The Shadow Out of Time
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| Author | H. P. Lovecraft |
|---|---|
| Country |  USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror, Science fiction short story |
| Released in | Astounding Stories |
| Media Type | Magazine |
| Released | June, 1936 |
"The Shadow Out of Time" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft. Written between November 1934 and February 1935, it was first published in the June 1936 issue of Astounding Stories.
Contents |
[edit] Inspiration
S. T. Joshi points to Berkeley Square, a 1933 fantasy film, as an inspiration for "The Shadow Out of Time": "Lovecraft saw this film four times in late 1933; its portrayal of a man of the twentieth century who somehow merges his personality with that of his eighteenth-century ancestor was clearly something that fired Lovecraft's imagination, since he had written a story on this very theme himself--the then unpublished The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927)." Lovecraft called the film "the most weirdly perfect embodiment of my own moods and pseudo-memories that I have ever seen--for all my life I have felt as if I might wake up out of this dream of an idiotic Victorian age and insane jazz age into the sane reality of 1760 or 1770 or 1780." Lovecraft noted some conceptual problems in Berkeley Square's depiction of time travel, and felt that he had "eliminated these flaws in his masterful novella of mind-exchange over time."[1]
Other literary models for "The Shadow Out of Time" include H. B. Drake's The Shadowy Thing (originally published as The Remedy in 1925), about a person who has the ability to transfer his personality to another body; Henri Beraud's Lazarus (1925), in which the protagonist develops an alter ego during a lengthy period of amnesia; and Walter de la Mare's The Return (1910), featuring a character who seems to be possessed by a mind from the 18th century.[2]
[edit] Reaction
Lovecraft critic Lin Carter calls "The Shadow Out of Time" Lovecraft's "single greatest achievement in fiction", citing "its amazing scope and sense of cosmic immensitude, the gulfs of time it opens, [and] the titanic sweep of the narrative".[3]
[edit] Synopsis
"The Shadow Out of Time" indirectly tells of the Great Race of Yith, an extraterrestrial species with the ability to travel through space and time. The Yithians accomplish this by switching bodies with hosts from the intended spacial or temporal destination. The story implies that the effect when seen from the outside is similar to demonic possession.
The Yithians' original purpose is to study the history of various times and places, and they have amassed a "library city" that is filled with the past and future history of multiple races, including humans. Ultimately the Yithians use their ability to escape the destruction of their planet in another galaxy by switching bodies with a race of cone-shaped beings who lived 250 million years ago on Earth. The cone-shaped entities (now also known as the Great Race of Yith) live in a vast city in what would later become Australia's Great Sandy Desert.
The story is told through the eyes of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, an American in the early 1900s who is "possessed" by a Yithian. He fears he is losing his mind when he unaccountably sees strange vistas of other worlds and of the Yithian library city. He also feels himself being led about by these creatures and experiences how they live. When he is returned to his own body, he finds that those around him have judged him insane due to the actions of the Yithian that possessed his body. While he was experiencing a Yithian existence in earth's ancient past, the Yithian occupying his body was experiencing a human one in the present day.
The narrator at first believes his episode and subsequent dreams to be the product of some kind of mental illness. His initial relief at discovering other cases like his throughout history is withered when he discovers that the other cases are too similar to his own. The narrator's dreams become more vivid, and he becomes obsessed with archaeology and ancient manuscripts (as was the Yithian)--but lacks any sort of proof that would demonstrate whether he was (or is) simply mad.
He discovers that the Yithians on earth died out eons ago, their civilization destroyed by a rival pre-human race--but also that they will return after humanity is long gone. His tenuously held sanity is challenged when he discovers the proof he seeks--and that not only do remains of the Yithians' past civilization still exist on earth, but also still remaining are those who destroyed them.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee
The narrator of the story, a professor of political economy at Miskatonic University and from 1908 until 1913 a victim of the Great Race of Yith. He was born circa 1870.
