H.P. Lovecraft Sundays #6

Sundays are the days that I post my readings from my massive book, H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction. Here's the next story I read:

"Polaris"
4 stars

"Into the north window of my chamber glows the Pole Star with uncanny light. All through the long hellish hours of blackness it shines there. And in the autumn of the year, when the winds from the north curse and whine, and the red-leaved trees of the swamp mutter things to one another in the small hours of the morning under the horned waning moon, I sit by the casement and watch that star."

The narrator of the story starts off describing how he watches the stars outside his window every night. The Polaris star is always in the sky watching over him and his home. Only on nights when the sky is cloudy is he able to go to sleep.

Then one night when the stars are covered, our narrator falls asleep and soon finds himself in a strange land. This city is made out of marble and the people speak a strange language that he has never heard of but yet he understands. Before he could learn more about the city, he awakens.

He continues to dream about the city and he soon decides to become a main part of it. He begins to talk to the people not as a stranger but as an inhabitant named Olathoë. He learns that this city is in war and he decides to help them out.

As he is supposed to guard the city, Olathoë looks up at the sky and sees the Pole Star (Polaris) sending an evil message. Though he is not too sure what the message entails, he does become frightened.

In all, this was another short story but it was very detailed. I enjoyed it tremendously because this is Lovecraft's introduction to his manuscript of the Cthulu Mythos. What I really liked about this short story was how it had me hooked and it kept me wondering whether this city was real or not. Does Olathoë the man really exist? Which is his real reality? I only wish that this story was longer.

If you would like to read this story, then you can check it out over at the H.P. Lovecraft Archives or you could listen to the audio below: