Weird Fiction discussion

For February we have another very early relatively short (we are continuing our easy start) H. P. Lovecraft tale to enjoy together. This is a five page story (like last month's). You do not necessarily need to purchase it for Kindle, or anything else. It's available here, to provide one possible free source: https://hplovecraft.com/writings/text....

I like this story just a shade more than last month's. I'll be interested to read your takes on it. When you finish, the story has its very own Wikipedia page, of course, if you're curious to know more about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sta...

This was one of the stories that stuck with me the most when I read it as a teen. That last line!

Yep. That's creepy all right.

I like what we can see in it of the evolution of Lovecraft's style. It was published in a magazine titled The Vagrant in May 1920. Weird Tales would not begin publication until 1923. Last month's "Dagon," written two years earlier, was published in the November 1919 issue of the same magazine.

In this story, we see slightly more complex sentences and words selected, though nothing like what Lovecraft's style would become. We again have a narrator who is losing his sanity because of horrors he has experienced. This horror is a bit more sophisticated and located closer to home than the one in "Dagon."

And the ending is an improvement because of the twist.

My favorite part of the story was the following: "In the lone silence of that hoary and deserted city of the dead, my mind conceived the most ghastly phantasies and illusions; and the grotesque shrines and monoliths seemed to assume a hideous personality—a half-sentience. Amorphous shadows seemed to lurk in the darker recesses of the weed-choked hollow and to flit as in some blasphemous ceremonial procession past the portals of the mouldering tombs in the hillside; shadows which could not have been cast by that pallid, peering crescent moon." What vivid description!

Lovecraft's style is far from perfect though. One thing I would edit out for him were I his editor are his frequent uses of the word "seemed." There are eight in this story and not one of them benefits it. Just declare that it is! The reader understands we are reading the narrator's perception already.

I look forward to seeing what growth next month's selection shows.

I've finally got around to rereading this and am impressed by the creepy atmosphere. The description of the graveyard is vivid.
I think that Warren was foolish to undertake such a dangerous quest.

MMh This one has an almost contemporary feel to it. The use of the telephone apparatus when it was written in 1919 could almost have been done with say What's app messages in 2019?

I was thinking as I was reading it that it reads almost like a vingette before a longer piece. So I am glad he got around to writing The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath the eventually the Silver Key and Throgh the Gates of the Silver Key. I have not read them yet but would be interested to see where he does with Randolf Carter as he goes on.

Those three stories have a different mood, showing Lovecraft's dreamier side.

Ooh, interesting!