HPL stories you just don't really care for

[Ruth - CthulhuChick]

I think the Herbert West story is far superior to the film, which I just watched this weekend. That said, the film was good in other, odd ways, as something inspired by the idea. But the story...I like the pacing a lot better.

[Bob Lovecraft]

I've never been a fan of the movie in and of itself, either, so don't feel too bad, Fenrix. At least one other cultist agrees with you. I love Jeffery Combs, and the special effects were pretty good, but come on, this story should have taken place over years. Converting it to a freaky week was just kind of crappy for me. So yeah, I preferred the story over the movie, too.

Bob

[Ruth - CthulhuChick]

I've never been a fan of the movie in and of itself, either, so don't feel too bad, Fenrix. At least one other cultist agrees with you. I love Jeffery Combs, and the special effects were pretty good, but come on, this story should have taken place over years. Converting it to a freaky week was just kind of crappy for me. So yeah, I preferred the story over the movie, too.

Bob

Agreed. It was far too fast.

[LambethWarp]

"Old Bugs" is preachy and dumb, and there's not a single decent chuckle in "Ibid." 

Ha, glad someone else picked up on 'Old Bugs'. I only heard of it when I downloaded the complete HPL on Kindle quite recently. Is it Lovecraft's only story that doesn't feature any element of supernatural, science-fictional or otherwise 'weird' horror? Probably no coincidence that it's his worst, in my opinion, I mean it's just a stupid "drugs're bad, mmkay?" moralistic tale, isn't it?

I thought 'Ibid.' was OK actually, not laugh-out-loud funny but moderately amusing.

I haven't read 'The Hound' but I listened to the reading of it and...well, I enjoyed it because it's so hilariously bad, so I guess I do have something good to say about it after all.

Anyone else read 'The Evil Clergyman'? Very strange, so short and un-Mythologized for such a late story. Also pretty poor, I'd say.

[Bob Lovecraft]

"Old Bugs" is preachy and dumb, and there's not a single decent chuckle in "Ibid." 

Ha, glad someone else picked up on 'Old Bugs'. I only heard of it when I downloaded the complete HPL on Kindle quite recently. Is it Lovecraft's only story that doesn't feature any element of supernatural, science-fictional or otherwise 'weird' horror? Probably no coincidence that it's his worst, in my opinion, I mean it's just a stupid "drugs're bad, mmkay?" moralistic tale, isn't it?

I thought 'Ibid.' was OK actually, not laugh-out-loud funny but moderately amusing.

I haven't read 'The Hound' but I listened to the reading of it and...well, I enjoyed it because it's so hilariously bad, so I guess I do have something good to say about it after all.

Anyone else read 'The Evil Clergyman'? Very strange, so short and un-Mythologized for such a late story. Also pretty poor, I'd say.

Just keep in mind that some of the stuff that has been published since HPL's death was never meant to be published. Some were story fragments (The Book, etc.), some written for an audience of one (Old Bugs), and some were simply descriptions of dreams (The Evil Clergyman). It's like going back and reading a dirty limerick written by Shakespeare when he was drunk and holding it up for serious literary criticism.

Bob

[Konrad Hartmann]

JulieH has a very good point about both the story completely ignoring Asenath and about horror in an alien setting.

To me, The Thing on the Doorstep was a great story, and part of that was because of the horror Daniel Upton shows for what happened to Asenath. Although to be honest, I think he was much more concerned about what Old Ephraim did and not so much what the victim suffered, but either way it is acknowledged. I wish Lovecraft would have gone into more detail about it, and had his characters much more horrified by it; it is, after all, the ultimate form of rape. Then to follow that up with the girl's murder is just the icing on the horrible cake.

As for horror in an alien setting, yeah, it just doesn't work as well as horror in a familiar setting. To me, part of the thrill of good horror is the perversion of the everyday world around you and the inability to cope with the change/revelation of it all. By contrast, take a normal person and chuck them into a wierded out environment and you have to explain to people WHY this is so horrible. It can work, don't get me wrong, but you have to have a lot of touchstones to everyday things. Take Hellraiser II for example. The protagonists are pulled into the Cenobites' world and it is a terrible place. But it is a terrible place made up of things from mundane life like knives and hooks and claustrophobic mazes and whatnot. In the dreamlands setting, almost NOTHING is mundane, and therein lies the disconnect. You simply have to try much harder to empathize with the character, and in doing so, you lose any real sense of danger/horror/excitement.

Bob

I really enjoyed the way that HPL detailed the dynamic of how Edward's personality made him vulnerable. He describes how doting parents kept their only child chained to their side, how his childish dependence is fostered by the doting parents, and how he exchanges his parents/surviving father for Asenath as masters. I thought that the description of Edward showed a deeper level of character development than in many other HPL stories held in greater esteem by fans. Unlike many of the usual characters, I know people that remind me of Edward Derby. I have to look again at the stories, but I wonder if it may be the case that HPL's characters tend to be more fleshed out and less stock when placed in the context of a family (e.g., The Case of Charles Dexter Ward).

