In this story the narrator is barely more than a floating eyeball as he describes the advent of the titular being. The story is also a return to the "vignette form," which may show a certain Poe influence.
Nyarlathotep is the first named being whom HPL later imports into the panoply of god-like beings in the so-called Cthulhu Mythos. He would seem to be the only one who can assume human form, for the narrator relates that during a time of major world upheavals, Nyarlathotep appears in the guise of an Egyptian who looks "like a Pharaoh." The mysterious being begins attracting numerous listeners to his lectures on "electricity and psychology," none of which HPL details.
The Egyptian lecturer comes to the narrator's bailiwick, a "terrible city of unnumbered crimes." (I found myself thinking of Biblical Sodom, visited by angels who implicitly inform God that He should destroy the city.) The narrator attends the lectures along with "restless crowds," and somehow they are all translated into one or more alien worlds, dominated by "the blind, voiceless, inindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep."
No comments:
Post a Comment