Randolph
Carter is a character who appears in several of H.P. Lovecraft stories, as
early as 1920 in the classic The
Statement of Randolph Carter.
Thought by some to be the author’s alter ego, the character appears to
undergo some personal changes over time and across stories, and this is
especially the case in the Lovecraft-Hoffman collaboration, Through the Gates of the Silver Key
(1934)—Carter at one point is reincarnated as an insectoid wizard from the
planet Yaddith. This makes his homecoming much more awkward than it was in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
(1943).
In a
letter to E. Hoffmann Price dated October 3, 1932, Lovecraft offers his friend
several suggestions in order to improve the draft of this sequel to his earlier
story, The Silver Key (1929):
In
the first place, the style ought perhaps to be less unlike that of The Silver Key. Secondly, in describing Carter’s exit from the
world of reality the fact that he has returned to a boyhood stage ought to be
allowed for. This is mentioned in The Silver Key. Third—the transition, and the entrance to the
world of illusion, ought to be infinitely subtilized. There must be no abrupt entry to a tangible
and describable vault inside the hill, but rather a vague atomic filtration
into a world hardly describable in terms of matter.
In the
letter Lovecraft indicates that his contribution to the joint project may involve
some changes, which changes “may (if you don’t mind) be quite considerable.” Perhaps anticipating criticism from others,
namely that of Farnsworth Wright at Weird
Tales, where the collaboration was eventually published, Lovecraft goes
on to identify the challenges he and Hoffman face in completing the work:
And
right here two problems come up. First—how
to get ideas to the reader without introducing the element of concrete-sounding
dialogue—a jarring note in connexion with vague transpatial abysses and
nebulosities—and second, how to avoid the impression of lecture-room didacticism. Hell, but it’ll be a tough nut to crack!
Many readers
have since concluded that the nut remained uncracked. Upon reading the story when it was first
submitted, Farnsworth Wright feared that readers “would find the descriptions
and discussions of polydimensional space poison to their enjoyment of the tale…” S.T. Joshi did not like this story either. It is not included among Lovecraft’s primary
and secondary revisions in The Horror in
the Museum (1970), though it is at least equal in quality to several of the
stories in that interesting collection.
Joshi described it as “…nothing more than a fantastic adventure story
with awkward and laboured mathematical and philosophical interludes.”
Nevertheless,
Through the Gates of the Silver Key
is interesting as much for its flaws as for its imaginative attempts to
incorporate elements of both The Silver
Key and The Statement of Randolph
Carter. (The doomed character of Harley
Warren is frequently referred to in the Lovecraft-Hoffmann story.) There are numerous references to Lovecraftian
concepts from other works, and The
Necronomicon is quoted at length:
“And while there are
those,” the mad Arab had written, “who have dared to seek glimpses beyond the
Veil, and to accept HIM as guide, they would have been more prudent had they
avoided commerce with HIM; for it is written in the Book of Thoth how terrific
is the price of a single glimpse...”
Approaching
a novella in length, Through the Gates of
the Silver Key is comprised of 8 sections, but the most interesting are the
first three—which bring the reader up to date about Carter’s activities since
he disappeared back in October of 1928—and the last, which contains a surprise
ending that will not surprise most astute readers. Most will want to skim through sections 4
through 6, which present a tediously “didactic” proto-New Age mish-mash of weird
geometry and Buddhism. (E. Hoffmann
Price was a Buddhist and also, incongruously, a Republican.) This part of the story must have been
excruciating for Lovecraft to edit and revise—Joshi suspects he gave up and
left most of Price’s ideas intact.
The
story opens in New Orleans, at the home of one Etienne de Marigny, a wealthy
mystic, who is hosting Ward Phillips—“an elderly eccentric of Providence, Rhode
Island” and Ernest K. Aspinwall, a cousin of Randolph Carter’s, representing
the family’s fiduciary interests. They
have gathered to divide the long lost Carter’s earthly estate, but Phillips and
Marigny believe Carter is still alive and may return soon.
So does
their exotic guest, the Swami Chandraputra, also at the table. Here Lovecraft and Price have inserted the
stock character of the mysterious inscrutable Asian who probably knows more
than he is saying. There is also “an
increasingly nervous old Negro” whose job it is to refill “the odd tripods of
wrought iron” that stand in the corners of the room, spewing out “the hypnotic
fumes of olibanum”. He gets no lines, no
one talks to him, and he apparently flees in panic near the end of the story. This is also a stock character in the pulp
fiction of the time and in the movie adaptations that followed shortly
afterwards.
Chandraputra
gets nearly all the lines. Much of the story is his monologue about
Lovecrafto-Buddhist metaphysics, as he describes how Carter goes through
various “gates” and what he sees.
Randolph Carter is oddly absent from the tale except in name. He says very little, does little, and is
quite passive. He seems to be more an idea than a character in the story, the
focal point for an elaborate philosophical explanation. At least he is until the very end. Sadly, it is not clear whether he will ever
be able to return to human form, much less to Arkham. If only he had remembered to bring “the
undecipherable parchment in the hideously carven box with the silver key…”
********************
The
character of Randolph Carter has been discussed in several earlier posts. Interested readers may also want to look at
1. What Happened to Randolph? (The Statement of
Randolph Carter)
2. Randolph’s Graveside Debate (The Unnamable)
3. Randolph’s Mid Life Crisis (The Silver Key)
4. Randolph Carter alias Thomas Olney (The
Strange High House in the Mist)
5. “I shall ask him when I see him…” (Various)
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