2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories by Jeff VanderMeer and others.

Pages: 1152 pages

Length: 2 Months (October and November)

Participants: SarahKat, Marleen, Alison

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.


Happy Buddy Reading!

Hi SarahKat! Ready to start this one next week? This hefty baby has a whopping 4782 pages in my ebook version, I can’t imagine how heavy the physical copy would be... This will be quite the undertaking but I’m looking forward to it!
I read the introduction and foreword today, and will be starting the actual stories October 1st. I’ll probably just go in order of the book, although I’ve seen some author names further down the index that I’m excited for! Some of my faves (King, Gaiman), and some famous names I’ve never read (like Lovecraft, Borges, Du Maurier, Murakami).

Anyone in particular you’re looking forward to reading?

Woo I'm so excited! I came across this at my library years ago and immediately added it to my list but have put it off because of the heft. It came up on TBR randomizer though so I figured I'd better read it finally. I think the paper version is "only" 1200 pages or so.

I don't have it in my possession yet (I'll pick it up from the library Tuesday), so I'm not sure about all of the authors. Out of the ones listed though, I'm excited for VanderMeer, Martin, and Gaiman. VanderMeer can be pretty hit-or-miss for me so we'll see. I've never read Murakami either but I have a bunch of his on my TBR list!

Finally got this picked up and I read the forward and intro today! This book is huge.

I like that it's organized in order of publication so you can see how "The Weird" has evolved over time. I think I'm going to try to read about 2 stories per day.

If we need to we can extend this to a 3-month buddy read too ;)

I’m aiming for 2 stories a day too, but I think I read in the introduction that there are one or more novellas in there as well, so we will see how fast we get on :) If needed we can definitely extend to three months yes.

I read the first two stories today:
The Other Side: (view spoiler)[we are definitely starting off weird! A dream world overrun by wild animals and insects. It’s a bit hard to say anything about the story/plot since it was an excerpt of a larger story. I liked the descriptive writing. The animals taking over the town during the 6 days of sleep reminded me a lot of the images of animals walking in unusually silent intersections during lockdown... (hide spoiler)]
The Screaming Skull: (view spoiler)[oooh I liked this a lot, a proper spooky ghost story, just what I needed at the start of October haha. Loved the meandering monologue, I could see this being performed as a one man play. Or in audiobook format with the proper sounds ofcourse :) (hide spoiler)]

I finished the first 2 stories too! Although tomorrow I'm hoping to finish them farther away from bedtime haha

The Other Side: (view spoiler)[Yeah I liked the description of the animals taking over. I was thinking of lockdown as well while reading it! I do think it's interesting that nature kind of taking back its rightful place is a cause for fear and disgust in this story. I didn't really like the end of the section, but maybe I'd like it better if I read the full story. (hide spoiler)]

The Screaming Skull: (view spoiler)[I liked this one too. I read it in bed though and my son kept freaking coming in here and saying he was hearing noises. He can't do that when I'm reading a spooky story about scary noises! I loved the narrative style in this one too! It was an interesting blend of first and second person and it worked really well. And yeah a one-man play or audio of this would be cool. (hide spoiler)]

Hi Ladies...My husband wants to read this with me this month (I mean who can resist weird stories in October 🎃) so I would like to join this Buddy Read with You if I could?! 📚❤️

Of course! We are going to take at least two months with this chunker, feel free to hop on for all or part of it!

Yeah! Welcome Alison!

Two more stories read today.

The Willows: (view spoiler)[This one dragged it all out a bit too long for me. I did like the personification of the river in the beginning, and the growing sense of dread was very tangible. (hide spoiler)]

Sredni Vashtar: (view spoiler)[Short and sweet! I have read a few other stories by Saki years ago and remember I found them all very fun quick reads. This one was no different :) Short as it is, I read that this little story has inspired whole movies and operas! (hide spoiler)]

Me too!

The Willows: (view spoiler)[I agree this one was really slow for about the first half or 2/3's. I liked the portrayal of fear though. When they are discussing whether or not the otter and the man on the boat were really those things was pretty disturbing. And when the narrator thought about his mundane life in the real world and made him suddenly brave and disbelieving. And like you said, the growing sense of dread. (hide spoiler)]

Sredni Vashtar: (view spoiler)[Yeah this one was fun. That's cool! I've never read Saki. I'll have to look up the movies this one inspired (hide spoiler)]

SarahKat, yes I liked that bit in the Willows too, how he (view spoiler)[managed to talk himself back from the brink of insanity almost by remembering and focusing on mundane things from back home. (hide spoiler)]

Today’s stories:
Casting the Runes: (view spoiler)[Nice spooky story. I like how we don’t really find out exactly what Karswell did and what the thing in the bed was. And I enjoyed how the two men figured out a way to ‘give the curse back’. (hide spoiler)]
How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles: (view spoiler)[strange pacing in this mini-story. The ‘Weird’ part of the story only starts in my opinion with the mention of the gnoles and then the attempted burglary and fate of poor Tommy. This whole part was really very short. (By the way, is ‘gnole’ a real English word, or made up by this author? I presume they are some kind of forest monsters but couldn’t find a translation.) I think I would have enjoyed this story more if it had been longer, and we could have seen more of Nuth and Tommy, who seemed like interesting characters. (hide spoiler)]

I didn't enjoy these two as much. Possibly because I was reading them in stops and starts all morning while my son was talking to me nonstop about Minecraft and my infant daughter was fussy, so, not much focus was had.

