And your first Lovecraft tale was ....?

[Addy]

At the Mountains of Madness. I'm reading it right now. Haven't even finished.

[Nesacat]

Now we have two of the Old Gent in here. Is getting more and more surreal this place.

Addy ... tell me how you go with that one.

UnderTheOath ... have you decided to stay as far away from the ocean as possible?

[UnderTheOath]

I was scared of water for a while, before I read it... But... lol...

[BeerClark]

Rats in the Walls - Book: Blood Curdling Tales of the Macabre

I haven't read fiction in years until recently. I decided one day to read Starship Troopers and also happened to be looking up Cthulhu (remembered from RPG days). I figured these Lovecraft stories HAVE to be read! I don't want to read anything else now!

I'm about half way through "Blood Curdling..." and it seems that Lovecraft spends a lot of time in "painting the setting" as a build up to the end. Fascinating reading!

[j. d. worthington]

Welcome to the madhouse, B.C....

Yes, he felt very strongly that all such a story could really be was a picture of a certain kind of mood, as its success depended on the reader's emotional responses... the mechanics of plot were important, but definitely secondary to providing an emotionally convincing atmosphere... otherwise most supernatural fiction simply fails to convince a reader....

[Nesacat]

I'll second the welcome BeerClark. Yes, Lovecraft wrote that way. He built his stories like puzzles, painting in small details in all their complexity. He made sure you could see and feel what was happening, that you'd sink into the tale and go along to where it was taking you. He didn't tell you so much as help you imagine things for yourself and by doing so made the impact so much the greater.

[GOLLUM]

The music of Erik Zahn.

[Nesacat]

And what did you think of the tale? And the music? What about Pickman's Model?

[GOLLUM]

Pickman's Model I found to be a more coventional tale than Erik Zahn. It was still good but not as satisfying as Erik Zahn. I really enjoyed the way HPL built up the tension with that "mysterious" music and the ending was good because of its open-endedness. A short but tightly written and well crafted tale.

[Fried Egg]

Some say that "the Music of Erik Sahn" was too open ended...

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Fried Egg

Some say that "the Music of Erik Sahn" was too open ended...

Whereas for me it was one of the story's greatest strenghts.....

[Nesacat]

I liked the open endedness of the tale. It left so many possibilities open to the imagination. It was indeed a well-crafted tale and I like the madness and pining of the music. I think music is a good tool to work with when building a tale to a pitch and Lovecraft played this piece very well.

In my case the attraction to Pickman's Model lies in what's outside the main story line though that interesting in itself. I like all that Lovecraft did to build a picture of Pickman's style of painting. All the references to other artists and the comparisons. The tale is like a mini thesis of art.

[Fried Egg]

Yeah, I love both those stories. They are amoung my favourites in the collection "The Thing on the Doorstep and other weird stories". Mind you, I still have two to read as yet ("Mountains of Madness" and "Thing on the Doorstep")...

[j. d. worthington]

I must admit that "Erich Zann" is among my personal favorites, too. I know a fair number of people who have a bit of trouble with the ending (especially what it is the narrator sees out the window), but I've always found the tale quite satisfying.

As for At the Mountains of Madness... that one really does seem to cause a lot of people trouble, especially if it's their first exposure to Lovecraft. Even S. T. Joshi found that one a bit much, when he first encountered HPL. I think that is, in part, because so much of it is dependent on his walking a fine line between very precise, clinical writing such as one finds in a scientific paper, and the more impressionistic aspects of the tale... all that "dry" scientific stuff in the beginnins is absolutely necessary to lay the groundwork for the violation of known reality that follows, otherwise it wouldn't have the same emotional impact. A very carefully crafted tale.

"The Thing on the Doorstep" is a bit more conventional in some ways, and one of the few examples of grue in Lovecraft... but, despite having some signs of haste here and there, it's a good tale, nonetheless... and the quiet, even laconic final paragraph seems, to me, to make what goes before even more ghastly in contrast....

[Addy]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

As for At the Mountains of Madness... that one really does seem to cause a lot of people trouble, especially if it's their first exposure to Lovecraft. Even S. T. Joshi found that one a bit much, when he first encountered HPL. I think that is, in part, because so much of it is dependent on his walking a fine line between very precise, clinical writing such as one finds in a scientific paper, and the more impressionistic aspects of the tale... all that "dry" scientific stuff in the beginnins is absolutely necessary to lay the groundwork for the violation of known reality that follows, otherwise it wouldn't have the same emotional impact. A very carefully crafted tale.

You can count me among the 'troubled' ones. Not that I didn't enjoy the story. I did (I haven't even finished yet though), but I found it a bit dry indeed. But that may have a lot to do with the fact that I read half of it at the doctor's waiting room (I was a few hours there, actually, and in a foul mood because of the long wait).

I stopped reading it a quarter way through, and haven't had a chance to resume it yet. Maybe I should have began the book with one of the other shorter stories.

It's interesting how many writers choose to begin their short stories collections with longer pieces, like Stephen King did, for example, in his Skeleton Crew.

I'd much rather have the longer stories further to the end, like in Dubliners.