“The White Ship”
The final story of Lovecraft's late 1919 publishing frenzy, "The White Ship" appeared in the United Amateur. This one doesn't get talked about as much as the two that came before it, and is much shorter. I've read this one before, but it was so long ago that I don't remember anything about it, so this will be functionally a blind readthrough.
“I am Basil Elton, keeper of the North Point light that my father and grandfather kept before me. Far from the shore stands the grey lighthouse, above sunken slimy rocks that are seen when the tide is low, but unseen when the tide is high. Past that beacon for a century have swept the majestic barques of the seven seas. In the days of my grandfather there were many; in the days of my father not so many; and now there are so few that I sometimes feel strangely alone, as though I were the last man on our planet.
From far shores came those white-sailed argosies of old; from far Eastern shores where warm suns shine and sweet odours linger about strange gardens and gay temples. The old captains of the sea came often to my grandfather and told him of these things, which in turn he told to my father, and my father told to me in the long autumn evenings when the wind howled eerily from the East. And I have read more of these things, and of many things besides, in the books men gave me when I was young and filled with wonder.”
This protagonist actually has a name. That puts him in a distinct minority among the narrators we've had so far. As in "The Alchemist" the character's name is only important when it segues into a description of his ancestry, it seems. Interesting.
Basil is the operator of a lighthouse, along a trade route that's been in decline for some decades. The location and time period aren't given, but a "barque" is a kind of sailing ship, and the New England shipping industry wasn't in any state of crisis at the time of writing, so it can be inferred that this is set sometime in the past before steamships became the norm, and not necessarily near Lovecraft's Providence home.
“But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean. Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent. All my days have I watched it and listened to it, and I know it well. At first it told to me only the plain little tales of calm beaches and near ports, but with the years it grew more friendly and spoke of other things; of things more strange and more distant in space and in time. Sometimes at twilight the grey vapours of the horizon have parted to grant me glimpses of the ways beyond; and sometimes at night the deep waters of the sea have grown clear and phosphorescent, to grant me glimpses of the ways beneath. And these glimpses have been as often of the ways that were and the ways that might be, as of the ways that are; for ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.”
If I hadn't been referred to "In Defense of Dagon," I'd think that this story was an apology for "Dagon." Here, the sea and everything it contains are appealing, magical, even seductive. Unlike Mr. Nameless Merchant Marine, I have a feeling Basil would be more intrigued than horrified if he encountered a whale-sized merman at an undersea shrine.
“Out of the South it was that the White Ship used to come when the moon was full and high in the heavens. Out of the South it would glide very smoothly and silently over the sea. And whether the sea was rough or calm, and whether the wind was friendly or adverse, it would always glide smoothly and silently, its sails distant and its long strange tiers of oars moving rhythmically. One night I espied upon the deck a man, bearded and robed, and he seemed to beckon me to embark for fair unknown shores. Many times afterward I saw him under the full moon, and ever did he beckon me.
Very brightly did the moon shine on the night I answered the call, and I walked out over the waters to the White Ship on a bridge of moonbeams. The man who had beckoned now spoke a welcome to me in a soft language I seemed to know well, and the hours were filled with soft songs of the oarsmen as we glided away into a mysterious South, golden with the glow of that full, mellow moon.”
Much moreso than "Dagon," this passage conveys the feeling of being in a dream. The absurdity of the captain calling for a random lighthouse operator to come aboard, the language that he can understand without speaking, and coming aboard on some kind of Enya moonbeam bridge are all surreal enough, but Basil's unquestioning acceptance of them and his strange willingness to leave his home and life on a whim are what really remind me of a dream. I wonder if this is meant to be a lighthouse operator dreaming about the White Ship, or if the entire scenario - including Basil's family history - is meant to be read through the lense of dream logic.