Casting the Runes: (view spoiler)[ This seemed super slow until the very end. Honestly the only part that stuck out to me was the writing on the train that disappeared at the beginning. I think part of the issue for me was the dialogue wasn't broken up in paragraphs. (hide spoiler)]
Nuth: (view spoiler)[ Yeah I was actually enjoying this one and then it ended quickly. It would have been nice if it were longer. I don't think "gnole" is a word, but I do think there are fantasy series with "gnolls". (hide spoiler)]

I had to laugh at Myself! I finished the first story “The Other” and my husband asked “How Was It?” My response without thinking about it was “It was Really Weird” 😆

My thoughts on The Other Side:
(view spoiler)[ My husband and I definitely both thought of the Lockdown while reading this! It being an excerpt of another story, I felt dropped into the middle of something instead of starting at the beginning. The animals taking over seems like something that would happen if humankind ceased to exist...the insects kind of creeped me out and the snakes (shudder)! I would call this an "atmospheric read"...not something to take hold of you right from the beginning...I probably would not enjoy the book that this was an excerpt from (I like gritty details and lots of action ;) (hide spoiler)]

I am in the middle of "The Screaming Skull" and hope to read up to/through the 4th story today :)

I’m only reading the next two mini-stories today.

The man in the bottle: (view spoiler)[What a gruesome idea, a masked audience watching a man suffocating in the big bottle. And what was with that weird last sentence? What was going on?? Very strange... I’m not sure how I feel about this one. I didn’t really like it that much but the images of the man in the bottle are sticking with me. (hide spoiler)]

The dissection: (view spoiler)[Very brief, it was like a little word painting. Very gross too. I thought the juxtaposition of the lovely dream images with the gross dissection bits was very well done. (hide spoiler)]

Alison wrote: "I had to laugh at Myself! I finished the first story “The Other” and my husband asked “How Was It?” My response without thinking about it was “It was Really Weird” 😆"
Haha you’re not wrong there Alison 😂

Yeah I keep having to try to come up with other words to describe the stories when my husband asks me how they are. haha

The Man in the Bottle: (view spoiler)[The idea of this was really freaky. People dying on stage and the audience thinking it's an act always gets me for some reason. The whole thing was sort of foreboding. My only question is why? Did it explain that at all and I just missed it? (hide spoiler)]

The Dissection: (view spoiler)[ Not much to say about this one. Very detailed and like Marleen said, the descriptions of something so grotesque in such flowery language was interesting. (hide spoiler)]

SarahKat, to your question about The Man in the Bottle: (view spoiler)[the gossip among the masked guests was that the prince’s wife was having an affair with the count so I guess he killed them both because of that. Is that what you meant by the why? (hide spoiler)]

Marleen wrote: "SarahKat, to your question about The Man in the Bottle: [spoilers removed]"

Yes! I must have zoned out or something while reading that but I vaguely recall something to that effect now. Thank you!

Today’s selection:

The Spider: (view spoiler)[This one was fun. I liked that the very first line threw us right in there and pretty much told us what was happening here, we just had to slowly get to the why. The way it was told with the diary worked very well for me. I loved the moment where he figured that he was imitating her instead of the other way around. (hide spoiler)]

The Hungry Stones: (view spoiler)[I didn’t like this one at all. I actually kept dozing off while reading it! I usually like descriptive writing but not these sentences apparently. I kept losing my place and having to read sentences again, and to top it all off there was no ending at all. Nope. Did not like one bit. (hide spoiler)]

I love that there are stories in here from many different countries!

We seem to have the same tastes and thoughts for a lot of these stories Marleen!

The Spider: (view spoiler)[ This is probably my favorite so far. It was intriguing and a bit creepy the whole way through. I didn't zone out like I do sometimes. It sort of reminded me of the movie (and short story, though I've never read it), 1408. The ending sort of made me laugh because now, that sort of end is almost cliche. "They looked in the room and it had been vacant for months!" Gasp! Shock! I wonder if back when this was written the girl being the spider wasn't predictable? I don't know. Either way I really liked it. (hide spoiler)]

The Hungry Stones: (view spoiler)[ Saaaaaaaame. I thought it was just me because I read these 2 stories back to back and I thought maybe I was just still in Spider mode, but I'm glad you had the same experience. (hide spoiler)]

I do too! I really enjoy reading the same genre from other countries to see what types of things each culture thinks is "weird." I also think it's interesting that most of these are written in first person. Maybe because in third person, the reader would expect more explanation?

