Beyond the Wall of Sleep

Beyond the Wall of Sleep (by H. P. Lovecraft) Horror Audiobook

[@PhyrexianSwarmlord]

Listened to this today during my lunch break, and I am in awe. I will always be a fan of Lovecraftian lore and story writing. I have played Call of Cthulhu and Eternal Darkness, so I'm piecing it all together, love this mans works!

[@TheRecluseeee]

Lovecraft was a genius, way way ahead of his time. :)

[@n.b.2164]

This was great. "bovine half amiable normality" "backwoods dullard" "catskill degenerate" "unimaginative populace" Great story. Sorry if I chuckled at some of HPL's descriptions. I can't take it seriously. The dream stuff was amazing.

[@TheRecluseeee]

+Neiru B Thanks for listening!

[@deciusvarus]

+Neiru B I want to call someone a Dullard now. haha

[@merlin2k6]

He was a right snob lol.

[@merlin2k6]

He was a right snob lol.

[@crackrokmccaib]

All this about a white character, but people say he's racist. No! He just hates inferior beings. I'm sure he hates sheeple and most cookie-cutter people out there.

[@Jalapablo]

I am not terrified by anything -- except Lovecraft. The transcendental, hypnagogic genius of ethereal terror.

[@benhuether5474]

The fact that Lovecraft and his contemporaries in the Mythos were able to describes literally the indescribable is just amazing. The way he describes the gods and entities of his shared universe is beyond horrific and yet almost beautiful in a strange way, similar to H.R. Giger. Nothing like it was done before and the fact that he was first to create and design such creatures for his stories back in 1920’s America is unbelievable.

[@Jath2112]

His ability to create a sense of dread is unusual. In a strange way, his ability to cause this feeling in itself...causes this feeling. His work is simply extraordinary.

[@michaelcoolidge1423]

His brilliance is beyond description.

[@TheRecluseeee]

Indeed! Thanks for listening!

[@carlthevisitor8422]

Smart people love Lovecraft... Stupid people want to erase him and his work from history, and we all know who they are.

[@moondoor9031]

Lovecraft was seriously an incredible writer, the end of the story and the mythos behind it is just amazing.

[@TheRecluseeee]

So true. Thanks for listening!

[@cycophile]

Comparing Victorian era scientists to tribal people who probably didn't even own a tooth brush... truth. I wouldn't change HP Lovecraft one bit.

[@marcocalarco7575]

To call the great Lovecraft a racist is missing the point, he didn't like humans, period. He dreamed of a transcendence of the human experience. That said, USA was very openly racist prior to ww2.

[@TheRecluseeee]

marco calarco Good point. I also think Lovecraft did not like human beings in general.

[@janellyoungblood1524]

marco calarco "well said...or, rather, written"

[@frankmcgovern5445]

marco calarco He was absolutely a racist. As pointed out by BelatedCommiseration, that's a sad feature of a the crappy life lived by a tragic figure. I don't think denying that Lovecraft was, without a doubt, a racist cat (also a classist and anti-Semitic one) does any good.I don't think his racism has to be denied or downplayed to enjoy his stories, and I f*ckin LOVE me some Howard P Lovecraft (obviously, since I'm here). Writers I love are fallible human beings and should be considered as such. I don't feel guilty about loving his stories (while cringing at the racist or elitist shit in them). I mean, if The Merchant of Venice even marginally reflects Shakespeare's opinion of Jewish dudes (or his acceptance of nasty anti-Semitic stereotypes), damn... he was an anti-Semite. Which was de rigueur for British dudes in the 17th century. As cliché as it is - Lovecraft was a product of his time; his upbringing; his fantasies about this N. European, particularly British, cultural and genetic superiority; and his isolated, unfortunate, arguably misanthropic life. I think that should be accepted and understood as the failing of a guy who wrote these incredible things but was imperfect.