“And when the day dawned, rosy and effulgent, I beheld the green shore of far lands, bright and beautiful, and to me unknown. Up from the sea rose lordly terraces of verdure, tree-studded, and shewing here and there the gleaming white roofs and colonnades of strange temples. As we drew nearer the green shore the bearded man told me of that land, the Land of Zar, where dwell all the dreams and thoughts of beauty that come to men once and then are forgotten. And when I looked upon the terraces again I saw that what he said was true, for among the sights before me were many things I had once seen through the mists beyond the horizon and in the phosphorescent depths of ocean. There too were forms and fantasies more splendid than any I had ever known; the visions of young poets who died in want before the world could learn of what they had seen and dreamed. But we did not set foot upon the sloping meadows of Zar, for it is told that he who treads them may nevermore return to his native shore.”
And, in a Neil Geiman style development, the ship is taking him into the human collective unconscious.
Zar has "all the dreams and thoughts of beauty that come to men once and then are forgotten." In addition to the gorgeous landscape and architecture, that means Zar is also home to a lot of imaginary lovers; wonder what kind of society they build for themselves, once given an independent existence and freed from the personal fantasies of their dreamers...or maybe I'm letting Geiman influence my assumptions of how the dreamworld works a little too much.
Of course, "beauty" doesn't always have to be nice. In mentioning the unsung dreams of young poet's, Lovecraft brings to mind the wistful beauty of sad or depressing poems, so Zar may have its share of horrors as well as delights.
The "once you land there you can never leave" thing brings to mind two possibilities, for me. One is that Zar is so amazing that once you land there, you'll forget about everything else and never want to leave. The other is that, since Zar is the land of forgotten beauty, it can only take things in; forgetfulness is a one way street, and if you enter Zar you'll be prevented from returning by the same barrier that prevents forgotten dreams from being remembered.
I think I like the second idea better. Its more metaphysical, and more fitting with the kind of symbolism that Lovecraft used earlier in "Memory."
“As the White Ship sailed silently away from the templed terraces of Zar, we beheld on the distant horizon ahead the spires of a mighty city; and the bearded man said to me: “This is Thalarion, the City of a Thousand Wonders, wherein reside all those mysteries that man has striven in vain to fathom.” And I looked again, at closer range, and saw that the city was greater than any city I had known or dreamed of before. Into the sky the spires of its temples reached, so that no man might behold their peaks; and far back beyond the horizon stretched the grim, grey walls, over which one might spy only a few roofs, weird and ominous, yet adorned with rich friezes and alluring sculptures. I yearned mightily to enter this fascinating yet repellent city, and besought the bearded man to land me at the stone pier by the huge carven gate Akariel; but he gently denied my wish, saying: “Into Thalarion, the City of a Thousand Wonders, many have passed but none returned. Therein walk only daemons and mad things that are no longer men, and the streets are white with the unburied bones of those who have looked upon the eidolon Lathi, that reigns over the city.” So the White Ship sailed on past the walls of Thalarion, and followed for many days a southward-flying bird, whose glossy plumage matched the sky out of which it had appeared.”
The City of Mysteries is infested with big-dicked mermen that will drive you insane and turn you into a chimpanzee-like asocial hillbilly. We won't dock there either.
They're following a color-changing bird now. That's a really cool mental image.
“Then came we to a pleasant coast gay with blossoms of every hue, where as far inland as we could see basked lovely groves and radiant arbours beneath a meridian sun. From bowers beyond our view came bursts of song and snatches of lyric harmony, interspersed with faint laughter so delicious that I urged the rowers onward in my eagerness to reach the scene. And the bearded man spoke no word, but watched me as we approached the lily-lined shore. Suddenly a wind blowing from over the flowery meadows and leafy woods brought a scent at which I trembled. The wind grew stronger, and the air was filled with the lethal, charnel odour of plague-stricken towns and uncovered cemeteries. And as we sailed madly away from that damnable coast the bearded man spoke at last, saying: “This is Xura, the Land of Pleasures Unattained.””
"Pleasures unattained." It seems to be inhabited by both sensual pleasure, and by death. Trying to think of why this might be.
The "unattained" detail might taint the pleasures with a bitterness or venom that gradually corrupted Xura from within. It could also be that, since unrestrained hedonism leads to degeneration (there's that word again ) and ruin, anything that goes to Xura is gradually destroyed in a riot of self-destructive, animalistic pleasure. Of course, these things may not manifest so literally; there could be some metaphorical monster or plague or whatever that represents these forces. Dreams operate on the level of symbolism, after all.
