about his tales interest us the most. I have no idea how well this thing will do, but thought it worth a shot, so....

To get it going, I'm posting a link to a lesser-known tale of his, "Old Bugs" (1919), written as a cautionary tale to his young friend Alfred Galpin who, just as Prohibition was on the cusp of being instituted, purchased "a bottle of whiskey and one of port wine" and drank them (out of curiosity) to see what all the fuss was about. Lovecraft, being a teetotaller, was appalled and thus wrote the tale to "warn [Galpin] against the Demon Rum". It isn't a horror tale -- at least on the surface; though told in a different tone it certainly has its horrific elements; but I see certain connections with his descriptions in other tales, and for me these tend to color my own reading not only of this little squib, but also the more famous tales in question.

So, I am wondering if anyone can guess what the connections between the following:

Old Bugs (Alfred Galpin, in "Old Bugs")
Crawford Tillinghast ("From Beyond")
the nameless hermit/cannibal in "The Picture in the House"
Robert Suydam ("The Horror at Red Hook")
Jervas Hyde (and Jervas Dudley) in "The Tomb"
and Joe Slater ("Beyond the Wall of Sleep")

Not all of these share the same connections, but there are similarities between several of them which I found interesting. The question is: is anyone else likely to see what I've seen here?

Anyway, that's the challenge, and to facilitate matters, here are the links to the stories:

"Old Bugs" by H. P. Lovecraft

"From Beyond" by H. P. Lovecraft

"The Picture in the House" by H. P. Lovecraft

"The Horror at Red Hook" by H. P. Lovecraft

"The Tomb" by H. P. Lovecraft

"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" by H. P. Lovecraft

Oh, and as a posited time-limit... let's say two weeks? (If others disagree, we can lengthen or shorten that period....)

 

[Wolf873]

Interesting game , sadly I won't be able to join in until after a week from now. This sort of thing requires much time and attention, at least on my part, and my finals are already taking up too much of my time. Good luck to everyone else, I'll be reading over the replies with much enthusiasm .

 

[Tinsel]

I read too slowly to be able to do this. I have read "The Picture in the House" and "Beyond the Wall of Sleep". The next story on my list is "He" by H.P. Lovecraft. I can tell you this however, that books were identified in both "The Picture in the House" and "The Festival". The one books shows up again in "The Dunwich Horror". In the case of "The Wall of Sleep" there is talk of brothers of light, and of course in "The Dunwich Horror" there are brothers, and even in "The Picture in the House" it was brothers that made the carvings. Just in general there does appear to be plenty of connections throughout his stories.

I've actually somewhat changed course and am more willing to group everything into the Necronomicon and other books affected by magic especially voodoo magic because I've read that word a few times in different stories. These books are the proper connection to the supernatural.

Now there are real life experiences of the supernatural but I don't think that is it for people to understand. Now, the way to read Lovecraft is to enjoy the reading for its strong writing style. The stories do vary considerably in spite of thematic connections, so I am looking forward to the next one and not sure what it will reveal.

If you want to take a shot at understanding things beyond human understanding I would suggest you get the ring that I once had and helped me become ambi dexterous. It is the four angels, which God might interpret as the Messiah's ring or something to that effect because I read that the Messiah and the Devil both are somehow close to the four Arch Angels. It was too much for me!

 

[Tinsel]

Sadly, that ring is real. I had 1 carrot diamonds inset into each of the four angels. It was quite an experience, but certainly it will remain a mystery unless J.D. here wants to try the ring, but the ring is fairly expensive, like 2K.

 

[Wolf873]

I'm a little confused, what is this ring you talk of?

 

[j d worthington]

I'm a little confused, what is this ring you talk of?

See post #3, final paragraph....

Tinsel: you mention some good connections, but they don't really apply to the challenge I posed above. Remember: all the connections have to apply to some similarity between "Old Bugs" and the various characters in stories I listed. The different characters in those stories do not all share the same connections, but there are things which tie them all to the story "Old Bugs"....

 

[Tinsel]

That makes some sense at least. "Old Bugs" must be some story. Maybe someone will figure it out.

 

[J-WO]

I recall them all having beards. Erm... that's an awful answer isn't it? And very probably wrong.

 

[j d worthington]

Well... it's not entirely incorrect... but it is only a part of what I was aiming at. Again, not all the stories share the same connection, but each is connected to "Old Bugs" in some way....