I am behind...our TV died (had to go buy a new one and help husband set it up) and lots of yardwork has been done in the last few days ;)
My impressions of:
The Screaming Skull (view spoiler)[ I really liked this one...like you said, a proper ghost story!! One thing my husband and I discussed: was there really company in the house with the narrator and was he talking to the company or was he by himself and a little off in his head because of the skull? There was no mention in the newspaper article about his death that there had been anyone in the house...I just had the impression through the story that there might not have been another person in the house although the author wanted you to think there was :) (hide spoiler)]

The Willows (view spoiler)[ I agree with all of your thoughts...way to long for me but I did love the sense/description of nature/the river/the willows and nature's creation of fear and the growing sense of dread (hide spoiler)]

Sredni Vashtar (view spoiler)[ I agree, short and sweet and I haven't read anything by this author! I like that this book has a description of the authors and their works before each individual story! (hide spoiler)]

Onto Casting Runes and Nuth :) I am really enjoying comparing notes with my husband on these stories...I am not much of a spooky/weird story reader (they tend to make me unsettled) but he loves them so I am happy to talk about them with him! Perfect read for October too!! :)

In response to your Screaming Skull thoughts Alison: (view spoiler)[I was under the impression that someone was in the house because it says at one point the skull bit "you." But that is a good point, the main character could just be cracked and the reader is supposed to insert themselves as the witness in the house. Either way I really liked the way it was written. (hide spoiler)]

I read today's 2 this morning for once!

The Vegetable Man: (view spoiler)[Just looking at the title, I sort of predicted what was to come in this story and I was correct. There were elements of VanderMeer's Annihilation and also The Vegetarian. I think it's interesting that some of these tropes that were probably not tropes a century ago have lasted this long. What is it about these types of stories that humans find so disturbing? Dehumanization I think is a big one. Anyway, I thought this was pretty creepy. The description of the plant was really good, but unsettling. (hide spoiler)]

The People of the Pit: (view spoiler)[This started strong for me but the crawling man's descriptions got a little long and arduous. It was a good story, but I wish there had been more creatures and less description of the pit. Did it say what happened to his hands? I zoned out a few times. (hide spoiler)]

Alison, I wish my husband would read this with me. It's just the kind of stuff he likes but he's not a big reader. He listens to scary stories and stuff on youtube. I have a pretty low tolerance for spooky stories; they unsettle me too. There's even "funny" scary stories that bother me to a point, like Shaun of the Dead. I try to read this book in the morning so I have plenty of time to focus on other things before bed haha. But I do really enjoy them and yes perfect for October!

I think I wasn’t in the right mood for the stories today, because I couldn’t keep my attention on them.

The Vegetable Man: (view spoiler)[It was pretty clear from the start what was going to happen and I didn’t really like the way we got there. I can totally believe the description of the scary plant though. That is very believable, considering how creepy some real world plants are: https://www.scoopwhoop.com/amp/inothe... (hide spoiler)]

The People of the Pit: (view spoiler)[This felt too dragged out, I might have liked it more if it was shorter. I did like the travel upward out of the pit, sheltering in the little caves, and then climbing/crawling on again. SarahKat, I missed the hands thing too, not sure if anything was mentioned, but I guess they just wore down from all the crawling on all fours? (hide spoiler)]

Alison, I have wondered that too about the Screaming Skull, (view spoiler)[that there may have been no one there, and we were dealing with a bit of an unreliable narrator, talking to himself because he was losing it a bit maybe? Especially because like you said there was no mention of anyone else being in the house when the body was found. (hide spoiler)]

Your link reminded me I wanted to share one of those creepy stories my husband listens to. It's a manga read on youtube. 15 minute video. Thought you ladies might appreciate it, as it would fit well within this book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3vQe...

SarahKat, that video was awesome, thanks! And yes, very fitting, totally the creepy Weird vibe that we get from many of these stories.

I’m only reading one story today because I’m a bit too tired and don’t want spoil my opinion of the stories with dozing off too much. I might do an extra one tomorrow.

The Hell Screen: (view spoiler)[Very different writing style than previous stories, but I liked it. The things the painter did to be able to paint ‘realistically’ were absolutely horrific, as was the bit at the end with his poor daughter was. And he even ended up painting it anyway! The monkey was a strange addition to the story. And I wonder who the narrator was, someone who worked at the palace? Was that mentioned anywhere? (hide spoiler)]

Oh nice I was just thinking I might only get the chance to read one story today too. If I do get to a second one I'll just post it tomorrow.

The Hell Screen: (view spoiler)[ I liked this one too. I thought it was interesting that there actually wasn't that much supernatural stuff going on. Mainly the weirdness was the painter's obsession and craziness over his paintings. The part with his daughter was really disturbing though, and I was amazed he finished the painting anyway! I don't think it said who the narrator was because I kept thinking it would. It seemed like just a court person. A guard maybe? (hide spoiler)]

Today’s stories:

Unseen - Unfeared: (view spoiler)[There were some indications of racism that were unpleasant to read. I did like the concept of creepy invisible creatures moving around us all the time, and I liked that it was unclear at the end what had been real and what hadn’t. (hide spoiler)]

In the Penal Colony: (view spoiler)[This was my fastest read so far, I loved it. Totally gruesome, the Officer talking so lovingly about his little torture device. I did not expect the ending at all, I had anticipated the Traveler ending up in the device. What a great horrible read :) Have you ladies read the Harry Potter series? (Let’s see if it’s possible to put spoiler tags within spoiler tags...) (view spoiler)[Remember Umbridge’s punishment for Harry where the words were written in his skin? I wonder if J.K.Rowling knew this story, or if both were derived from other older similar stories I don’t know. (hide spoiler)] All in all I loved this one. I’ve read The Metamorphosis by Kafka before, that could have ended up in here as well. (hide spoiler)]

Thank you for sharing that video, SarahKat...it was awesome!