I guess a lot of the sex dreams probably come from/end up here instead of in Zar.
“So once more the White Ship followed the bird of heaven, over warm blessed seas fanned by caressing, aromatic breezes. Day after day and night after night did we sail, and when the moon was full we would listen to soft songs of the oarsmen, sweet as on that distant night when we sailed away from my far native land. And it was by moonlight that we anchored at last in the harbour of Sona-Nyl, which is guarded by twin headlands of crystal that rise from the sea and meet in a resplendent arch. This is the Land of Fancy, and we walked to the verdant shore upon a golden bridge of moonbeams.
In the Land of Sona-Nyl there is neither time nor space, neither suffering nor death; and there I dwelt for many aeons. Green are the groves and pastures, bright and fragrant the flowers, blue and musical the streams, clear and cool the fountains, and stately and gorgeous the temples, castles, and cities of Sona-Nyl. Of that land there is no bound, for beyond each vista of beauty rises another more beautiful. Over the countryside and amidst the splendour of cities rove at will the happy folk, of whom all are gifted with unmarred grace and unalloyed happiness. For the aeons that I dwelt there I wandered blissfully through gardens where quaint pagodas peep from pleasing clumps of bushes, and where the white walks are bordered with delicate blossoms. I climbed gentle hills from whose summits I could see entrancing panoramas of loveliness, with steepled towns nestling in verdant valleys, and with the golden domes of gigantic cities glittering on the infinitely distant horizon. And I viewed by moonlight the sparkling sea, the crystal headlands, and the placid harbour wherein lay anchored the White Ship.”
Finally, somewhere they can dock.
I had just been musing about why the sea itself seems like such a hospitable and pleasant place to be compared to the lands that they passed, and here I think we've been given the answer. Sona-Nyl is the land of "fancy," which I'm taking to mean "imagination." Imagination is the process by which any type of dream can be accessed. The sea that connects all the dream islands must then, itself, be an extension of Sona-Nyl, because it is the vector of travel between different types of dream and fantasy. If the white ship is from Sona-Nyl, then it and the sea it sails on are both part of the same system, and work smoothly in tandem.
Living in the Land of Imagination presumably lets Basil access all of the other, normally unsafe, fantasylands from a position of safety. I wouldn't be surprised if the palaces and forests he's exploring were made of elements drawn from all the places the Ship passed on its way to Sona-Nyl, and possibly some others that we didn't get a look at. He can draw upon them without being drawn into them, from here.
Though that contradicts my theory about why you can't leave Zar. If Basil can invoke its forgotten beauties from Sona-Nyl, then that means that the walls of forgetfulness are at least semi-permeable.
I wonder if I've been barking up the wrong tree for this entire story, in regards to interpretation? If there's something obvious I'm missing, feel free to tell me what an idiot I am.
“It was against the full moon one night in the immemorial year of Tharp that I saw outlined the beckoning form of the celestial bird, and felt the first stirrings of unrest. Then I spoke with the bearded man, and told him of my new yearnings to depart for remote Cathuria, which no man hath seen, but which all believe to lie beyond the basalt pillars of the West. It is the Land of Hope, and in it shine the perfect ideals of all that we know elsewhere; or at least so men relate. But the bearded man said to me: “Beware of those perilous seas wherein men say Cathuria lies. In Sona-Nyl there is no pain nor death, but who can tell what lies beyond the basalt pillars of the West?” Natheless at the next full moon I boarded the White Ship, and with the reluctant bearded man left the happy harbour for untravelled seas.”
One weakness of the story is the nonsense names Lovecraft is giving to all these places and concepts ("Year of Tharp," "Sona-Nyl," etc). It takes me out of the universal subconscious concept and makes me feel like I'm just in some guy's D&D setting.
Hmm. Lovecraft as a dungeon master. I'm not sure if he'd be amazing at it or terrible, but definitely one of the two.
