“Polaris” by H.P. Lovecraft
I fear my keyboard is still ‘hella busted’ and doubliing letters like this unedited sentence unfortunately shows. I am manually editing this post by hand so it will take A While to write it, unfortunately.
Polaris is clearly a story about a man who feels guilty about failing to fulfill military duty. That’s a very basic reading, and one that draws obvious parallels with Howard Philips Lovecraft’s lack of military service. This is also clearly part of Lovecraft’s ‘Dreamlands’ cycle. I am not an expert on Lovecraft’s biographical history or the Dreamlands cycle, but this story, and tomorrow’s (“The Green Meadow”) have made me realize I truly was missing out.
The Dreamland cycle seems very inspired by the Classical era — of course, classical names for stars are used, incl. Cassiopeia, and the city of Lomar is described as having marble pillars and being full of statues. The city is full of philosophers, and it’s all quite swords-and-sorcery. Perhaps the sentience and anthropomorphism assigned to Polaris is a sort of reversal of a zodiac constellation: the zodiac constellations are often times entities that have been turned(?) into stars, but in this case, the star isthe sentient entity.
Clearly, I am no Classicist. I haven’t any Greek or Latin skills. I just think it’s all quite neat.
This story very much reminds me of the famous philosophical story about Zhuangzhi and the butterfly. In the story, Zhuangzhi dreams he is a butterfly. When he awakes, he wonders if he’s a man who dreamed he was a butterfly, or, a butterfly who is dreaming that he is a man. Butterfly Dream | The Everyday Philosopher's Guide
This story is very interesting when considered in conversation with “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” which I haven’t covered yet but am familiar with. In “Shadow,” the protagonist also has a transformation to an alien state, but does so fully conscious — not in the Dreamlands. In “Shadow,” the protagonist does achieve his goal — reaching the underwater home of his ancestral line.
Today’s thumbnail photograph is from NASA: Iceberg in North Star Bay, Greenland | NASA Image and Video Library I didn’t edit the image for my thumbnail. Such a gorgeous shot. I don’t think the North Star is in the shot, but I needed something showing snow and stars. I really recommend checking out the NASA Image and Video Library, especially in a world where AI imagery is so endemic. It’s a wonderful resource for anyone interested in the stars.
It is not a picture of the North Star, but, there’s ice, there’s stars, I’m going to take what I can get, and mama needs views.
