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LOVECRAFT STUDIES INSTITUTE
xxx Wellesley Street East, # xxx (BUZZ xxx)
Toronto, ON M4Y 1H5
MINUTES OF MARCH 19, 2011 MEETING
ATTENDANCE: Patrick, Bloch, King, Joshi, Cannon (Members). Three Guests.
2:01 P.M. Meeting Convened.
2:03 P.M. Approval of Minutes for Meeting of March 5, 2011
2:05: P.M. Chair proposes reading of "Harbingers" manuscript Chapter 8 ("Potters' Field"). UNANIMOUS
7:40 P.M. Reading concludes.
7:41 P.M. Chair proposes open discussion. UNANIMOUS
[FULL TRANSCRIPT FROM AUDIO]
JOSHI: If I may, I would like to begin with the subtle allusion of the title. The term "Potter's Field", Biblical in origin, has come to mean a burial ground for strangers. By changing the location of the apostrophe, Lovecraft has enacted a play on words: the title to this chapter refers to the Potter Boys, a trio of so-called "hill billies" known for terrorizing the remote village of Dunwich. But the title is more than a simple pun, as the Potters' property will indeed become the burial ground for several newcomers by chapter's end.
PATRICK: Articulate as ever, Joshi. I think I can speak for all of us when I say I am stunned by the ending to this chapter. Indeed, I wonder if Lovecraft has written himself into a hole. How can he continue the story after this?
KING: Perhaps we can think of these first several chapters as one large Prologue to the manuscript--several key themes and plot points have been introduced, but different protagonists will see them through to their resolution.
CANNON: Well, the chapter started out sedately enough. Instead of continuing where we left off last chapter, with those spelunkers trapped in the caverns under Dunwich, we see what happens to Scarlet Warren, the mysterious "small businesswoman" who decided not to go along. Warren returns to the boarding house where she's staying, and sees one of the owners, a Mrs. Mary Jackson, hanging a small globe of stained glass over her door. Mrs. Jackson says something about the previous one having been destroyed in yesterday's tremor, but gives only a vague explanation when asked about it.
PATRICK: I wasn't really sure what that was about.
JOSHI: And there, Mr. Patrick, you demonstrate your profound ignorance about all things occult. The globe was obviously a "witch ball", a device known to ancient folk-lore for its purported ability to ward off evil spirits.
CANNON: Mrs. Jackson goes on to complain about Warren's fellow boarder, Hoyt Symmes. It seems that someone in the village, who can read a little German, looked over Symmes shoulder at the book the fellow has been reading obsessively, and saw in it some words and pictures that Mrs. Jackson described as "improper and un-Godly in a good Christian home." She wants Symmes to leave, and Warren promises to have a talk with him about it. At the moment, however, it seems Symmes has gone for a walk and has yet to return.
BLOCH: In light of what happens later, I'm not sure how much attention this warrants--but I was intrigued by the the fact that, later that afternoon, Warren encounters the Miskatonic University researcher, Dr. Littlestreet, and agrees to be interviewed. Littlestreet asks all manner of questions about dreams, visions, strange behavior, and even drops in the phrases "The White Acolyte" and "Harbingers." Warren seems mildly suspicious, however, and diverts all her answers away from herself and towards the absent Hoyt Symmes. Does Littlestreet know more than he's letting on?
PATRICK: Speaking of Symmes, it doesn't take long for Warren to be concerned by the length of his absence. Early that evening, she enlists Dr. Littlestreet's assistant, Malcolm, to drive her around Dunwich looking for the missing encyclopedia salesman. They don't find him, but she does obtain some clues that he was asking locals about a "place of power" and purchased a bucket of red paint from Osborn's General Store. As darkness falls, she decides to retire for the night and continue the search in the morning.
KING: The story shifts back to the spelunkers. We know they've been wandering for hours, as they've already had to refill their lanterns with oil twice and they're getting exhausted. They decide to put together a makeshift camp and rest for some hours. Barnabus Gallowsong has a disturbing dream--in it, his wife and child, thought dead, are actually alive in the caverns. The dream seems vivid and real upon waking, and Barnabus is convinced he knows the exact path he needs to take to get to them. Meanwhile, Dr. Konig suffers a dream equally vivid and disturbing: Hoyt Symmes is laying on a rough dirt floor, hands bound, being eaten alive by dark shapes. I guess Pete, the drifter, had a good night's sleep though!
JOSHI: I believe you omitted the crucial detail that, while tending to Konig's wounds, Gallowsong believes he sees a strange mark on the doctor's back--a mark that matches the tri-part symbol etched all over Gilchrist House and that we suspect may be the "Mark of the Harbingers." Gallowsong tries to convince Konig of the Mark's existence, but Konig denies it.
PATRICK: In any event, they continue on when they wake up, carrying Sister Olivetti in the makeshift stretcher. After some hours, they reach a point where the tunnel continues on but is covered, for almost thirty feet, with a thick layer of fungus. Although Konig tries to stop him, Barnabus rushes into the fungus and intentionally dives into a fissure in the floor of the tunnel! Apparently, the dwarf was trying to recreate the events of his dream, but the result is that he falls dozens of feet into a cavern below (and is lucky to survive, cushioned by another thick layer of fungus). Up above, Pete seems to be affected by something in the air, as he throws a strange tantrum. Dr. Konig is left at his wit's end--should he abandon Barnabus to his fate or try to force the diminutive man to come with him? He chooses the latter course and, after managing to calm Pete down, rappels down the fissure to where Barnabus is waiting below.
KING: I thought this section took the story in a whole new direction. Up until now, we've been dealing with "supernatural" strangeness; but what Barnabus and Dr. Konig discover seems like something out of science-fiction. The cavern contains a massive pentagonal structure with sides that slope up to a central shaft. The "roof" of each side, as it were, contains a panel shaped like an iris-hatch. How did this structure get here? Is it the mark of an ancient civilization? A secret government installation? Or, dare I say it, aliens from beyond the stars?
BLOCH: You're exactly right--this brings in an element of the "weird" to add to the "horror." Dr. Konig believes his friend is delusional about finding his wife and child, but decides to humor the man. Gallowsong contrives a clever way to force open the hatches to each segment of the structure, and inside they find more uncanny and inexplicable things: odd, asymmetrically-shaped vials of an oily liquid that seems to repel the fungus; skeletons, in what appear to be cages, that are identified by Dr. Konig as being pre-human hominids (quite a scientific find!); and what looks to be human or human-like brains encased in containers. Barnabus even fancies that he sees eyes attached to the brains and that the eyes are looking at him, so he smashes the containers and destroys the organic material inside. In the face of this structure and the overwhelming challenges it presents to conventional understandings of history and science, Dr. Konig rationalizes it the best he can--that they've stumbled upon the secret laboratory of another scientist doing medical research.
CANNON: For a moment there, I thought Barnabus was going to get himself in even more trouble. When he exits the structure, he thinks he sees flickering light further on in the cavern--a sign that his wife and child are down there? Fortunately, he manages to resist the impulse to follow, and he and Konig ascend to the tunnel above where Pete and Sister Olivetti are waiting.
KING: Agreed--who knows whom or what was trying to lure Barnabus and his companions deeper into the caverns? Not that they immediately find safety, however. Further on, they reach a chamber crawling with thousands upon thousands of white, worm-like grubs--some the size of a thumbnail and others the size of a fist. Realization quickly dawns upon them: these are the sporocysts that infected Knight and all those who handled his body. In other words, they realize they're on the right track to escape the caverns, just as Knight did, but how can they avoid encountering the same fate that doomed him?
[to be continued]
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