There are autobiographical aspects to the character. The years of Peaslee's amnesia correspond to the timespan of Lovecraft's adolescent nervous breakdown, which forced him to drop out of high school and withdraw from society. During this period, Lovecraft suffered from facial tics, which may be reflected in the Yithian-possessed Peaslee's inability to control his facial muscles.[4] The feeling Lovecraft described upon returning to Providence after living in New York City for two years that he was "awakening from the queer dream about being away from home" has been called "the cornerstone upon which Lovecraft built his masterpiece, 'The Shadow out of Time'."[5]
But An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, which calls Peaslee perhaps "the most thoroughly developed of HPL's characters", notes that there are parallels as well to Lovecraft's father, Winfield Scott Lovecraft, who also displayed eccentric behavior during a five-year period of madness.[6]
[edit] Wingate Peaslee
Son of Nathaniel Peaslee, also a Miskatonic professor. He is described by his father as "the only member of my family who stuck to me after my queer amnesia of long ago, and the man best informed on the inner facts of my case."
[edit] William Dyer
A Miskatonic University geology professor who accompanies the expedition to Australia. See At the Mountains of Madness.
[edit] Other victims
The story mentions a number of victims of the Yithians' mind-swapping whom Nathaniel Peaslee recalls talking with, including:
[edit] Titus Sempronius Blaesus
A Roman "who had been a quaestor in Sulla's time". Sulla first became consul in 88 BCE, and was dictator of Rome from 82-80 BCE. A quaestor was a Roman financial official; Sulla reformed the office and raised their number from ten to twenty.
[edit] Bartoloneo Corsi
A "12th century Florentine monk". This character also appears in Phillip O. Marsh's 1994 novel The Worm Shall Ye Fight!
[edit] Crom-Ya
A Cimmerian chief who lived circa 15,000 BCE. This is an homage to Lovecraft's friend Robert E. Howard, whose best-known creation, Conan the Barbarian, hailed from Cimmeria and worshipped Crom. In Fred L. Pelton's 1989 short story "The Sussex Manuscript", Crom-Ya is said to be a worshipper of Tsathoggua.
[edit] Khephnes
"An Egyptian of the 14th Dynasty, who told me the hideous secret of Nyarlathotep". The 14th dynasty was about 1700 BCE.
[edit] Nevil Kingston-Brown
An "Australian physicist...who will die in 2,518 A.D."
[edit] Pierre-Louis Montagny
"An aged Frenchman of Louis XIII's time". Louis XIII was king of France from 1610-1643.
[edit] Nug-Soth
"A magician of the dark conquerors of 16,000 A.D."
[edit] Theodotides
"A Greco-Bactrian official of 200 B.C."
[edit] James Woodville
"A Suffolk gentleman of Cromwell's day". Cromwell lived from 1599-1658, and was the English head of state from 1653 until his death.
[edit] Yiang-Li
"A philosopher from the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan, which is to come in 5,000 A.D." Tsan Chan is first mentioned by Lovecraft in the story "Beyond the Wall of Sleep".
[edit] References
- Lovecraft, Howard P. [1936] (July 2003). in S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz (eds.): The Shadow Out of Time: The Corrected Text, 2nd edition, New York, NY: Hippocampus Press. ISBN 0-9673215-3-0 (softcover). Definitive version.
Lin Carter, Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos.
S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia.
David E. Schultz, "Lovecraft's New York Exile", Black Forbidden Things, Robert M. Price, ed.
[edit] Notes
- ^ S. T. Joshi, "The Horror on the Wall", The Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft.
- ^ Joshi and Schultz, pp. 234-235.
- ^ Carter, p. 106.
- ^ Joshi and Schultz, p. 235.
- ^ David E. Schultz, "Lovecraft's New York Exile", Black Forbidden Things, p. 56.
- ^ Joshi and Schultz, p. 201.
[edit] External links
