The Lovecraft Challenge: "The Other Gods": Part 1 (The Review)

When reading about "The Other Gods" in An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, I was struck by the line about falling into the sky (Joshi and Schultz 196).  With that, my weird-dar started binging, and I was eager to read what weirdness lead to this critical point.

One of the first milestones along the way is the gods of earth "weep[ing] softly as they try to play in the olden way on the remembered slopes" (Lovecraft 170).  That poignant image made me go "aww" until I began to wonder what exactly their play consisted of, especially given the fact they consort with "the other gods."  After all, there's that saying about the company you keep.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Another milestone of weird is the "cloud-ships" (Lovecraft 170).  They reminded me of an unpublished novel I wrote many years ago, where ships sail through the sky, carrying the dead to their proper moon.  Even if I did not have that connection, cloud-ships are just . . . cool.

After that, the journey itself begins to pick up, especially when we get to where Barzai the Wise, the main character, claims that the earth's gods fear him.  We begin to suspect, due to his hubris, it is he who is about to be afraid.  The first hint of such is when "a spectral change in the air" occurs, "as if the laws of earth were bowing to greater laws" (172).  This culminates in Barzai's cry about "the other gods," for it is not the "feeble" gods of the earth he has encountered but those of the outer hells.  By end, he is almost begging the earth's gods as he shouts the key line: "Merciful gods of earth, I am falling into the sky!" (173).

But the weirdness doesn't stop there.  When people go in search of the missing Barzai, they discover a "curious and Cyclopean symbol fifty cubits wide [carved into the naked stone of the summit], as if the rock had been riven by some titanic chisel" (173).

In the end, this is not just a great HPL story; it is one worthy of an Odditorium Review (a series to cover weirdness in tales).  The accumulated details in "The Other Gods," from cloud-ships to earth god's play and from gravity shifts to the Cyclopean stone markers, make this HPL top-shelf weird.

Works Cited

Lovecraft, H. P. "The Other Gods." H. P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction.  Comp. Barnes & Noble.  New York: Barnes & Noble, 2011.  170-173. Print.

Joshi, S. T., and David E. Schultz.  "The Other Gods."  An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. New York: Hippocampus Press, 2001. 196. Print.