[@marcocalarco7575]

Frank McGovern Lovecraft was an introvert and misanthropist. Even white christian people annoyed him. His friends were mainly in letter form. Anti semitism was probably the norm in his place and time. You forget how bad racism/antisemitism was in USA before ww2. Lovecraft was just a man of his time - why expect better of him?

[@TheRecluseeee]

marco calarco I think you have a valid point. I think Lovecraft was more of a misanthrope than a simple racist. My guess is, deep in his heart, he considered all the human beings as strange creatures. The attitude of Old Ones towards humanity could be Lovecraft's own attitude towards humanity.

[@wotancatro9479]

I just want to say Thank You for this amazing story.

[@TheRecluseeee]

You are very welcome! I'm just glad that you like the upload!

[@wotancatro9479]

Free Audio Books and Recordings Lovecraft knew how to build dread unlike any other author. I would say that Stoker's Dracula is very good, but he was a one hit wonder. Lovecraft kept on improving.

[@TheRecluseeee]

Wotan Catro Yeah, that's true. Some other writers were good but none matched the talent of Lovecraft. Are you familiar with Arthur Machen? If not, you might want to read his work "The Great God Pan" that I posted. It's a great work in terms atmospheric horror genre. Check following URL. kzbin.info/www/bejne/r6CupKiIq6iBaZo

[@wotancatro9479]

Free Audio Books and Recordings Had not heard of Machen. Will definitely check him out. Thanks again. The Great God Pan--even the title sounds menacing!

[@TheRecluseeee]

Wotan Catro Yes, that book is truly menacing! It can be described as 'dark pagan horror', heavily using the power of suggestion throughout the book, like Lovecraft. Many of Lovecraft fans love that story and I'm one of them. Hope you enjoy it!

[@louisflanagan649]

I don’t dream often but I also had another vivid dream I hugged the love of my life on a street and had never felt so comfortable

[@nicoleberens1154]

Thank you! That was amazing. Now one of my very very favorites.

[@TheRecluseeee]

This tale is also one of favorites! Cheers!

[@mikehughes9929]

I have known of Family races who have run their course , and are now but dying races.

[@henrymohn7571]

The weird audio-distortions add a great deal. Doesn't actually bother me.

[@TheRecluseeee]

Yes, it goes well with the content of the book. Thanks for visiting and listening!

[@RogersGirl88]

I wish I could have been Lovecraft’s friend.📃📄

[@zentrumzentrum1331]

Ahaha...Did Lovecraft just say "White Trash"!?

[@BelatedCommiseration]

Such amazing, sweeping language used when describing the dream peaks and fantastic vistas...it does seem so at odds with the racist tones used...but then I never can take Lovecrafts racism entirely seriously. It was a reaction against his unsuccessful time in New York and was partially inherited from his relatives. His true, self discovered 'cosmic' notions and outlook seem to make a nonsense of any idea relating to 'inferior' or 'superior' human forms...as ultimately we are powerless and as dust before the forces of the universe. I feel this is something Lovecraft realised more profoundly than his other notions on race (which, occasionally, I do feel are done for effect anyway, i.e. to contrast the elaborate fantasy with the mundane 'debased' reality)

[@BelatedCommiseration]

***** I certainly think you are right...Lovecraft was a classicist and an 'elitist', and people who bang on about his racial theories forget the fact that a lot of his characters come from good stock that has 'tainted' itself through intermingling with non human forces and decadence (re, Arthur Jermyn, Charles Dexter Ward etc) although I would say that Lovecraft probably thought the squalor and degradation suffered by other races was as a result of their innate inferiority and commitment to their own racial backdrop, at odds with the anglo saxon classical ideal he cultivated. But, if they abandoned their own culture and 'assimilated' (like his wife Sonia Haft Green) then that was fine. I also believe Lovecraft was drawing a parallel here between his own life and the intersteller creature inhabiting the body of the low back woodsman. The creature, like Lovecraft, is forced to make do with a time that is not his in a body that is unsuited to his vision and intelligence and finds kinship in the Lovecraft avatar who is similarly affected, as HPL was in his own life. Limited by a century and time that he felt was not his own. It wasn't so much that the vessel itself (the backwoodsman) deserved anything but condescension, but the force that inhabited him was forced to do so by fate. The backwoodsman represents Lovecrafts horrors and the 'mundane' whereas the creature represents his hopes and aspirations. Whew...sorry...long old entry...rambling...but, in signing off, I would also just say I completely agree with you about the prose also. I love Lovecrafts prose...it was the first thing that attracted me to his works in the first place :)

