Horror Aficionados discussion

Hello! If you sign up for this buddy read, you may suggest 2 short stories and everyone signed up will read them. Please make sure they can be read for free (legally) and provide links to your selections. Mine are going to be public domain so they are easy to find and free! We'll begin October 1st and it ends Nov. 1. so far we have:
me
Canavan
Chris P

please do not suggest your own work.

I will suggest The Dead Valley and The Death of Halpin Frayser

https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/s...

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-sto...

I think I will give this ago...I have a book full of Edgar Allan Poe stories. I will post which ones tomorrow since I'm away.

sounds good Chris. I have a huge book of his stories as well.

if we suggest 2 each, I'm going to limit this buddy read to 10 people. I don't want it to be overwhelming. is that ok with everyone?

Here are my two suggestions.

1. E. F. Benson was a prolific writer whose works spanned a period from the late 19th century through the 30s. He’s mostly remembered today for his Mapp and Lucia novels (which focus on the social shenanigans of the upper middle and upper classes — a sort of female analog of the Jeaves and Wooster stories) and his ghost tales. One of his best-known is “The Room in the Tower”, the title story from his 1912 collection. It can be found on-line here.

2. Barbara Roden, along with husband Chris, runs Ash-Tree Press, a small publishing concern catering to those interested in classic ghost stories (although it’s been largely dormant for the past decade). At one time Barbara was actively writing fiction as well. It’s a shame she stopped. She was pretty good. “Northwest Passage” is from her 2009 collection, Northwest Passages . It can be read on the author/publisher web site here.

Yes! E F Benson!

Here are my two suggestions...ugh html is difficult in the morning.

Buddy reads: Horror short stories.
Duration: October 1st - October 31

Edgar Allan Poe Public Domain

The Pit and the Pendulum

The Tell-Tale Heart

This is going to be fun.

I'll suggest the Monkey's Paw as one of my stories



available here: http://www.online-literature.com/donn...

and my other story, The Willows


which is available online here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15143/...

YES! these are all great suggestions. I can't wait to start reading these. The tell-tale heart is my favorite Poe story and I love the both of yours Rachel. it's been a while since I read the willows.

Rachel wrote: "I'll suggest the Monkey's Paw as one of my stories



available here: http://www.online-literature.com/donn...

and my other story, The Willows
[bookcover:Th..."

Both great classics, Rachel. And so is the Tell-Tale Heart, Latasha, which I should seriously reread soon.
If we are on a theme of classics, I would add The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Thank goodness someone mentioned it! I had my fingers crossed.

Will u be joining us Perry?

Latasha wrote: "Will u be joining us Perry?"

So this means reading twenty short stories in about a week's time (since I'm insanely busy at work until then). I'm not the fastest reader, but I suppose I could give it a shot.
In that case, along with The Yellow Wallpaper, I would also offer Pickman's Model by HP Lovecraft. Classics rock.
Wallpaper: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1952/1...
Pickman: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/t...

no honey, u have the whole month of October to read them. those are both really good stories.

Perry wrote: "Rachel wrote: "I'll suggest the Monkey's Paw as one of my stories



available here: http://www.online-literature.com/donn...

and my other story, The Willow..."

oh my god, i LOVE the yellow wallpaper. it's been years since I read it. can't wait to give it a re-read.

OK I'm totally in!! (please) Gonna come back when I've decided on 2 stories to nominate ;)

ok sounds great. they don't have to be classics but must be free to read.

I'm in

ready, set go!!!

That's fine. Yeah I got in over my head too but I can read these quickly.

Thoughts on E. F. Benson’s 1912 story, “Room in the Tower”. This is one of my favorite shorts, so it’s perhaps a little difficult for me to be objective about it. I first read it as a college undergrad. I had stumbled across a collction of Benson’s stories (published, if I recall correctly, by Arno Press) and was reading it in the darkened and mostly deserted stacks section of one of the older campus libraries. I was so unsettled by this particular story that, after finishing it, I packed up my stuff and left for more populated areas of the library. :-)

(view spoiler)[As to why I like the story so much — I like the use of dream by Benson. It adds a surreal quality to the tale that I find very effective. In some (perhaps most) ways “Room” is rather simple and straightforward. It’s basically a variant of the vampire yarn. But Benson is, I think, careful not to over-explain. For example, it’s ultimately left unclear how the link between the narrator and Julia Stone was initially forged. But these small ambiguities make for a better story. (hide spoiler)]

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I'm gonna start these short stories by next weekend!

