Lovecraft's Stories: The Nameless City

After spending several months in the land of Carcosa, I think it's time I visited Lovecraft country. Specifically, an unknown desert far from America. The Nameless City is considered to be the first of the Cthulhu stories. We see hints of what the Mythos would become in this story. There is the mystique of ancient ages and hints of forbidden knowledge, themes that would infect his other stories. A neless man dares to explore a forbidden city. Despite the warnings he ventures into the ruins and dives deeper and deeper into its mysteries. For my part, what is most interesting is the lack of names. No Cthulhu or Shub-Niggurath entities are listed. Even the crocodile creatures that inhabited the city are never named. This lack of names adds a mystery to the story and the reader ends up parroting the narrators questions.

The story seems to be an analogy for Lovecraft's own attempts to dive into his imagination. He first foray into the unimaginable seems to have come up a bit short as the fate of the narrator ends on a cliffhanger. Most of Lovecraft's characters die or go insane, their fates spelled out for the reader. You can see sprouts of ideas in this story. Gods, monsters, all sorts of things waiting to come out of the dark.