My thoughts on:
Casting the Runes: (view spoiler)[ My, wasn't Karswell a vindictive man and he certainly didn't take criticism well!! I thought it was a spooky one and I, too, liked how they gave the curse back in the end!! (hide spoiler)]

Nuth: (view spoiler)[ Poor Tonker, taken in by Nuth and sacrificed to the gnoles! I compare the gnoles to fairies with their secret house and their wealth...also, if you (a human) are taken by fairies it is a very bad fate and it was alluded to that when Tonker was taken, he was going to be in for a very bad fate (death) ;) I think that Nuth is just as terrible as the gnoles...he just reacted with mild surprise and went on his merry way after Tonker was taken...I wonder if this has happened to other apprentices he has had? (hide spoiler)]

The Man in the Bottle: (view spoiler)[ Creeps me out to have an audience watch a play and it be an actual death on stage...poor man in the bottle! Was that his wife that was in the carriage and he was horrified to see? And what happened to the woman who was the Upside Down Bat in the beginning of the story...I thought she was going to be a major player in the story and I suppose she just ended up being part of the audience... (hide spoiler)]

The Dissection: (view spoiler)[ Very descriptive...UGH, all those bodily juices and the men pulling out organs and sawing on bones...ICK! I also shudder to think that the brain is still functioning while this is going on...glad I didn't read this before bedtime! ;) (hide spoiler)]

The Spider (view spoiler)[ I thought the author did a superb job on make the spider seem human with the description of her black clothes with purple spots, her black gloves and eyes and her spinning of delicate thread! The synopsis of the male spider being caught by the female spider was a little story within a story describing the fate of the males that stayed in the room and hung themselves! I really like this story but did not see the spider being crunched in the end...a fitting end, I think! (hide spoiler)]

The Hungry Stones: (view spoiler)[ Very Persian and I liked the description of the girls going down to the river/the clothing description and the incense and sense of what he smelled/the description of the palace ...that was very atmospheric! However, I didn't like the story that much and it having no ending really bugged me! (hide spoiler)]

I read 3 today since I only read 1 yesterday and the last one was short.

So glad you both enjoyed the video. I thought it was pretty creepy. I didn't want to get up and walk to the kitchen in the middle of the night in case there was a person-shaped hole in the wall.

Unseen - Unfeared: (view spoiler)[ I liked this one, although I kept thinking there were things I would have liked better if they had been done differently. I wish the beings were a little more sinister. It seemed like they were just there, except for "the Thing." I did like how it takes that impending sense of dread that people (or is it just people prone to anxiety?) get and made it into an actual reason. (hide spoiler)]

The Penal Colony: (view spoiler)[ I really loved this one as well Marleen! Kafka is the first name so far I've been familiar with and I loved Metamorphosis. I was also expecting the Traveller to end up in the machine; I was surprised when the Officer was the one who bit it. It made me think of a captain going down with his ship. When he first started talking about his machine I thought they were just tattooing the crimes on the people and then letting them go but this was way more gruesome. And yes the Harry Potter thing! I didn't think of that but it's very similar. (hide spoiler)]

The White Wyrak: (view spoiler)[This was short and creepy and kind of fun. Chimneys are a good creepy place because I've heard horror stories of people getting stuck in them. That's what I thought this was going to be, but it was weirder than that (surprise surprise). The monster itself wasn't very scarily described or anything but I liked this story anyway. Short and sweet. Oh but what was with the white pimples mentioned at the end? I thought perhaps they were turning into white wyraks, but then it says they just go away. I mean why bother adding that paragraph if it has absolutely no repercussions. (hide spoiler)]

Alison, I'm only commenting on a few of your thoughts because I honestly don't remember some of the stories well enough to even attempt to come up with an answer.

The Man in the Bottle: (view spoiler)[I think the woman was the prince's wife? Marleen answered my question of "why?" above and I think she said the man in the bottle and his wife were having an affair. And yeah I think the upside down bat woman was just to set the scene. Unimportant later, but it would have been nice to see her again. (hide spoiler)]

The Spider: (view spoiler)[I was actually surprised about the spider getting crushed too! I was expecting her to just continue luring people into her "web" and murdering them forever. I feel like, open-endedness in these types of stories was less common and very well carried out in the 1900's. If this story was written nowadays I feel like the spider would not have been killed. (hide spoiler)]

Next two:

The White Wyrak: (view spoiler)[Evil chimney monsters that suck you dry through your temples. I’m not sure if it was intended to be scary but I was mostly amused by its ridiculousness. I think that was mostly because of the way the Wyrak was described, with a snout-like nose and spoon-like ears? Did not sound very creepy, more like a kind of Dr Seuss character... SarahKat, I totally agree about the pointless last paragraph about the white pimples. (hide spoiler)]

The Night Wire: (view spoiler)[Oh I liked this! The way the creepy fog story was reported through the wire messages, and the way the messages starting out all business, growing slowly more emotional and desperate. And then the end, the fact that there had been no message on the wire at all, and the operator was dead (and since how long?)! Loved it. (hide spoiler)]

I‘ve noticed that many of the introductions mention that Lovecraft loved that particular story or author. I’ve never read any Lovecraft (although I’m sure we will encounter him in this book), but he is clearly considered the big Authority here. If Lovecraft liked a Weird story, it must be a great Weird story!

