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Rating: The unexplored territories of the dream world have always piqued my interest: the possibility that beyond the wondrous visions that sometimes unfold during the deepest slumber may lie an additional reality, one we can only sense but not live in, has constituted for me a compelling and irresistible hypothesis.
It was therefore natural for me to delve with extreme pleasure into this short novel (or long story, depending on how you like to consider it) by Lovecraft, a true dream odyssey, a truly unique journey not into the depths of the unconscious, but into a parallel world, at times fairytale-like, at times grotesque, at times of delicate and ineffable beauty, sometimes instead a flimsy screen of boundless horrors and a theater of the irrevocable will of inscrutable gods, whether they are the weak, placid deities of the earth or the Lords of the most remote cosmos.
And it is precisely in this alternation that the story unfolds, in which Randolph Carter (actually the true alter ego of the author), in search of the splendid Sunset City, a vision "worthy of a god's fever" mysteriously dreamt of and then inexplicably vanished, descends the seventy steps of deep sleep and crosses all the Dreamlands, modeled after Lord Dunsany's Dreamlands, among wonderful cities with golden spires, unnameable horrors hidden in underground crypts, sea and air journeys, riding the fearsome Shantak birds, to the destination, the unreachable Mount Kadath, in the Frozen Desert, beyond the Plateau of Leng, and further, almost to the throne of Azathoth itself, all at a very fast pace, unfortunately not due to the author's real intentions, but because the novel always remained in draft stage, so much so that Lovecraft, as long as he lived, always refused to publish it.
Indeed, the narrative seems at certain points far too hasty, almost more in the style of notes, and this is not the only weak point of the novel: the Master of Providence puts all the meat on the fire, meaning he tried to organize and rationalize the entire dream universe that had been stirring in his mind for years and had found partial outlet in tales like "Polaris," "The Other Gods," or "The White Ship," and to do so, he included a plethora of creatures, cities, and situations that can sometimes weigh down the tale, especially for those who are not great fans of the writer.
But for those who love Lovecraft to madness, what better occasion to travel with him in his personal dream universe, here described almost completely for the first and only time? It is only here that the obsessive fan (like myself) of the recluse of Lovecraft can walk alongside Randolph Carter through the streets of Celephais, Ulthar, Inganok, Sarkomand, or traverse the treacherous paths of the crypts of Zin and the Plateau of Leng, meet creatures like the Nightgaunts, Shantak, Ghouls, Gug, Ghasts, and eventually even Nyarlathotep himself, plunging and running free-rein into the most unrestrained fantasy of the creator of the Great Old Ones.
"The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" (in Italian it sounds much worse than the original, "The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath") is certainly not one of Lovecraft's best stories in terms of execution, of writing, but it is undoubtedly, in any case, a cornerstone of his literature, and if you have already appreciated gems like "The Doom That Came to Sarnath," "The Cats of Ulthar," or "The Other Gods," at the limits between the macabre and a dark and decadent epic (similar to certain narratives of Clark Ashton Smith) and if you have been captivated by the subdued atmospheres of "Celephais," "The White Ship," and "The Quest of Iranon," do not hesitate to make this rough diamond yours, a novel fundamentally left incomplete as far as its refinement is concerned, rather a kind of atlas, if you will, of its wonderful Dreamlands, yet still a precious diamond.
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