HPL stories you just don't really care for

[Genus Unknown]

Obviously, there are some that pretty much nobody likes (I'm lookin' at you, "The Street").  I'm more curious about stories that are generally accepted as part of the Lovecraft canon that you just don't dig.  Mostly though, I'm looking for an excuse to blab about my own opinions on these stories, so here goes.

"The Statement of Randolph Carter" - I just flat don't like this story.  It's Lovecraft at his most amateurish.  Two guys go into an old graveyard, one goes into a grave, and then there's a ridiculous Are You Afraid of the Dark? ending.  It's really the ending that ruins it for me more than anything else.  It's just so damn cheesy.

"The Picture in the House" - This one could have been saved, and it's a shame it wasn't, because there is some good stuff here.  If he'd gone back and taken out 1.) the cleansing bolt of lightning, and 2.) the whole "cannibalism makes you live longer" angle, I would probably love this story.  The Wendigo thing is cheesy and unnecessary, and only distracts from the creepiness, and I think we can all agree that the lightning is stupid. This story has so much potential and so much good stuff in it, but the "old Yankee Dracula" thing drags it down, then the lightning bolt finishes it off.

"The Music of Erich Zann" - My opinion on this one has softened a bit thanks to this very podcast, but I'm still not crazy about it.  I still think it's a lot of setup with an infuriating let-down ending, and a lot of the craziness up in Zann's apartment just feels like randomness for its own sake.  I don't think even HPL knew what was going on with Erich Zann, which makes his "understatedness" in this story more lazy than clever.

[Danial]

I agree with you on those ones, except perhaps Zann. I agree that the story itself isn't that great, but I do happen to like the underlying concept of the music holding back some form of evil.

For me, the one I just don't really like, that everyone else seems to love, is The Temple... Guy goes crazy in a submarine and finds/imagines a temple under the sea??

[Manndroid]

Smokestack Jones' reading of The Pictue In the House made me really like that story, though the lightning bolt still needs to go.

I did not care at all for The Tomb.

[helios1014]

I must disagree about Randoph Carter, it is scarier because of the fact that it feels like a bad dream but happend in the real world.

Picture in the House doe have a bad last line but the angle of living longer with human flesh is not a bad plot point. It builds tention by establishing that he probably is a cannible without saying so. Yes there are other bread crumbs, but I like the "more of the same" line.

Music of Erich Zann Dead wrong. The whole story sets up the last scene. The isolated street. The introverted mute. The ending is terrifying becuase it has a lot of the unkown in it.

I, on the other hand, do not care for Pickman's Model. The paintings are disturbing but nothing disturbs the reader.  My favorite is "Nyarlathotep"

[Genus Unknown]

See, it's the "more of the same" line in "The Picture in the House" that really makes me roll my eyes.  It's clear by that point in the story that he's a cannibal, just from the way he keeps gloating over that picture, so it's not like that line is some subtle hint. All it does is explain his apparent good health in his age, because the cannibal regimen is apparently working.  I've seen that device work in other stories, but it just doesn't work here (for me, anyway - these things are entirely subjective). I could almost accept it as a delusion of the old man's, but the fact that it worked, and he's not just a creepy old man obsessed with a disturbing picture, but actually... what, supernaturally long-lived?... ruins that great sense of "serial killer" realism that the rest of the story builds. It's like Lovecraft couldn't decide whether he wanted to write a great psychological chiller or a cheesy vampire story, and just kind of did both.  And then put a stupid lightning bolt on top. Blah.

[Kaelestes]

I find myself disliking a lot of the Dreamscape stories. I think this may be because they are more like fantasy stories and far less like the psychological horror I enjoy. In particular, Polaris, The White Ship, & Beyond the Wall of Sleep just didn't do it for me.

[Genus Unknown]

Ha, I have to admit a soft spot for "The White Ship," but it's a guilty pleasure and I'm not about to try and defend it.  "Polaris" and "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" are genuinely indefensible, though.

[DMcCool]

I agree with Kaeles.  The Dream Cycle works are probably my least favorite, with one very noted exception.  

Ex Oblivione is probably my favorite little Lovecraft story, though I attribute that to personal feelings about death, and not so much in its literary value.

[helios1014]

I like some of the dreamlands. Celephaïs strikes a special cord with one who is "dulled and prosaic with the poison of life."

[TransconaSlim]

I really didn't care for "The Shadow Out of Time".  It was the last story of in the collection The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories, and it took me forever to get though, I think I missed a whole bunch of stuff (where where the flying polyps?), and yeah, it was one of those things where I would read and re-read paragraphs and not actually have read anything. 

[catamount]

I agree with you in regards to "The Shadow Out of Time." I've read it twice and just don't get the reason why some people really love this story! I found it tedious and overly dramatic throughout. I have to disagree about "The Temple," true it is not a well written story but I would consider it a "guilty pleasure" (for myself anyway). I love the whole imagery of the iron willed Teutonic sub captain chastising and ultimately executing most of his crew for being a bunch superstitious sissies! For me he is a very memorable human character.

[Kaelestes]

I agree with Kaeles.  The Dream Cycle works are probably my least favorite, with one very noted exception.  

Ex Oblivione is probably my favorite little Lovecraft story, though I attribute that to personal feelings about death, and not so much in its literary value.

Ex Oblivione is also one of my "exceptions to the rule." I don't like it because it's scary, because it's obviously not, but there's just something about that little story. It's kind of a romantic and very poetic portrayal of the end of one's life, and it's done beautifully.

[Danial]

Like most of HPL's stories, I think The Shadow out of Time is only really interesting due to the concept behind it—aliens recording the universe's past and future history through mental time-travel!

[Kryptych]

First of all, I'm new here, so... hello everyone.

Like most of HPL's stories, I think The Shadow out of Time is only really interesting due to the concept behind it—aliens recording the universe's past and future history through mental time-travel!

I enjoy The Shadow Out of Time because of the apocalyptic implications of that mental time-travel; that this Great Race of Yith survived by switching places with another race far in the future, so that they in fact never "defeat" the flying polyps... they just simply avoid them by projecting themselves into a time when they simply are gone, without any regard for why or how they're gone... and where does that leave us? To know that those cone-shaped Yithians existed on Earth, had their war with the polyps... that the cone-shaped beings weren't even the original Yithian form, and that the traces of those that destroyed them are still on Earth... the Yithians simply study us, and then move on, leaving us or whatever else to deal with the polyps. The cruelty of indifference... that's why I love that story because that - in my mind - is a horrifying notion of what will end up of humankind while these interstellar alien wars go on.

All of that said, I did have to re-read the story about three or four times, and I will still likely read it again as there are still some details that escape me. The Music of Erich Zann is one that I do find the concept interesting, though the actual story leaves me a little dissatisfied.

[Ruth - CthulhuChick]

Most of the dream cycle ones. If we're counting the "Nameless City" as dream cycle, then I'll have to except it as one that (while not my favorite) had a lot of elements I liked.