The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Rating:
Summary: Not my favorite but perhaps HPL's best
Review: "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" is perhaps Lovecraft's greatest piece of fiction; it certainly is a culmination of the Dunsanian fantasy pieces he wrote early in his career, several of which are also featured in this collection. While I recognize the seminal importance of "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," I must also say that I find it a particularly difficult read; if my powers of concentration are less than 100%, I simply can't make heads or tails of the story. Perhaps my trouble is a personal idiosyncrasy, but this novella is certainly complex and not well suited for the casual reader. The story describes Randolph Carter's obsessive search for the abode of earth's gods on mystical Kadath and his determination to find and abide in a glorious city he has seen in his dreams. Carter is a proficient dreamer, and his journey introduces us to important denizens and personalities in the dream world. Unafraid, Carter sets himself to brave a meeting even with Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos. There are monstrous creatures and horrible vistas brought to life in these pages, but the entire dreamlike atmosphere of the story seems to rise up and cover my mind with mists that force me to reread passages in order to maintain my focus. While I don't necessarily enjoy this story in the normal sense of the word, I do regard it as a grand achievement by the author.

The other stories in the collection also take us to the dream world created by Lovecraft. "The Silver Key" and "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (written in collaboration with E. Hoffman Price) reveal much of the history of Randolph Carter and offer glimpses of other dream quests he embarked on in life. "Celephais" tells of the dream world town ruled by King Kuranes, a former earthly acquaintance of Randolph Carter, and "The Strange High House in the Mist" contains references to the dream world Carter explored. Only "The White Ship" does not relate in some way to Carter's travels.

One simply should not read "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" without first reading a number of other related stories, several of which are unfortunately not contained in this volume (such as "The Other Gods," "The Cats of Ulthar," "Pickman's Model," and most especially "The Statement of Randolph Carter"). This book requires work on the part of the reader due to its unique complexity. Lovecraft's horror stories are much more appealing to me than the fantasy stories collected here, yet Lovecraft's true genius and talent are most easily discerned by a reading of "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath."

Rating:
Summary: The stuff dreams are made of...
Review: A man glimpses a marvelous city in his childhood dreams, and as an adult seeks to find it. I read this story for the first time during summer vacation when I was 14 or 15 (a very impressionable age) and was deeply struck by the huge vistas this work opened up within my imagination. By no means do I consider this great literature, in fact Lovecraft himself never intended for it to see print, but scattered throughout it are many gems--achingly beautiful passages that still to this day possess the power to transport me back to that wonderful, careless age when I had first read it. I return to this book every now and then when the world gets a bit overwhelming and have always come away with a renewed sense of child-like wonder. As Lovecraft himself once wrote, "Calm, lasting beauty comes only in a dream, and this solace the world had thrown away when in its worship of the real it threw away the secrets of childhood and innocence."

Rating:
Summary: Lovecraft's masterpiece
Review: Beyond Tolkein, Poe, Lewis, and Leguin is Lovecraft. The incredible scope of his imagination and the effortless way in which he paints his worlds is unparralleled. I cannot stress how amazing this book is, you simply must read it and experience for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Great go-to-bed reading: if you are going to stay out of bed
Review: Even if have never heard of Kadath, which is not surprising since few have ever heard of it, even if you have never heard of dream-questing, which is even less surprising since quest zest has nearly ceased to zero, you will not be able to turn away from the dark story of searching for the mysterious city of Kadath far away: or may be in another world? The style of the book is deadly cold and calm, even when telling the most terrifying details of the hero's quest to the thin border of his dreams... and beyond.

Rating:
Summary: A Lovecraft Must
Review: H.P. Lovecraft continues to exert an enormous influence in the horror/fantasy genre. This may be surprising because Lovecraft's writings were nearly impossible to find for decades. Unlike those poor souls who, in the old days, fruitlessly searched for copies of his stories, today we can locate copies of them quite easily. And they are definitely worth seeking out, as Lovecraft writes chilling stories like no other person, alive or dead. Unfortunately for horror buffs, Lovecraft died at a young age, thus leaving his work to be carried on by others.

Lovecraft is famous for his creation of the Cthulhu mythos, an alternate universe (or series of universes) populated by strange beings of infinite evil. These are the Elder Gods, beings who enjoy tormenting the human race. Time and time again, Lovecraft takes his characters into unfortunate encounters with the Elder Gods, almost always to the detriment of these hapless souls. In "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," DelRey collects yet another batch of Lovecraft gems.