Ohh after reading what Canavan wrote outside the spoiler cut, I'm gonna start with Room in the Tower! I never read that one.

Am I too late with my two nominations? I'll wait to hear before I post them. Sorry it just got crazy busy

no, it's fine. go ahead with your suggestions and jump in and read with us.

I'm going to start tonight, maybe with northwest passage.

now I don't know, there is so many good stories here. I have a Poe collection and I know the room in the tower is in a book I have around here some where...I don't know!

ok so here's the first one: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~nauerba...
The Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly by Joyce Carol Oates.

And number 2: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Beyond...
Beyond the Wall by Ambrose Bierce

Woooo!! I love, love, love Ambrose Bierce <3

I read Beyond the Wall. At first I thought I hadn't read it before and was super excited. Did I mention how much I love Ambrose Bierce? ;) but I wish the story could've been a page or 2 longer so he could have infused it with more creepiness.
I also reread the tell-tale heart. This is my favorite Poe story. It was just as wonderful this time around.

Latasha - I haven't actually read them yet. Didn't Bierce write the original Carcosa short story?
And John I think he did do one with bridge in the title - owl creek bridge maybe???

Yes & yes. An occurrence at owl creek bridge and an inhabitant of carcosa. Both are wonderful! You will never catch me dissing him! <3

I listened to The Willows while doing dishes & laundry. Oh how great it is. I have no idea why I don't have a collection of Blackwood! I have one of Poe, Ambrose Bierce, M.R. James. I like having the classics in print for my library. I had read the willows before but it's been ages ago! I liked it very, very much.
Also listened to the room in the tower while doing my nails. It had been a long time since I read this story too but it's so good! The story is so creepy and awesome. I kept picturing ms. Stone as the dead version of Mary Shaw from dead silence. I think I'll have to sleep with a night light tonight! Lol
Thanks to everyone signing up & participating. These are some awesome stories!

if we are doing star ratings I give:
Beyond the wall 3*
the willows- 5*
the room in the tower 5*
the tell -tale heart- 4*

today I read The Yellow Wallpaper. it was a reread and this time around, maybe because I knew how it would end, it really broke my heart. (view spoiler)[ our lady tells him time and time again that she wants to do things, go places, see people and her husband and brother treat her as if she doesn't know anything. I do believe they think they have her best interest at heart but her husband repeatedly laughs at her and calls her a child in one passage. and they put her in a freakin nursery?!?! she's suffering from post partum depression!! I know the husband and brother had no idea about that but knowing what we do now and looking back, I just want to weep for her. I'm not sure she ever had a chance at recovery. her repeated request and her husband's manor just broke my heart. but I really, really love this story. (hide spoiler)]

Some quick thoughts about Barbara Roden’s “Northwest Passage”. For those who may not remember their history all that well, the Northwest Passage is “a sea route connecting the northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago” (from Wikipedia). Attempts to discover this route, largely for commercial reasons, trace back at least to the 15th century. (view spoiler)[In the context of Roden’s story, the Northwest Passage serves as a metaphor in part for pitting oneself against the wilderness, or, in Jack’s words, the urge of “just vanishing, and no one knows where you are, and then you come out when you’re ready, and tell people what you’ve found.”

But that’s only part of the metaphor, because dire consequences can stem from this exploratory impulse. Roald Amundsen is usually credited with making the first complete passage in the early 20th century, but many of previous attempts ended badly including the famously tragic Franklin expedition of 1845 (to which Jack and Peggy allude). And when Jack talks about “people who go off into the wilderness with just some matches and a rifle and a sack of flour and live off the land,” it’s hard not to think about the fate of young Christopher McCandless (chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild and in the Sean Penn film of the same name). Jack’s fate is also foreshadowed by the story’s epigraph, a quote from Stan Rogers’ well-known folk song, “Northwest Passage”, which seems to warn the listener that a present-day traveller could easily meet an end similar to that which befell the members of the Franklin expedition.

