The White Ship was written by H. P. Lovecraft, and in my order of reading this was his fifth story. It is yet again fairly different from the first four stories, which is intriguing. This one is more of a ‘fairy tale’ / dream sequence. There really isn’t much horror here. Maybe it’s a cautionary tale.
The main character, Basil, grows up in a lighthouse. Apparently his grandfather spontaneously made his father, and his father spontaneously made him (Basil), because there’s no trace at all of mothers. Maybe both died in childbirth. In any case, life for these three men involve sitting in the lighthouse telling stories about ships.
As it happens, while there used to be lots of ships coming through this area, as the decades progress there are fewer and fewer. So Basil, now alone, sits and talks to the sea. He dreams of going to see places. Finally a mythical white ship appears and agrees to take him away. I took this to mean that Basil died, because after a three-generation legacy of manning this lighthouse, is Basil really going to just abandon it and let ships crash into the rocks?
Off Basil goes. He passes a city of barely-glimpsed ideas, which doesn’t lure him in much. The next city is about unfathomable things (including demons and gray walls) which also isn’t very alluring. The third city is about pleasures, but also about really nasty smells. A strange combination. So he gives up on that one.
Finally he gets to Sona-Nyl, a lovely city with no suffering or death. It’s nice there. Temples. Pagodas. “Pleasing clumps of bushes”. I kid you not. Apparently there are “folk” there but Basil the Lighthouse Keeper isn’t much for interacting with folk. Mostly he walks around for decades admiring the temples, pagodas, and pleasing clumps of bushes.
But after decades or centuries of this he gets bored. He wants to go try out Cathuria which reputedly has gold walls, gold ceilings, gold floors, and gold pillars. Mostly, I think, he just wants something new to look at. The ship-pilot tries to dissuade Basil but off they go. And, sure enough, they reach a waterfall and crash.
Basil comes to at his lighthouse, where his light is out and a ship has crashed. In the morning he just finds a white spar left and a dead bird.
I do love Tolkien and fantasy stories, but this one is just a bit too pedestrian for me. Basil could have found a lovely wife, they could have had 3 kids and played music together, written stories together, built boats, took turns watching the lighthouse, and lived a glorious life. Instead, Basil abandons his post, lets ships crash on the rocks, and then expects a world of temples and pagodas and “pleasing clumps of bushes” to make him eternally happy without any action on his own part.
Here’s the story to read:
https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/ws.aspx
Here’s my video review –