The main course of this collection is "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," a story about Randolph Carter, a mystic who has the ability to enter a fabulous world through his dreams. Carter isn't content with merely shuffling about a dream world; he wants to track down Kadath, a fortress where the gods live and play. Carter's quest takes him through endless adventures where he faces both good and evil realms. Carter goes to the moon, talks to cats, sails on the seas, and encounters weird creatures both helpful and harmful. All of this brings him steadily closer to his goal. This story is a synthesis of many of Lovecraft's other stories, such as "The Cats of Ulthar."

"Celephais" is a short story about one of Carter's friends who became a king in the dream world. It is a short story that serves to give some background on both the dream world and one of the characters Carter encounters in his quest for Kadath.

"The Silver Key," a story that again incorporates the Carter character, finds Carter discovering a key engraved with strange hieroglyphics. With the key, Carter attempts to reconnect to the dream world. His subsequent disappearance raises more questions than it answers. Fortunately, these questions are answered in the next story.

"Through the Gates of the Silver Key" picks up where the previous story left off. Carter uses the key to move through a portal into a universe beyond any human comprehension. Carter learns that through advanced mathematics he is capable of changing the very barriers of time and space. Some barriers shouldn't be messed with, as Carter quickly discovers. While his estate is being hashed out on Earth, Carter is working diligently to return to his world. Lovecraft co-wrote this story with another author, named E. Hoffman Price.

The book ends with two very short stories, "The White Ship," and "The Strange High House in the Mist." In "The White Ship," a man who watches over a lighthouse embarks on a strange journey into lands only dreamed about by mankind. When the lighthouse keeper becomes bored with the paradise he discovers, his wish to move on leads to tragedy for the white ship. In "The Strange High House in the Mist," a weird house on a cliff overlooking a fishing village serves as a meeting place for creatures of the sea both wicked and wise. When a curious clergyman explores the house, he comes back with knowledge some people in the village would rather not hear about.

All of these stories employ Lovecraft's usual trademarks: elegant prose, descriptions of horror beyond the knowledge of man, and imaginative plots that make the reader shake their head in wonder. There are Lovecraftian stories that are better than the ones in this collection, such as "At the Mountains of Madness," but this is still an excellent collection of chillers from a master who, even on his off days, produced work vastly superior to many writers in the genre. Lovecraft richly deserves the consideration he receives to this day.

Rating:
Summary: Just uninteresting overall
Review: I guess maybe I'm in the minority here about HP Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, but unfortunatley, I didn't get the whole point of this book. I understood the story well enough: Carter doesn't like it much in the real world, so he goes on a quest in the dreamworld so he can stay there instead because he likes it there better. And so he basically walks around, more or less wandering aimlessly in that dreamworld throughout the whole story (or up to around page 100, because after that, I just got completely bored of the whole story), and from time to time meets some people, some of whom help him, while others kidnap him for their own twisted purposes.

The protagonist, Randolph Carter isn't someone the reader would care about; he's not someone I felt I was able to admire, love, or even pity, nor could I hate this character, because virtually no information was given about him and we never really see what kind of a person Carter really is. The reader is told that he likes cats and that he prefers the dreamworld to the real world (though it isn't discussed WHY he feels this way about either cats or the dreamworld), but no other information was given about Carter, thus rendering him little more than a name without a face throughout the novel. Perhaps the intent here was to make him enigmatic somehow, but that doesn't work either, because usually when a character is an enigma, the reader is interested in finding out what makes him tick, though learning about him or her may diminish the mystery and intrigue at times. We are given no such clues about Carter nor is there the slightest bit of character development, however, who can't even be considered a cliche' or one-dimensional stereotype because we don't even know that much about him and through the course of the story, the very protagonist, the one we are supposed to identify with and care about, becomes little more than a name without a face, causing the reader (me) to cease caring about what happens to him.