So what exactly does happen to Jack? Roden is a bit elliptical and she never once uses the word “wendigo”, but it’s clear she’s thinking along these lines (e.g., Native Americans’ avoidance of the area, the incident in which Peggy hears her name being called, etc.).

I like this story (a lot!) for a number reasons, but I’ll just mention two here. First, I think that the author does an excellent job of artfully refraining from telling the reader too much — for example, Roden allows Robert to get close enough to see “Jack” at the story’s end, but she hides what Robert sees from the reader. Second, I grew up relatively close to an area like the one in Roden’s story and her descriptions ring true to me (particularly how one’s perception can rapidly shift and the previously benign can suddenly seem eerie or even sinister).

To anyone who enjoyed “Northwest Passage”, I’d recommend Algernon Blackwood’s 1910 tale, “The Wendigo”. (hide spoiler)]

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“The Willows”.

This rather longish Blackwood tale, published in 1907, is acknowledged by many within the genre as one of its truly great masterpieces — it always seems to appear in the top 10 lists of the various experts. If recollection serves, I first read this story as a kid (12 or 13?) and was thoroughly bored. It took a reread about 10 years later for me to really appreciate its virtues and since that time I usually re-read it every 5 or so years. Like a number of Blackwood tales, this one is a bit of a slow starter for me, but the language in the opening section employed to describe the Danube and its environs is quite evocative. (view spoiler)[This may be the most Machenesque of Blackwood’s stories and, for that reason if for no other, it’s easy see why Lovecraft so admired it. It is the classic example of not showing the reader too much: from the appearance of the “otters” that frame our heroes’ experiences within the willow-populated region, to the description of the extra-dimensional beings upon whose boundaries they unfortunately trespass, Blackwood’s prose is very understated. (hide spoiler)]

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I love your comments regarding The Yellow Wallpaper, Latasha! I know exactly what you're saying.

Love your comments about The Willows, Canavan. That's one of my favorites, but I've only read it once. I think I should read it again.

I thought the willows I listened to was awful short. Now I'm convinced it wasn't the whole thing.

Thanks Charlene. I was just thinking so much and all over the place.

Quick thoughts about H. P. Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s Model”.

I first read this story when I was in middle school. (Lancer had published some of Lovecraft’s stories in two slim volumes in the 60s.) It made quite an impression and helped jump start a “Lovecraft phase” that would last for maybe 6 or 7 years. For that reason, it’s another story that is difficult for me to be objecive about. (That’s probably going to be a through line for this buddy read — many of the nominated stories are ones that I first read as a kid.)

It’s been a long time since I last read the story and — given that, in general, I’m less fond of the author’s prose than I was in my younger days — I was a little curious to see how well it would hold up. As it turns out, it held up quite well. The prose at times is little too florid for my taste and I find his repeated use of the word “shew” (as opposed to “show”) typical of Lovecraft’s pretensions; but it’s not as bad as what’s found in other Lovecraft stories (particularly his Dunsanian ones). Similarly, the form the story uses — basically an extended monologue — is occasionally unconvincing and repetitious, but again not nearly so flawed in this regard as other Lovecraft stories. (view spoiler)[Maybe it’s because I’ve read the story a number of times and therefore know what’s coming, but I couldn’t help but think on this re-read that Lovecraft is way too obvious in telegraphing the ending. Nevertheless, the ending, when it comes, still manages to pack quite a punch. The last line (“...it was a photograph from life.”) remains one of the genre’s truly memorable and great ones. (hide spoiler)]

Some other stray thoughts.

1. Lovecraft, like many from that era, was a advocate of social Darwinism, which was often used as a “scientific” crutch to justify racism. Some of that is present in this story, but it’s minor compared to what’s found in, say, “The Horror at Red Hook”.

2. At one point, Thurber describes one of Pickman’s paintings, “Subway Accident”. According to some, that fictitious painting served as inspiration for Robert Barbour Johnson’s well-known 1939 story “Far Below”. That story can be read on-line here.

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Interesting. Thanks canavan

the monkey's paw-
the earliest memory I have of this story is my mom telling me & my sister about it. she had read it in high school and never forgot it. I've read it before and I don't think it's as frightening as she remembers but that's ok. I still love my mom and this story :P
i like it but don't know what to say about it, really. be careful what you wish for? don't go messing with all that magic mumbo jumbo?