Response about the Wyrak: (view spoiler)[Yes! I actually kept coming up with a really cute creature in my head while reading the descriptions and I was trying so hard to make it spooky. It seemed like it was leading up to something creepy before they actually got there, but not so much. (hide spoiler)]

The Night Wire: (view spoiler)[I liked this one too! I loved the unique way of telling the story, through a message transmitted by a corpse basically. I wonder how much Stephen King got his idea for The Mist from this? Or maybe that's just something that multiple people have come up with because it's a universal sort of fear. (hide spoiler)]

Yeah Lovecraft apparently changed the "Weird" game. The next story is his actually! I started it but will probably finish it tomorrow as it's a bit longer. I'm interested to find out if there are elements in his story that will turn up more and more afterwords since he's such a prominent name.

I don't think I have read any Lovecraft either but my husband is a huge Lovecraft fan! In reading "The Willows" my husband said it reminded him of Lovecraft...the supernatural and the characters being on the "Edge" of one world vs another, the sacrifice required for the beings, etc. I googled "lovecraft style" and here is what was said about it: "subgenre of horror fiction that emphasizes the cosmic horror of the unknown rather than using gore or shock." That sounds creepy to me...cosmic horror freaks me out more that gore or shock (although they do a good job creeping me out too) LOL

My thoughts on:
The Vegetable Man: (view spoiler)[ Creepy plant...and SarahKat, your pictures of real life creepy plants brought the story to life after I read your link!! :) (hide spoiler)]

The People of the Pit: (view spoiler)[ I thought the description of going down into the pit, the cylindrical dwellings, the climbing/crawling were really good...I, too, didn't read what actually happened to his hands but assume it was from all the crawling... (hide spoiler)]

The Hell Screen (view spoiler)[ I really enjoyed this one and thought the weirdness came from the painter having to actually see in person what he wanted to paint! The vivid description the author did of the painting was really good and how horrid that the painter had to watch his daughter die in the burning carriage! I think the monkey was trying to protect her. A Question: I thought the Lord was a good, very respected person...did he get taken over by something (frothing at the mouth) to make him physically create the burning carriage/burning daughter for the artist? I got that impression by the frothing at the mouth... (hide spoiler)]

Finally, the famous Lovecraft’s turn.

The Dunwich Horror: (view spoiler)[I had very high expectations of this one, but didn’t love it as much as I had hoped. It was a thrilling story but I didn’t really feel sucked in for a long time, I think because we didn’t see the events through the eyes of one of the characters but it was all told by an impartial narrator. I started to like it more with the introduction of the librarian. The parts in dialect were very hard to understand, maybe more so for me as a non-native speaker?
I like that the monster was invisible and the growing tension in the last part came mostly from evidence that the monster had been somewhere instead of actually witnessing the events taking place.
The birds were a lovely creepy touch, like a signal every time someone was about to die.
It will be interesting to read later stories now and see if we can be spot ‘Lovecraftian’ influence. (hide spoiler)]

Alison, on The Vegetable Man: (view spoiler)[I posted that plant link, not SarahKat, but I’m glad you liked it! (hide spoiler)]
And on The Hell Screen: (view spoiler)[I don’t know what the frothing at the mouth was about, but I do not think that the Lord was a very good respectable person. I think that the story was told by one of his servants and was not very factual. (For instance, it said that a man who had been run over by the Lord was only grateful to have been touched by his carriage or something like that.) I think the Lord was taking revenge because he wanted the painter’s daughter and couldn’t have her. But maybe he was also possessed by something on top of that...? (hide spoiler)]

Just brief comments about today’s selection:

The Book: (view spoiler)[I liked the concept, and the fact that something as simple as a gap or no gap on a shelf can be made so creepy! I’m glad it ended the way it did and he did not end up actually killing his dog and daughter, that would have been horrible. (hide spoiler)]

The Mainz Psalter: (view spoiler)[So many unknowns here! I have no idea what was going on. Who was that schoolmaster and what did he want? Where did they end up? Was there actually an octopus monster in the end? Strange stuff. But I liked it. (hide spoiler)]

I'm behind. I'm almost done with The Book. Hoping to get that and The Mainz Psalter done later, but here are my thoughts on

The Dunwich Horror: (view spoiler)[I tend to not have very high hopes for "big names" that I've never read before so I went into this hesitantly. It didn't blow me away but it was pretty good. Marleen, I agree the dialect was very difficult to read, made all the more frustrating because I was trying to read quickly so I could catch up and I had to slow way down for those parts.
I did love the monster and all the creepiness surrounding it, and the descriptions of the Whateley family. I liked the ending where it turns out the invisible monster is actually Wilbur's twin brother. Hehe. (hide spoiler)]

The Book: (view spoiler)[What I liked about this one was that it was written from the perspective of the person being possessed. I think a lot of these types of stories are written from an outside POV so we don't know or aren't sure what's happening right away. I liked that he slowly was becoming more and more controlled. But yeah I was glad he didn't end up killing his dog and daughter! (hide spoiler)]

The Mainz Psalter: (view spoiler)[I really liked this one, I think because there was more dialogue than a lot of these stories have had. People discussing the possibilities and stuff is sometimes more entertaining than just reading one person's thoughts. But yeah I have no clue what was happening. I liked it though! I think I'd like more "voyage weird" or whatever they called it in the intro to this. (hide spoiler)]

Marleen wrote: "Finally, the famous Lovecraft’s turn.