[@RougherFluffer]

BelatedCommiseration Great perspective though a tad...limited? As assuredly presumptuous as it sounds, could I care to intrigue you with my grandeur visions - based on those of Lovecraft's observations and hopes for a greater future?

[@BelatedCommiseration]

Iya Cat Well...of course! No need to feel presuming...as I'm always intrigued to be intrigued by another's perspectives on a subject as endlessly fascinating as Lovecraft :)

[@frankmcgovern5445]

BelatedCommiseration Absolutely.

[@m0tv1nd]

27:38 the plateau of leng?

[@maddbutcher666]

Black Sabbath

[@TheRecluseeee]

Trent Buckingham Thanks for listening!

[@michaelcoolidge1423]

behind the wall of sleep. Great song.

[@asabovsawbilow3850]

I honestly love how aristocratically minded Lovecraft is people who dislike his 'racism' are fools. Everyone is 'racist' by this definition. It is the simple noticing of patterns, something your mind has to do in order to function as even an animal. racism was intended to mean baseless fear with no logical grounding. Now it has become something that is destroying our society. All of Lovecraft's assumptions were correct for a New England urban aristocrat, which he was.

[@KTSamurai1]

no need to apologize for racism. face it

[@louisflanagan649]

I had a dream I was Batman kicking 10,000 people of the top of a fence when on psychedelics

[@blitherbox7467]

Bad dreams mean you're crazy. A rainbow means somebody died.

[@blonde_stormtrooper4148]

1:23 - 👍

[@Whatsinmypocket]

24:19

[@RM-zu2nh]

Ripp Van Winkle in the 21st Century?

[@dachshund_gaming]

Lovecraft was a racist jabroni as made evident by this story but he was an excellent horror writer

[@annonimus2247]

The first half about racism wasn't too good.. but the ending are fantastic woah!

[@TheRecluseeee]

Ann Onimus Indeed! :)

[@femtokun]

rasism is instinctual like many other things. people should just take it as it is.

[@annonimus2247]

femtokun I 100% disagree. Do you think just because Humans ( half animal half divine being ) that we have to have excuses for our short comings? Or should we try to rise above them with understanding and compassion? I'll let you be the judge.

[@femtokun]

I am not here to discuss racism. But seeing everyone brings this up more than anything when coming to Lovecraft stories I felt that in this context people should take it a bit more easy and just focus on the more interesting matters at hand.

[@annonimus2247]

femtokun I 100% agreee with that statement. HP Lovecraft was much "bigger" than his surface racism. I also think we can agree that HP was a product of his time and lineage. However, as a write in the genre of horror, he was transcendental!

[@mickielgroves3905]

The audio quality is crap

[@TheRecluseeee]

Thanks for your feedback.

[@rshegg7605]

Your ear’s are shite

[@frankmcgovern5445]

I want to start a band called "The Catskills Decadent".

[@gamesonvhs5927]

Really a beautiful story. Thanks for all the uploads.

[@TheRecluseeee]

My pleasure! Cheers!

[@howardlovecraft750]

Lovecraft had one incredible imagination. His stories were out of this world literally.

[@TheRecluseeee]

Yes, his imagination has no match to this day.

[@turtleanton6539]

Yeees

[@grndragon7777777]

Do you know what he named his cat?

[@DrMixelpixel]

Unfortunately it is not imagination.... It is as close to reality as it gets.

[@CorundumDevil]

@@grndragon7777777 Did you know it wasn't actually his cat? Smartass.