This Cathuria place is outside of the scope of usual human imagination. This brings to mind some post-Cartesian interpretations of the psychometric world; the mental plane is larger than the parts supported and used by human minds. The regions beyond could be uninhabited - empty thoughtstuff without minds to shape it - or it could be occupied by the dreams of nonhuman intelligences. Animal dreams, or extraterrestrial dreams. Its also possible, that parts of the dream-sea may be inhabited by psychometric life forms that don't have any connection to physical, waking forms at all; think along the lines of MIKE and BOB from "Beyond the Wall of Sleep," but without the human hosts.
On a related note, I'd strongly recommend "The Neverending Story" by Ralph Manheim - the book, NOT the movie - for an interesting use of this concept. In that story, the human collective unconscious is being destroyed by native creatures from a different part of the psychometric plane, who seemingly want to pave over our imaginations and build shopping malls where our dreams used to be. Its stated, though not depicted, that these creatures can also leave their native dreamworld and manifest physically in our waking one to perform covert missions against humanity. Its got to be one of the most creative alien invasion scenarios I've ever heard of.
So, Basil wants to see what exists in the mental space beyond the human mind. My money is on some malevolent godlike superalien, since this is Lovecraft, but we'll see.
“And the bird of heaven flew before, and led us toward the basalt pillars of the West, but this time the oarsmen sang no soft songs under the full moon. In my mind I would often picture the unknown Land of Cathuria with its splendid groves and palaces, and would wonder what new delights there awaited me. “Cathuria,” I would say to myself, “is the abode of gods and the land of unnumbered cities of gold. Its forests are of aloe and sandalwood, even as the fragrant groves of Camorin, and among the trees flutter gay birds sweet with song. On the green and flowery mountains of Cathuria stand temples of pink marble, rich with carven and painted glories, and having in their courtyards cool fountains of silver, where purl with ravishing music the scented waters that come from the grotto-born river Narg. And the cities of Cathuria are cinctured with golden walls, and their pavements also are of gold. In the gardens of these cities are strange orchids, and perfumed lakes whose beds are of coral and amber. At night the streets and the gardens are lit with gay lanthorns fashioned from the three-coloured shell of the tortoise, and here resound the soft notes of the singer and the lutanist. And the houses of the cities of Cathuria are all palaces, each built over a fragrant canal bearing the waters of the sacred Narg. Of marble and porphyry are the houses, and roofed with glittering gold that reflects the rays of the sun and enhances the splendour of the cities as blissful gods view them from the distant peaks. Fairest of all is the palace of the great monarch Dorieb, whom some say to be a demigod and others a god. High is the palace of Dorieb, and many are the turrets of marble upon its walls. In its wide halls many multitudes assemble, and here hang the trophies of the ages. And the roof is of pure gold, set upon tall pillars of ruby and azure, and having such carven figures of gods and heroes that he who looks up to those heights seems to gaze upon the living Olympus. And the floor of the palace is of glass, under which flow the cunningly lighted waters of the Narg, gay with gaudy fish not known beyond the bounds of lovely Cathuria.”
Thus would I speak to myself of Cathuria, but ever would the bearded man warn me to turn back to the happy shores of Sona-Nyl; for Sona-Nyl is known of men, while none hath ever beheld Cathuria.”
Yeah, this seems like a really bad idea. Basil seems to have convinced himself that because Cathuria is beyond human fantasy, it must be superior to human fantasy. The grass-is-greener fallacy, but taken to a ludicrous extreme. At best, Cathuria might be an empty, barren wasteland of unformed dreamstuff. At worst, it could host the dreams of aliens who's thoughts would shatter your sanity with their incomprehensible complexity, or even worse, it could be inhabited by hostile psychometric lifeforms like the ones in "The Neverending Story" that will send an invasion force in the direction the White Ship came from.
That "bird of heaven" seems to be a navigational device for the White Ship rather than an independent creature, since it leads them wherever they want to go.
“And on the thirty-first day that we followed the bird, we beheld the basalt pillars of the West. Shrouded in mist they were, so that no man might peer beyond them or see their summits—which indeed some say reach even to the heavens. And the bearded man again implored me to turn back, but I heeded him not; for from the mists beyond the basalt pillars I fancied there came the notes of singer and lutanist; sweeter than the sweetest songs of Sona-Nyl, and sounding mine own praises; the praises of me, who had voyaged far under the full moon and dwelt in the Land of Fancy.”
