Direct me, I beseech you, to Carcosa. An owl on the branch of a decayed tree hooted dismally and was answered by another in the distance. Looking upward, I saw through a sudden rift in the clouds Aldebaran and the Hyades! In all this there was a hint of night— the lynx, the man with the torch, the owl. Yet I saw—I saw even the stars in absence of the darkness. I saw, but was apparently not seen nor heard. Under what awful spell did I exist?
I seated myself at the root of a great tree, seriously to consider what it were best to do. That I was mad I could no longer doubt, yet recognized a ground of doubt in the conviction.
Of fever I had no trace. I had, withal, a sense of exhilaration and vigor altogether unknown to me—a feeling of mental and physical exaltation. My senses seemed all alert; I could feel the air as a ponder- ous substance; I could hear the silence. A great root of the giant tree against whose trunk I leaned as I sat held inclosed in its grasp a slab of stone, a part of which protruded into a recess formed by another root.
The stone was thus partly protected from the weather, though greatly decomposed. Its edges were worn round, its corners eaten away, its surface deeply furrowed and scaled. Glittering particles of mica were visible in the earth about it—vestiges of its decomposition.
This stone had apparently marked the grave out of which the tree had sprung ages ago. God in Heaven! A level shaft of light illuminated the whole side of the tree as I sprang to my feet in terror. The sun was rising in the rosy east. I stood between the tree and-his broad red disk—no shadow darkened the trunk!
I saw them sitting on their haunches, singly and in groups, on the summits of irregular mounds and tumuli filling a half of my desert prospect and extending to the horizon.
And then I knew that these were ruins of the ancient and famous city of Carcosa. Such are the facts imparted to the medium Bayrolles by the spirit Hoseib Alar Robardin. More From Elton O. Elton O. For the first time, the man becomes aware that it must be night, as through a gap in the clouds he can see the Hyades and Aldebaran , though he can see as clear as day. Exploring further, he discovers a copse that was evidently a graveyard of several centuries past. Looking at the stones that once marked graves, he sees his name, the date of his birth, and the date of his death.
He then realizes that he is dead, and is amidst the ruins of the "ancient and famous city of Carcosa. Besides the obvious point that it is the origin point for the mythos and Carcosa, An Inhabitant of Carcosa introduces some of the concepts later used by Robert W.
Chambers Aldebaran and the Hyades and the names albeit used in other contexts of Hali and Alar. In addition, it should be noted that it places Carcosa in the ancient past of earth - the visible stars indicate a location on earth, as does the 'seance' context of the text, which couple with the 'caveman' image to convey a origin for the city long before established historical city building. Alternatively, a Dionysian interpretation of the figure clad in skins would, or could, place the events of the story in, or close to, the Classical era ; the figure embodying Dionysian ideals rather than the general state of human development.
Potentially this could put the flourishing of Carcosa in the Bronze Age; for consideration, the city of Mycenae flourished in the late Bronze Age and, following the Greek Dark Ages , was reduced to impressive ruins by the Classical era. The Yellow Site Explore. Core ideas. Popular pages. Overall, on the initial reading the first few paragraphs didn't grab me as far as building the atmosphere or psychological drama, though the gotcha!
Hello Brian - good points! We could possibly include the likes of O. Henry as an influence, but "Carcosa" just has that "weird" ring to it. I can't say that the "shock" reveal at the end really surprised me although it surely must have for readers in ! You get a feeling that something is very, very wrong. So, what do the animals in this otherwise barren place represent? Jung might have said that the lynx represents that narrator's refusal to admit his situation to himself.
And what of the owl? I'm reminded of Twin Peaks! I liked the scene with the savage seeming to arise from the ground as if from a burial mound? I take it that he can sense but not see or hear the ghostly being who is accosting him. His story suffers none of the sentimentalism that I disliked in the other two, plus it has a tasty Orientalist-Romantic ambiance like a bite-sized Vathek!
All of this repetition in my reading matter has me a little concerned I'm still kicking, right? Have any of you ever read Ubik , or seen Waking Life?
In addition to being an early example of the protagonist-discovers-he-is-dead trope, this story also provides precedents for the protagonist-discovers-he-is-the-monster trope, so enthusiastically embraced by Lovecraft in several stories. Robert Price observes that Hali though transformed from an oracular person to a mysterious lake by Robert Chambers may well have been the original inspiration for Abdul Alhazred, who originally appeared independently from the Necronomicon in HPL's writing.
He also points out that Hali is the Arabic name for the constellation of Taurus, wherein are Aldebaran and the Hyades. Yes, that and similarly "The Shadow over Innsmouth.
I like this one a lot. Clearly we are back in prose poetry territory here, and Bierce as a stylist is up to the task of working in this difficult form.
Favorite bit: "Scattered here and there, more massive blocks showed where some pompous tomb or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion. Interesting that you guys mentioned "The Outsider" and "Innsmouth".
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