[@alexanderx33]

The phantasms herein contained hark to those that could be attributed to the consumption of a certain concoction of alkaloidal herbs, which have hitherto been the domain of the rustic natives of the grotesc and horribly humid south-western hemisphere.

[@TheRecluseeee]

Many 'special' herbs are responsible for visions and phantasms of the mankind. ;)

[@singhshredz]

sounds like DMT (ayahuasca)

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

as a huge fan of Lovecraft, I must say this feels like one of his lesser works. It's tacnically skillfully written, however the concepts are less imaginative than his other tales of the kind that leans more into sci-fi, it's not horror at all (to me annyways), nor does it have the weird feel which makes it enrichen the lovecraft mythos. I would, were it only for these notions, be inclined to call it fairly good still, since it retains the skillful writing, and iconic structure that lovecraft does so well, however there is another aspect which holds it back, and that is it's semblence to fantsy, by which I don't mean the genere setting with dragons and magic, but the tendency of being wish-fulfilling, and a bit too grandious. this feels to me like a boyhood daydream of finding out that you are the only friend of a very special and important being who deems you worthy. the use of inferiority and superiority strengthens this view, while it is typical for the time, the particular form is too conveniant to be mere ignorance and dogma, and seems to instead serve the fragile sense of self of the protagonist. In fantasy this works, often demed a childish genre, which I find to be a fact, though not a fault, it aids in making the reader feel like they desire to be in the protagonsists place, or at least in their world, but in shorter works, and in works of science fiction and/or horror it is far more important to retain realism or at least plausability to ensure the reader takes it seriously enough to either truly wonder, or to be terrified. as fantasy it is decent, and a decent conceptual story, with excelent writing and structure makes for a good overal experience, but as a part of the lovecraft world it is not even good enough conceptually to be something I would reccomend. Being longer than his shortest works, and conceptually poorer than most of his works this has little to no merit that would make me reccomend it, other than getting a fantasy fan hooked in lovecraft, or perhaps as essential reading for a lovecraft fan especially interested in the dreamlands. It displays the mans immense skill and creativity, that I can still say after finding this to be the perhaps weakest work I have read of his so far, that I still greatly enjoyed it and think the time spent woth it was worthwhile. I am even inclined to read it aggains sometime, if I am in a particular mood, though I will likely look to his better works for the most part.

[@rshegg7605]

Excellent on all levels ( pan dimensionally)

[@yogi2.057]

It's nice alright to hear the same Lovecraft reading material by a pro, along with the different mental tone, inflections and pacing. A new time-machine of sorts in this realm.

[@enochello6877]

They made a low budget movie of this story, but it was really good. I recommend watching it for all you Lovecraft fans out there....

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

Nice! Can you provide a link, if not to the film itself, then to a page (like imbd or wikepedia or something) that identifies the correct one?

[@MahoneyBadger]

Did Lovecraft just make fun of this character’s underbite? Haha awesome.

[@H33t3Speaks]

Hands down his best (truly short) story. A triumph of the Western Cannon.

[@jags1008]

I like his honesty sorry but there are some people out there who have the intelligence of a sack of potatoes

[@jags1008]

Ride the bus and you will know what i mean

[@scottbreon9448]

A good portion of them are in congress. LOL

[@rameyzamora1018]

Ah. Found it. "Demoniac" shows up at 6:01 of this reading. Gotta Lovecraft.