Talk about ego. Basil just assumes that the inhuman dream aliens are going to bow down and worship him just for showing up.
“So to the sound of melody the White Ship sailed into the mist betwixt the basalt pillars of the West. And when the music ceased and the mist lifted, we beheld not the Land of Cathuria, but a swift-rushing resistless sea, over which our helpless barque was borne toward some unknown goal. Soon to our ears came the distant thunder of falling waters, and to our eyes appeared on the far horizon ahead the titanic spray of a monstrous cataract, wherein the oceans of the world drop down to abysmal nothingness. Then did the bearded man say to me with tears on his cheek: “We have rejected the beautiful Land of Sona-Nyl, which we may never behold again. The gods are greater than men, and they have conquered.” And I closed my eyes before the crash that I knew would come, shutting out the sight of the celestial bird which flapped its mocking blue wings over the brink of the torrent.
Out of that crash came darkness, and I heard the shrieking of men and of things which were not men. From the East tempestuous winds arose, and chilled me as I crouched on the slab of damp stone which had risen beneath my feet. Then as I heard another crash I opened my eyes and beheld myself upon the platform of that lighthouse from whence I had sailed so many aeons ago. In the darkness below there loomed the vast blurred outlines of a vessel breaking up on the cruel rocks, and as I glanced out over the waste I saw that the light had failed for the first time since my grandfather had assumed its care.
And in the later watches of the night, when I went within the tower, I saw on the wall a calendar which still remained as when I had left it at the hour I sailed away. With the dawn I descended the tower and looked for wreckage upon the rocks, but what I found was only this: a strange dead bird whose hue was as of the azure sky, and a single shattered spar, of a whiteness greater than that of the wave-tips or of the mountain snow.
And thereafter the ocean told me its secrets no more; and though many times since has the moon shone full and high in the heavens, the White Ship from the South came never again.”
I guess that makes sense. If the sea, as I speculated before, is an extension of Sona-Nyl, then it would have to end at the borders of what humans can possibly imagine. Maybe, to continue using the same symbolism, there's a different KIND of sea that alien sailors can sail on, but the White Ship can't interact with it; for humans, its just the end of the world.
Anyway, the shrieks of "things that were not men" confirms that this region is indeed inhabited, and that the locals aren't happy about the White Ship's intrusion. Though its also possible that the inhuman shrieks are the sailors, who are being mutated somehow; in that case the void beyond the sea might be uninhabited after all and that there really is nothing else out there.
The story ends with the white ship destroyed, and the narrator trapped in the boring, mundane place he started, unable to ever leave again. He has literally shipwrecked his own imagination.
Normally these kinds of stories end up being metaphors for the corrupting influence of mundanity and rationalism stifling the imagination, but that doesn't seem to be what actually happened. It wasn't Basil's attempts to impose reality or restrictions on the dreamworld that destroyed the Ship; quite the opposite, it was him being too reckless and adventurous in his dreaming. It’s a fundamentally conservative tale.
It does fit in with the post World War One themes of humanity going too far and learning too much for its own good, and, really, takes them to a depressing extreme. Science and exploration are one thing, but now even DREAMING too far is bad for you. Humanity is doomed if it ever sets foot outside of its little island, scientifically, physically, or even, it seems, mentally.
One thing I don't get is the ships having become less and less frequent in recent generations. Any ideas on that? Maybe a childhood versus adulthood thing, with children dreaming bigger and bigger until they grow up and have to face the harsh music?
However bleak the message might be, its a very poignant one, and the psychedelia of the story itself is well realized and carefully constructed. I still don't like the generic fantasy names for all the dream islands, but that's a relatively minor complaint compared to the things this story did right. So far, Lovecraft's allegorical prose poems (like this one, and "Memory") have been a lot more enjoyable than his scifi/horror tales, surprisingly.
After a silent winter, Lovecraft made his next publication in The Vagrant with his May of 1920 submission of "The Statement of Randolph Carter."