I just read Northwest Passage. It was pretty good but I'm not sure what was going on. What happened to jack? Why didn't the natives like that area?

Canavan wrote: "Some quick thoughts about Barbara Roden’s “Northwest Passage”. For those who may not remember their history all that well, the Northwest Passage is “a sea route connecting the north..."

ooh ok, that did cross my mind. they are really scary!

Thoughts on “The Dead Valley” and “The Monkey’s Paw”.

I first read “The Dead Valley” way back in the 70s and then more recently (the 90s?) as part of the author’s 1895 collection, Black Spirits and White . It’s not a particular favorite of mine, but it does have its admirers. I note, for example, that Peter Straub included it in the well-regarded anthology he did for the LOA, American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps .

(view spoiler)[I like the writing well enough (I had remembered being affected by the death of the dog), but I had the feeling throughout the narrative of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wanted to know more about what underlay the dead valley. I somehow wanted the story to about more than just a dead zone. In the postscript to the collection, Cram notes that the stories stem from “well-defined roots existing in all countries, from which spring the current legends of the supernatural.” Which made me wonder exactly what legend (or cluster of legends) supplied the author with the idea for this story. Trees play a very prominent role in mythology, but I can’t quite make out the connection from any of the ones I’m familar with to the tree that occuppies the center of the dead valley. And what do we make of the mysterious voice? (hide spoiler)]

Latasha, referring to “The Monkey’s Paw”, said (in part):

i like it but don't know what to say about it, really. be careful what you wish for? don't go messing with all that magic mumbo jumbo? .

When a story is parodied on The Simpsons, it’s probably fair to assume that it’s become an integral part of the cultural milieu. I like this one more than you seem to, Latasha; in fact, my admiration for it has probably increased over the years and repeated re-readings. I’m not sure it’s incumbent on a story to be anything more than just be a good, entertaining yarn, but I do sometimes think that this particular one has pretensions at least a little bit beyond those you mention, Latasha. (view spoiler)[I sometimes see it as embodying aspects of the Protestant work ethic — nothing worthwhile comes without hard work (with the flip side being that we should look askance at anything that appears to be a “free lunch”). It’s not a coincidence that the one wish that works as intended is the one that returns things to something approaching the status quo. (hide spoiler)]

A postscript on Jacobs: It’s almost a shame that he’s so completely identified with this one, single story. He was a good, sometimes great, short story writer, a handful of them in the supernatural genre. As an example, check out “The Toll-House” here.

“The Dead Valley” ✭✭✭
“The Monkey’s Paw” ✭✭✭✭✭

Oh no! I didn't mean to give the impression I don't like it. I do! I just didn't know what to say about it cause we all know what it's about and it is a good story. You don't have to use spoilers as it seems we are the only 2 reading. I can't see your spoilers yet, I'm on my phone. If your on facebook you may wanna check out the group the October reading group. The mod post a public domain short story every day. He provides the links. You don't have to read them all. You can pick & choose but one of his post was for the red room by h.g. Wells. Have you read it? I liked it! And the inn by guy French guy, wrote the horla. I'm not going to attempt to spell his last name. That story was awesome! I'd say if you like Algernon Blackwood, you'd like The Inn.

I've gotten behind on the short stories, lol. I'm going to catch up on the short stories by the end of the weekend.

I did listen to a version of the Tell-Tale Heart, though. I think it was last week. It was a lot creepier than I remembered.

Latasha wrote: "today I read The Yellow Wallpaper. it was a reread and this time around, maybe because I knew how it would end, it really broke my heart. [spoilers removed]"

Yes I just read the Yellow Wallpaper oh my! I kept saying oh no she is losing it. :(

Latasha wrote (in part):

I can't see your spoilers yet, I'm on my phone. If your on facebook you may wanna check out the group the October reading group.

I don’t have much of a FB presence these days, but I’ll check out the group you mentioned when I get a moment.

Sorry ’bout the spoilers! I’m a little compulsive about using the tags perhaps because I’ve been (rightly) criticized In the past for not using them. Which triggers the following tiresome rant about Goodreads. While it has problems, the GR website is not all that bad. The mobile website and the app, on the other hand, are fairly worthless and I try to avoid using either.