THE DEEP ONES: "The Quest of Iranon" by H. P. Lovecraft

"The Quest of Iranon" by H. P. Lovecraft

Discussion begins November 8, 2023.

First published the March 1939 issue of Weird Tales.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41884

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Beyond the Wall of Sleep
Dagon and Other Macabre Tales
The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories

ONLINE VERSIONS

https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/qi.aspx

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m79MyzAgwc

MISCELLANY

https://www.hplovecraft.com/
https://www.tor.com/2015/12/15/im-too-sexy-for-this-city-the-quest-of-iranon/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0522454/
https://tinyurl.com/55zk4jsj

I read this out of Beyond Arkham, and Klinger notes that this is much less hopeful than most of Lovecraft's Dunsanian stories (with the exception of "Polaris").

This is the second time I've read this, and I was struck by the resonances it had with Lovecraft's personal life and his views on the place of art and beauty in life. To me, Aira seems to symbolize the idyllic childhood of Lovecraft's youth before his grandfather died and his family's fortunes declined and a move was necessary.

I wonder if Teloth is a parodic view of Puritans. Sullen, with no time for art, viewing life as only be filled with toil, even their afterlife is "“crystal coldness amidst which none shall vex his mind with thought or his eyes with beauty”.

The welcome Iranon recives in Oonai seems a statement on the fickleness of a gross, uneducated public. Iranon finds his popularity with the king and Oonai's citizens supplanted by mere dancers and flute-players from the desert.

And, in the end, the illusions Lovecraft thought necessary to maintain an interest in life fail Iranon and he dies.