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

yikes... Normaly I manage just fine with the occasional overt, or regular subtle racism, but this is insane! Normally I read his persepctive as ignorant and due to a lack of investment in the understanding of other peoples, so that his description of them reflects the status quo, which at his time in his place were pretty bad, especially addint to that his affluent origins, but this isn't ignorance alone, it's spiteful hatered. The lengths he goes to to hammer down the inferiority of this guy and his people is ridiculous. I mean it's still a good story, but normally I can get away from a several hour long audiobook with a yikes moment and a cupple of grimases, but here my facial muscles are tiring from the sheer cringing. Howard, you poor soul with all your hardship; if only you could stop being such a xenophobic racist, so I could stop feeling weird about your works. At least there we're only well-educated white dudes in "at the mountains of madness" so that one is free of his, eh... "comentary", and even something like "The shadow over Insmouth", my favorite story of his, mentions racial groups and the prejudice against them, and vaguely implies it's acceptable, but only truly states empatically that it's wrong to be into fish people which... actually... that personally offends me tbh, given as how incredably hot fish people are in the majority of depticitons, like mermaids, the Zora, other merefolk, and that sexy-ass hunk in the shape of water (drowl), if the Insmout people looked like the fishman in the shape of water I don't blame the one's who married them tbh... I mean except from the bianual human sacrefices for fish and gold, a little bit troubling that part I'll admit, hey what was I talking about again? oh yeah! racism. Lovecraft is clearly racist and stuff, but normally it's just a little cringe you can get over (probably easier when you're a white european person like me though) and then comfort yourself by the fact that he's dead enough for his opinions on race not to matter, and even apperently got better near the end of his life, but in this one I feel like I can't stop cringing, and that's a bit of an issue. Like it's consistancy and intensity makes it worse than his cat-insert in "the rats in the walls", you know the one called "n***erman"...yikes. Why can't authors be cool? Like Lovecraft, the guy who's legacy inspired my favorite ttrpg, my favorite ambiant music, and one of the coolest mythologies in existence, even if it's not actually the mythology of a real human culture, and he is this xenophobic dude who was only willing to marry his jewish wife because she was "propperly assimilated...yikes. And it's not like it only applies to old dead people either, like how J.K. Rowling decide to plattform TERF bs that makes it difficult for people like me to just live our lives without being exposed to bigotry and violence. Like imagine having a shitton of influence due to your massice following of young impressionable people from all around the world, as well as a horde of cash, and decide to use this power to make life harder for trans people, and prevent the progress of our rights, like come on, Joanne! I get that you might find the changes scary and difficult to accept, in fact me and my siblings know all about difficult and scary changes, but can I please just be allowed to go to the bathroom without having an anxiety attack! Please? Ok this is my rant that nobody's gonna read (hopefully, I really don't want a terf mob on my trans ass, it's hard enough to keep my mental health stable enough to pretend I can function as it is), but if you *did* read it, and you also don't want me and my sib's to die horrably for out heretical...existence(?), I would love for a reply rant about the role of authors and creators, and how their views factor into everything. But again, *only* if you don't think I should seize to exist, should be subject to great violence, corrective therapy, or even worse; if you feel like whining about how my existence is politics somehow(?). Reguardless I hope you have a great day, and that you are able to enjoy lovecraft after all, since their is genious in addition to the other stuff, and deffinetly try the ttrpg, it's amazing.

[@BauthorFowler]

Lovecraft was considered bigoted even for the 1920s.

[@dethson]

Sounds like this is narrated by E. G. Marshall! What a fantastic voice.

[@TheRecluseeee]

+dethson Thanks for listening!

[@SuperSatana69]

+dethson I wander if it's him.

[@robhaskins]

This narrator is Gordon Gould

[@d-evilmc]

Wow . Wow . Wow. Amazing.

[@TheRecluseeee]

Thanks for listening! Cheers!

[@christianradioE5]

2022 . Best word and nuance in American Lit !

[@JM-rt1ne]

Beyond amazing!

[@TheRecluseeee]

Thanks for listening! Cheers!

[@NOSCOPEWallbang101]

Does this have anything to do with the Black Sabbath song "Behind the wall of sleep"??

[@conantroutman76]

yes

[@randolphcarterjr]

They read Lovecraft and co-opted the title, yeah.

[@metalphobos3632]

LISTEN TO BLACK SABBATH

[@TheRecluseeee]

Their first album goes well with Lovecraft! :D

[@metalphobos3632]

Free Audio Books for Intellectual Exercise ;)