Necronomicon
The Necronomicon (Greek: Νεκρονομικόν) is a fictional book of magic, invented by H. P. Lovecraft and frequently featured in his Cthulhu Mythos tales.
Overview
According to Lovecraft's account the original, called Al Azif, (the sound of cicadas and other nocturnal insects, said in folklore to be the conversation of demons), was written by the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred, and contains an account of the Old Ones, their history, and descriptions of how they may be summoned.
A number of translations were made over the centuries. The Greek translation, which gave the book its most famous title, was made by a (fictional) Orthodox scholar, Theodorus Philetas of Constantinople. Olaus Wormius (wrongly located by Lovecraft in the thirteenth century) translated it into Latin, who indicated in the preface that the Arab original was lost at the time. This translation was printed twice, once in the fifteenth century, in black-letter, evidently in Germany, and once in the seventeenth, probably in Spain. The Latin translation called attention to the Necronomicon, and was banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232. The Greek translation, printed in Italy between 1500 and 1550, is believed to be completely lost since the burning of R. U. Pickman's library in Salem. The Elizabethan magician, John Dee was supposed (at the suggestion of Lovecraft's friend Frank Belknap Long) to have possessed a copy, and to have made an English translation of it, of which only fragments survived.
The book is now mentioned in various places in fiction but always as being very rare; there are supposedly secret or hidden copies in the British Museum (now these books are held at the British Library); the Bibliotheque Nationale de France; Widener Library of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the University of Buenos Aires; and the library of the fictional Miskatonic University in the equally fictional Arkham, Massachusetts. The book is dangerous to read, being almost inevitably destructive of one's health and sanity, and is kept under lock and key in these libraries.
Many later fantasy and horror writers have mentioned the Necronomicon in their own stories: two examples are a passage in Gene Wolfe's novel Peace, in which a book of necromancy being forged by a character is not named, but is obviously the Necronomicon, and Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's humorous version, the Necrotelecomnicon (the book of phone numbers of the dead). Andrzej Sapkowski mentions a Polish translation of the book, titled Źwierzcyadło Maggi Czarney Bissurmańskiey in his short story "Tandaradei!". It also made an appearance in the Illuminatus! Trilogy and it was the basis for the movie trilogy The Evil Dead.
Linguistics
Lovecraft cites the meaning of the title as translated from the Greek language: nekros (corpse), nomos (law), eikon (image): "An image of the law of the dead". A more prosaic (but probably more correct) translation, is via conjugation of nemo (to consider): "Concerning the dead". Another etymology that has been suggested here is "Knowledge of the Dead", from Greek 'Nekrós', corpse, dead, and 'Gnomein', to know (on the apparent assumption that the G could be lost); the person so suggesting thinks this "seems to fit better with the subject treated in the book".
Another possible meaning is "The Book of the Law of the Dead Gods".
Greek editions of Lovecraft's works have commented that in Greek the word can have several different meanings when broken at its roots. More specifically:
- Necro-Nomicon - The Book of the Law of the Dead, derived from Nomicon (Book of Law).
- Necro-Nomo-icon - The Book of Dead Laws.
- Necr-Onom-icon - The Book of Dead Names, derived from onoma (name).
- Necro-Nomo-Icon - Image of the Law of the Dead.
- Necrό-Nomo-Icon - Law of Dead Images
Non-historiocity
Though Lovecraft insisted the book was pure invention (and other writers invented passages from the book in their own works), there are accounts of some people actually believing the Necronomicon to be a real book.
This issue was confused in the late 1970s by the publication of a book purporting to be a translation of the "real" Necronomicon. This book, by the pseudonymic "Simon", published by Schlangekraft and then in Avon paperback, attempted to connect the fictional Lovecraft mythology to Sumerian Mythology. While not completely invented (indeed, several Babylonian deities are mentioned), the Necronomicon's connection to historical Sumerian Mythology is entirely a product of Lovecraft's imagination.
Another hoax version of the Necronomicon was produced by paranormal researcher and writer Colin Wilson, describing how it was translated by computer from a discovered "cipher text". It is truer to the Lovecraftean version and even incorporates quotations from Lovecraft's stories into its passages.
Such historical "Books of the Dead" as that of the ancient Egyptians or that of the Tibetan Buddhists are sometimes described as "real Necronomicons". They should not be confused with it, as their thrust is information to be read or remembered by the dead, rather than by the living to summon the dead. Lovecraft, however, may have been inspired by them, either in spite of, or in ignorance of, the contrast.
Probable derivations
- Necronomicon was the title of a book of paintings by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger (published in 1978); it was a quite appropriate title for his particularly sinister style of blended machinery and flesh.
- In Sam Raimi's popular movies Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness, the Necronomicon Ex Mortis appears as an evil book of magic. (And in Evil Dead, the first of the trilogy that also includes them, hearing a recording of an academic reading from a similar book is blamed for all of the character Ash's later trouble.)
- Science fiction author Neal Stephenson derived the title of his book Cryptonomicon from the Necronomicon featured in the Evil Dead movies, not knowing that the name had originated with H. P. Lovecraft.
