The Freshman

"The Freshman" is a short story by Philip José Farmer, set at H. P. Lovecraft's Miskatonic University. It was first published in the May 1979 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It appears in the Arkham House anthology Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.
"The Freshman" depicts Miskatonic University not as a stalwart bastion against the Great Old Ones, as it usually appeared in the work of Lovecraft and his immediate circle, but more like the Miskatonic of the popular imagination: a campus in league with sinister forces and relishing forbidden lore.
==Synopsis ==
The story centers on Roderick Desmond, a 60-year-old writer of occult novels, who is enrolling at Miskatonic as a freshman. He longs to escape the control of his domineering mother, but knows that she will follow him even if he enters college. He mainly interacts with two other characters: Wendell Trepan, an upperclassman who hopes to recruit Desmond into his fraternity, Lam Kha Alif; and R. Layamon, chair of the Committee of the Occult Arts and History Department, who pushes Desmond to cross a moral line to achieve his full potential as master of arcane forces.
==Behind the Mythos==
In addition to painting a picture of a pro-cosmic horror Miskatonic, the story provides some back story for the Arkham area: The hills to the west of Arkham are named for the Tamsiqueg Indians, whose legends tell that the hills were once evil giants, turned to stone by the tribe's hero Mikatoonis. The largest of the giants, Cotoaahd--whose name is also the acronym for Layamon's department--is said to sometimes return to life, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. The Tamisqueg wonder-worker Atechironnon had a ritual for waking Cotoaahd tattooed on his body--a formula preserved when Simon Conant, half-brother of the historical Roger Conant (founder of Salem), turned the Indian sorcerer's skin into a book, Ye Lesser Rituall of Ye Tahmmsiquegg Warlock Atechironunn.
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Philip José Farmer works