The Dunwich Horror: I had very high expectations of this one, but didn’t love it as much as I had hoped. It was a thrilling story but I didn’t really feel su..."

Oops, Marleen, I misread who posted the plant link...it was fabulous and added a whole lot to the vision of the story for me! ;)

Sorry to be behind both of you and post about stories that are a few back from where you two are in the book! It is great to have you to compare notes with, however!!
I have made it to the first Lovecraft story: The Dunwich Horror and will read that later this afternoon! My husband has an HP Lovecraft anthology of stories and has read this one in the anthology (he is slowly making his way through this anthology Clunker). When I told him The Dunwich Horror is in this Weird collection of stories, he said that even though he is a couple stories behind me, The Dunwich Horror, in his opinion, is better than most of the stories he has read in The Weird...hmmmm, I will have to see....

My thoughts on:
Unseen: (view spoiler)[ Very interesting story...having a science background (microbiology), it was an interesting concept for me because there are all different types of minute critters that the eye can't see...a little creepy to think of them crawling all around you and the room and you not knowing until your "eyes" are "opened" (as happened in the story) :0 It was a little bit of a look into mental illness, in my opinion...at least that was what I was thinking at the end (hide spoiler)]

The Penal Colony: (view spoiler)[ I don't have a lot of thoughts about this story because it creeped me out so much that I skimmed it...it made my skin crawl for some reason (hide spoiler)]

The White Wyrak: (view spoiler)[ The Wyrak brought to mind the Abominable Snowman while I was reading it and thought it was very interesting that the Wyrak was White when, from what I gathered, he was based in soot!
@Marleen I agree with you that the Wyrak seemed like a Dr. Seuss character!
@SarahKat, I agree it is very creepy to think of getting stuck in a chimney (brings out my claustrophobia!! :0 )
Also, I agree with both of you...what was the point of the white pimples...they should have turned out to be little Wyrak babies instead of just clearing up and going away! :D (hide spoiler)]

The Night Wire: (view spoiler)[ OK, creepy fog with beings inside of it coming from a graveyard is definitely a good story! I wonder if operator typing out the story had a heart attack (he had mentioned he was tired that evening and the narrator had never heard him say that before) and was typing out something he was seeing/experiencing while he was dying...just a thought that was in my brain ;)
@SarahKat...I had to google where Stephen King got his idea for "The Mist" (which I have never read) and the answer was: "King was inspired the write "The Mist" by a trip to his local supermarket following a thunderstorm, during which he imagined prehistoric beings and giant insects besieging the building" Wow, to have an imagination like his!! (hide spoiler)]

Alison, my husband really liked The Dunwich Horror too. He's still not reading with me but he read it years ago. And you are catching up fast! You'll probably be ahead of me at least in no time.

Responding to your thoughts,

Unseen: (view spoiler)[ Interesting! I didn't think about mental illness as an aspect of this story but it fits well. Microbiology is intriguing but I prefer remaining blissfully ignorant of all the microscopic critters who live on or around me. (hide spoiler)]

White Wyrak: (view spoiler)[ I kept seeing the Abominable Snowman too, like from that new movie with the little girl that plays the violin (I haven't seen it yet), but yeah, just way cuter than the author intended haha. (hide spoiler)]

The Night Wire: (view spoiler)[Maybe the dead guy was glimpsing the "other side" while dying/after death. But then was there actually fog coming when the narrator thought he saw some? Or was it just his imagination?
Thanks for googling that! I was going to but I'm lazy. That's interesting! This must just be one of those universal types of fears that makes for a good story. (hide spoiler)]

And today's stories (I don't have the book in front of me so sorry if I get the titles wrong):

The Shadowy Street: (view spoiler)[Interesting that this author had 2 back-to-back stories. Makes sense because it's chronological. The editors must think of him highly. I have enjoyed both of them. This one, I liked the German Manuscript part but the French one sort of confused me honestly. My son wouldn't stop talking to me while I was reading so it's possible I completely missed some important points, but how exactly did they connect? The fire? Did these take place at the same time? I know the disappearances were happening along the same line as the street the French guy finds... I dunno. I should probably re-read it if I have time and energy. (hide spoiler)]

The Genius Loci: (view spoiler)[ Intriguing premise. Short enough that I wasn't bored, but not my favorite. I have noticed that many of these stories are about some sort of obsession, either caused by or the cause of "the weird." Do people fear losing themselves in an obsession this much to make it a central theme of spooky stories? I wonder if this theme will dissipate over the years in the book. (hide spoiler)]

My thoughts on:

The Dunwich Horror: (view spoiler)[ So I had a discussion with my husband who had read it in a Lovecraft anthology because I had never read Lovecraft ;) This story takes place in the "world" created in Lovecraft fiction that takes place in New England (Massachusetts) around a town called "Arkham" (where the college was located that Wilbur Whateley first went to research the passage he was seeking to translate). So "The Dunwich Horror" was part of that world (but I feel that it was a separate story all its own and could be read on its own). Yog Sothoth was the twins father and one of the Outer Gods of Lovecraft's mythos, according to my husband...
Maybe knowing a bit about Lovecraft's mythology would help me to understand the story a bit better so I looked it up:
"...human beings are irrelevant when faced with cosmic horrors that exist in the universe" and "his main characters minds deteriorate when afforded a glimpse of what exists outside their perceived reality" - taken from Wikipedia
I can definitely see that happening in the story! I agree with you both about the fact that the monster was invisible made the story interesting and the dialect when the local people were talking was a bit frustrating to follow (it made me slow way down to understand it :) I, too, wasn't blown away by the story but thought it was good.
To find out the Wilbur had a Twin! The Twin must have inherited a lot more of Yog Sothoth's genes (so that made him more grotesque and inhuman) and Wilbur inherited more of the human genes. Wilbur certainly did transform from the time of researching in the library at Arkham to when he broke into the library and dies (tentacles with heads in his stomach, snake like skin on his back...shudder) and melts away.
I Loved the Whippoorwills in this story!! They failed to capture the grandfather's death and I am not sure they did capture Wilbur's death. Again, I had to google Whippoorwhills in Lovecraft fiction: "Lovecraft likely pulled this plot device from the Native American superstition that Whippoorwills were able to predict death like a Banshee in Scottish Folklore...Whippoorwhills are most common on the East Coast of America and would have been a common sight in HP Lovecraft's life growing up in New England" - Wikipedia. I have to say that this was one of my favorite elements of a story...I do love portents of things to come in stories like the Banshee, etc...
Sorry about the long thesis above...I do like to type out my thoughts, it helps me understand things in my brain better :D (hide spoiler)]

The Book: (view spoiler)[ @SarahKat..I liked that it was written from the point of view of the person being possessed also! I liked how the literature of classic books was twisted around as he became possessed...things went from being soothing and helping him sleep to having an evil, twisted quality! And Yes, agree with both of you, glad the dog or daughter were not harmed!! (hide spoiler)]

The Main Psalter: (view spoiler)[ What was happening here?!! What a strange world, a strange sea (with the glowing light showing the city and beings beneath), strange schoolmaster, strange octopus thing at the end...definitely a "voyage weird"!! :) (hide spoiler)]

Alison, I love that you take the time to look stuff up. I am always just switching to my next book because I feel so far behind on my challenges! So I don't often do the research stuff, but I enjoy reading it when other people post it!

about Dunwich: (view spoiler)[I had heard that people go insane when they see Cthulhu but I didn't know it applied to other inter dimensional beings in the Lovecraft universe as well. Interesting! The whippoorwill thing you discovered was interesting too! And I also use long theses to organize my thoughts. You are in good company ;) (hide spoiler)]

Today's stories, which I actually read yesterday and I might take a break from this book today so I can read more of The Likeness.

The Town of Cats: (view spoiler)[ I liked this one. Though honestly I don't remember most of the details. It is interesting to me how many Japanese stories center cats. Is that just a coincidence of my reading list? (hide spoiler)]

The Tarn: (view spoiler)[This was okay but I didn't really think it was weird until the end. From what I could tell it was just a guy severely disliking another guy. Granted, he kept saying things he thought other people were saying. I don't know! (hide spoiler)]

My views on:

The Shadowy Street: (view spoiler)[ I got a little confused in this story and didn't realize for a while that they are 2 back-to-back stories occurring in the same section of town...I thought where the German manuscript left off and the French manuscript started where the same story and it threw me for a bit because they didn't relate to one another! Then I figured it out...I will have to go back and read this again at some point ;) I like that the story came from manuscripts...these old "weird" writers certainly like their manuscripts, didn't they :D Also, Jean Ray seems to be a popular author in this compilation, doesn't he...he is used twice, back to back! (hide spoiler)]

Genius Loci: (view spoiler)[ I liked the atmosphere of this story...the description of the evil pond with the dead willow hanging over it and the trees with the disrupted roots seemingly trying to escape it, the greenish pond scum and sluggish creek feeding the pond! It was the right length so I didn't lose interest :)
@SarahKat, you bring up a good point about many of these early stories being about obsession...it is almost like the scary thing in these early stories is people losing their minds due to the weird and not the actual ghosts/weird beings that are causing the obsession! I agree that it will be interesting to see how/if the stories change over time! I like that the compilation of stories goes from early 1900 and works its way up to modern times because you can actually see how the writing might change! (hide spoiler)]

I took a few days off from the Weird, and am back at it today.

The Shadowy Street: (view spoiler)[It was interesting to read two stories by the same author back to back. There were a few similarities with the Mainz Psalter: the way the story was told as a story within a story, and the fact that we never actually find out what is going on at all. What creatures were they? The narrator of the second story says Vampires Vampires at the end but they didn’t act like any vampires I’ve ever heard of... I liked the hidden street. It’s a concept I’ve encountered elsewhere and I really like it.
SarahKat, about the connection: I don’t think it was really explained, but I agree with you Alison that I think they took place at the same time in the same city. And the tall old woman that appears at the end of the German story sounded like the same person/creature who buys the items from the antique dealer in the second story I think, but no clue what’s really going on here... (hide spoiler)]

Genius Loci: (view spoiler)[How creepy! I liked the slow descent into madness. And poor poor girlfriend. SarahKat, yes good point about the obsession being a recurring theme, we’ve seen that quite a bit already. And Alison, I like what you said about people losing their mind being more scary than the actual weird thing. That obsession thing was also very present in the video SarahKat sent about the people-shaped holes, and there too I think the creepiest thing was the fact that people were so obsessed with finding their holes, not the actual holes themselves. (hide spoiler)]

Glad you're back Marleen!