[isdfjkhd]

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

__________________

Sur Lunettes De Soleil

[Ruth - CthulhuChick]

"Sweet Ermengarde" isn't weird either but is kind of hilarious. I read it aloud to a friend once and he just kept saying "WHAT?"

[LambethWarp]

"Old Bugs" is preachy and dumb, and there's not a single decent chuckle in "Ibid." 

Ha, glad someone else picked up on 'Old Bugs'. I only heard of it when I downloaded the complete HPL on Kindle quite recently. Is it Lovecraft's only story that doesn't feature any element of supernatural, science-fictional or otherwise 'weird' horror? Probably no coincidence that it's his worst, in my opinion, I mean it's just a stupid "drugs're bad, mmkay?" moralistic tale, isn't it?

I thought 'Ibid.' was OK actually, not laugh-out-loud funny but moderately amusing.

I haven't read 'The Hound' but I listened to the reading of it and...well, I enjoyed it because it's so hilariously bad, so I guess I do have something good to say about it after all.

Anyone else read 'The Evil Clergyman'? Very strange, so short and un-Mythologized for such a late story. Also pretty poor, I'd say.

Just keep in mind that some of the stuff that has been published since HPL's death was never meant to be published. Some were story fragments (The Book, etc.), some written for an audience of one (Old Bugs), and some were simply descriptions of dreams (The Evil Clergyman). It's like going back and reading a dirty limerick written by Shakespeare when he was drunk and holding it up for serious literary criticism.

Bob

Yeah, I know he's probably spinning in his brain cylinder about some of the stuff that's been published since his death - interesting about 'The Evil Clergyman' having been based directly on a dream*, I didn't know that and it does put it in a slightly different light.

(*I say 'directly' because I'm sure a case could be made for HPL's entire corpus of work being dream-inspired in one way or another.)

[Graf von Altenberg Ehrenstein]

I haven't read 'The Hound' but I listened to the reading of it and...well, I enjoyed it because it's so hilariously bad, so I guess I do have something good to say about it after all.

What `s wrong with The Hound? It `s just okay and safe for your Halloween dancing and dining pleasures. No more, no less.

The Big Thing that I don `t like is Dunwich. It has tons of neat athmo and blah and blub but the concept of it... There `s all that talk about these mighty creatures, ready and willing and able to take over ße wörld and then all they come up with is two sick hybrid-freaks. One of them is eaten by a dog and the other one is finished off by an elderly professor saying some old mumbo jumbos. For a terrific monster plan that `s kind of weak. 
I guess there must be some major misunderstandings due to tainted tradition of those necro books and of old Whatley `s own madness, but it `s still unsatisfying. For some reason this works for me perfectly with CoC, but not here

[Bob Lovecraft]

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

__________________

Sur Lunettes De Soleil

Yeah, I love that reading. I still have the file on that one.

Bob

[Professor Lake]

I recall the podcast dismissing the basic idea of the The Street, the notion of a place having a spirit, as stupid. It's Lovecraft's take on the "genius loci" idea, which is very very old. I don't think the basic idea is stupid; and certainly the idea of a genius loci developing from the attitudes of those who lived there is an interesting one IMO. Sort of a national spirit. Terry Pratchett applied a similar idea of his Discworld stories. In the Discworld, the kingdom of Lancre has a genius loci. I thought the idea was badly handled by HPL though.

The one story I don't really like is The Shadow Out of Time. Interesting ideas in it, like mental time-travel, but not much happens. Unlike At the Mountains of Madness. The various Dreamlands stories bore the phtagn out of me.

[Bob Lovecraft]

The various Dreamlands stories bore the phtagn out of me.

Amen, brother.

Bob

[JulieH]

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

__________________

Sur Lunettes De Soleil

Yeah, I love that reading. I still have the file on that one.

Bob

That's why I fixed the ending in my Lovecraft 5 adaptation (and SJ is, of course, Warren in those)

[LambethWarp]

I recall the podcast dismissing the basic idea of the The Street, the notion of a place having a spirit, as stupid. It's Lovecraft's take on the "genius loci" idea, which is very very old. I don't think the basic idea is stupid; and certainly the idea of a genius loci developing from the attitudes of those who lived there is an interesting one IMO. Sort of a national spirit.

I started reading 'The Street' but gave up about halfway through when I realized it was just going to be HPL's tiresome usual xenophobia and nostalgia without any action or horror to make up for it. The idea of the genius loci appeals to me however, in fact I wrote a rambling bit of nonsense about it here: http://dointhelambethwarp.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/a-dalston-miscellany/ (might not make too much sense to readers unfamiliar with a certain patch of east London, but you may find it entertaining anyway)

When a traveller in north-east London takes the wrong turning at the junction of Mare Street just beyond Amhurst Road, he comes upon a crowded and curious quarter.

            Dalston is where it all began, and whence it will all return. Theosophists have identified it as the original Omphalos, the ‘navel of the World’, although a recent exegesis of an encyphered John Dee manuscript has suggested that ‘navel’ may be a euphemism for another circular feature located further down the human abdomen.