This barely one-dimensional protagonist might have been forgiven had the story been compelling, creative, or the slightest bit interesting, but sadly, this is not the case. I will give it up to HP Lovecraft for being able to describe the scenery and implant the images of this strange land into my mind, but such imagery does not make up for a lacking story. Throughout the book, Carter simply walks around in the woods, or in caves, or sails on ships, but overall that is all that happens. Sometimes he is with people, while other times he is alone. While a few interesting things happened along the way, such as the war between the cats and the Zoogs as well as the first couple of times Carter was captured by some weird creature or tribe, these events are not vividly described in any compelling manner, but are instead summarized, like much of the story overall, and it seems the only thing that is described adequately at least part of the time would be the scenery, but as I said before, good scenery and imagery alone won't make for a good story, especially when nothing else is given adequate details. Even the conversations Carter has with people are rushed in summary, instead of using dialogue to convey what people are saying; such conversations are done along these lines:

"Carter was talking to some guy, and he said that he was going on his quest, and the guy said that he should not go on there for some reason, and that the quest wasn't worth it, and then Carter insisted that he wanted to continue on his quest and would complete his quest no matter what, and they argue about it for a while, until the guy agrees to give Carter whatever he needs."

Those aren't the exact words used, of course, but you get the idea.

I had heard about HP Lovecraft and how he had influenced Stephen King, among other horror and science fiction writers, and being a Stephen King fan, I thought I would check HP Lovecraft out, but not knowing much about him, I chose to start with the Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath. Perhaps I picked the wrong book to start with, and maybe Lovecraft's other stories are better or different or maybe I would've gotten more out of this one had I previously read some of his other works; I'm not sure, but his first impression with me was not very good.

Rating:
Summary: The best I read in my live!!!!
Review: I read the book when I was twinty. By accedent. I found it in a empty old house. The reasen that I was in that house is not important. Simply I was mad. That book, that sory, was the saving of my live. I found out that dreams rally were important, the rest whas bullshit

Rating:
Summary: A suberb tale of sublime fantasy in a wondrous dreamscape...
Review: If you enjoy tales of fantasy, qv the Hobbit series by JRR Tolkein or the Elric tales by Michael Moorcock, you must read this scarcely read tale of fantasy by american author H.P. Lovecraft. Understand from the first that this story is more sublime beauty than horror. The horrific cover on the del rey book, though compelling, mis-sells the story. This is a fantasy tale about a dreamer/adventurer who quests through an incredible dreamscape world on a quest to rediscover a fleeting dream city. The main character, Randolph Carter, is a hero of sorts in the Lovecraft universe and his adventures through the dreamlands are some of the most spectacular ever written in any tale of fantasy adventure. Encounters with fantastic creatures of dream and nightmare, compelling characters from ethereal kings and strange gods, to moon flying cats await you. Moreover, you will experience a new sensitivity to the power of beauty, dreams and forgotten childhood memories in a way only the master of the sublime can share. You will experience the imaginitive genius of Lovecraft fully in this often bizarre tale. Lovecraft's command of the English language make virtually every sentence a delight. "Dream-quest of Unknown Kadath" is a spectacularly unusual fantasy tale: the only thing that will haunt you is the power of the breathtaking beauty Lovecraft will paint for you in his commanding eloquence. It is perfectly paced, with no dragging areas, and somewhat of a quick read. A shame because you will wish as you near the end that the book was infinitely thicker. Do not miss this delight of fantasy storytelling! -Javier Roman

Rating:
Summary: What a difference a couple of decades make
Review: It was a lot tougher being a Lovecraft fan in the 1970s. Hardly any of his work was in print. I owned no Lovecraft books except for an extremely worn copy of The Colour out of Space. I read what I could in libraries, but his work had fallen so far off the horizon that it was hard just finding a bibliography. At some point in the late 1970s I heard of "Dream Quest" and discovered that it was so rare as to be virtually nonexistent. I finally managed to read a copy in 1981 or 1982 in the stacks of the Duke University library (it was a reserve book, of course). My anecdote aside, this is an very good tale that shouldn't have been so hard to find, and now that virtually all Lovecraft is back in print, you should buy (and hoard) a copy for yourself if you have any interest in Lovecraft in longer form.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this Book
Review: One day I went to the library and I was looking through the used books that they sell in the hallway. I came across this one book that caught my eye and decided to buy it. I brought the book home and began reading it. It was and excellent book. A thriller, horror, fantacy, whatever you want to call it. But it kept me inside. I was inside the book, feeling and seeing all these incredible things going on around me. The pages flipped but they were not pages to me. It was as if I had entered into this whole new world. It was a reality that embraced me. I couldn't leave till it was over. It just kept me on my toes, wondering, "what will happen next?" This book is a defanite "must-read" book. I suggest that all individuals read it. You can benefit so much, and learn things that you could never imagine