About the obsession thing, I think dehumanization is one of the major fears that we deal with. That's what makes zombies so scary. They are generally slow and not too difficult to kill, but there's a million scary movies with them because we fear becoming out of control of our mind and body. Becoming less than ourselves.
Obsession is one form of that, that is very tangible because we've all likely experienced it to some degree. You lose yourself in a sense, even with little obsessions. (Did I let the dog back inside? Did I lock the front door? I really want some soup.) All these things can take over your mind for a short while until you give in and check, or buy the soup, or eventually get over it. But the ones in these stories are more debilitating and supernatural.

I feel like I'm rambling. But there's my pop psychology analysis on the subject.

SarahKat wrote: "Glad you're back Marleen!

About the obsession thing, I think dehumanization is one of the major fears that we deal with. That's what makes zombies so scary. They are generally slow and not too di..."

Thank You for sharing your thoughts on obsession, SarahKat! I have always been very scared of things that can't be seen...The Omen (just the thought of it makes me shudder) and The Exorcist (although we recently watched it again - I saw it when it first came out with my girlfriends and left with bruises on my arm from my best friend grabbing me through the entire movie - and it wasn't nearly as scary as I thought ;) are two examples of the types of dehumanization that scare me!! Those have religious undertones, not the natural or monster undertones that these stories in The Weird have had so far, but anything that can't be seen and is part of a scary story affect me ;)

My thoughts on:

The Town of Cats: (view spoiler)[ The first thing that popped into my mind while reading this was the saying: "The Opposite Side of the Coin"! I guess it was the fact that the author talked about the backside of a painting or getting turned around and walking the opposite direction from where you thought you were going :) I did wonder why someone with no sense of direction would get off the train and walk...it was no surprise that he got lost or turned around ;) I liked this story and I agree that cats figure prominently in a lot of Japanese stories I have read...but I have not read that much Japanese literature... (hide spoiler)]

The Tarn: (view spoiler)[ This story wasn't that scary...a sour person who feels wronged in life taking the life of someone who he thinks has stolen his accolades throughout life...then he suffered/died for taking the life of his friend! It was a little weird how he meat his end! I did appreciate the description of nature in October in the Lakeland district of England...totally appropriate since it is turning Fall here in Santa Fe, NM!! (hide spoiler)]

Alison wrote: "SarahKat wrote: "Glad you're back Marleen!

About the obsession thing, I think dehumanization is one of the major fears that we deal with. That's what makes zombies so scary. They are generally sl..."

I agree with you there! Instinct is "Fight or Flight." If you can't see it, you can't fight it, and you can't run from it!

Alison on The Tarn: (view spoiler)[I liked the descriptions of that story's setting as well. It seems like a lot of these stories take place in October or the fall, but maybe I just notice them more because it is. We are in the same time zone! (hide spoiler)]

I read two today.

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass: (view spoiler)[I liked this one, though I'm still not certain what was actually going on. Do you think the narrator was just a patient of the sanatorium and imagined all the weirdness? Or was it real and he was visiting his previously-deceased father at a place where there is no night and no rules of time? (hide spoiler)]

Far Below: (view spoiler)[I really liked this one and I feel like I could see Lovecraft's influence here! They mention something about people not being able to remain sane after seeing something like that. And the guy even mentions Lovecraft by name. I had been wondering when Lovecraft became a big deal. Was it immediate? Did it take a few decades? He's obviously a well-known figure at the time this was written, so that answers that.
About the actual story, it was pretty interesting, but not really mind-blowing until the end! The inspector/doctor/whatever he is, and, I assume, his whole team are just down there making sure the subways don't run into "Them" while they are slowly turning into "Them!" The implications of that are pretty creepy if you think about it. (hide spoiler)]

It’s great to read both your thoughts on these stories and related topics. At least one of the stories I read today was definitely another obsession-related tale.

The Town of Cats: (view spoiler)[I liked the writing in this one. It’s so true that ordinary things on a trip seems so much more exciting than those same things would be in a familiar environment. Not much happened here but the sense of feeling lost and then suddenly realizing you are in a place you know well is very familiar to me. I think I might be just as ‘directionally challenged’ as our narrator here :)
I don’t think I’ve ever read any Japanese fiction before so I don’t know about the cat thing. But maybe we will see more cats when we read Murakami’s story later! (hide spoiler)]

The Tarn: (view spoiler)[More obsession here! I like that the story threw us straight in there with Fenwick daydreaming about strangling Foster in the first paragraph. I agree with you two that it wasn’t very weird or scary for most of it. About the ending, had the lake followed him home because it wanted to ‘keep him company’, was it Foster’s ghost coming back for revenge, or was he just going insane? Not sure what we were supposed to make of it. (hide spoiler)]