The Outsider, by H.P. Lovecraft

Hands down one of the best Lovecraft stories, and one that I could probably listen to over and over again. There are a lot of literary parallels between this and other writings that are said to inspire it, but in any case, this is sad and haunting genius and I love it.

I will point out, as I have before with Lovecraft stories, that my description of the story leaves no secrets as far as the plot is concerned so don't read further if you intend to read the story for the first time and desire some element of surprise.

The Outsider is a story of a man- at least, he believes himself to be human- that has lived his entire life in solitude, locked in a castle where he has never encountered anyone else. He is lonely and sad, and decides that he is going to break free. He climbs through the highest tower and through a trap door in the ceiling and ends up on the surface of another world entirely. He wanders across the surface, elated and rejoicing in his freedom, and comes across a castle filled with people having a party. He joins them, happy to finally be amongst others, but they scream in terror and run when they see him. He assumes something else has scared them, and traces around the room looking for it, when he spies the figure they're presumably afraid of and creeps slowly towards it. It is horrifying indeed, and is described as being of another world, decaying and twisted. In reaching up his hand to sheild himself from it, his fingers brush the surface and he recoils and runs in terror back to his castle, realizing that he can never be anything but an outsider, for the surface he touched had been a mirror and the twisted figure within was his own reflection.

I can't even count the number of times this, or something similar, has been done. Some of them predate this exact story, and some of them follow it, but this will always be my favorite telling of it.

The Horror at Red Hook, by H.P. Lovecraft

I can't find a good image to associate with this story.

This story focuses on a cop, Detective Malone, who has a fear of large buildings that he attributes to a case he worked on in a district called "Red Hook", which is supposed to be based on New York. He goes on to tell the story, and you follow him back to a case he worked on. Kidnapping was running rampant in Red Hook, as was gang activity, and Malone believed it to be related to what he suspected was an underground cult lead by a man named Robert Suydam. Detective Malone takes you through the case, until finally he ends up in the basement of Suydam's apartment during a raid, and finds a door that opens into this abyss that sounds like it's Lovecraft's idea of hell, in which he witnesses a parade of demonic figures carrying Suydam's corpse. Meanwhile, the apartment is crumbling around him. Authorities later find Detective Malone under the wreckage, laying next to a fetid pool that contains the remains of Robert Suydam, and convince him that the door to hell was all a dream. They also find underground canals leading from Robert's home to different places like the basement of a church and the docks, and are able to confirm that children, etc. have been smuggled through these passageways, which are sealed. Rejoining the Detective in "current day", he goes on to mention that he's heard the passageways have been reopened, etc.

Lovecraft himself apparently didn't like this story, and called it "rather long and rambling", and I have to agree with him. It doesn't have the attention holding brevity of his other stories. There were several times that my mind started drifting. I have noticed, too, in reading about it that it's been panned for racism. I didn't particularly notice it, but again, I couldn't get into this one so I simply may have missed it. However, where this isn't one of my favorites, the storyline itself is one of the more detailed and modern. I believe there've been movies attempted on this and I am not surprised. It's a good storyline. What really stands out to me, though, is the description of this hell that Malone gets sucked into. Lovecraft goes all out in this one, unleashing this powerful torrent of imagery on the reader/listener that demonstrates the depths of this man's twisted imagination. Let me see if I can find a quote to provide to illustrate my point:

"Somewhere dark sticky water was lapping at onyx piers, and once the shivery tinkle of raucous little bells pealed out to greet the insane titter of a naked phosphorescent thing which swam into sight, scrambled ashore, and climbed up to squat leeringly on a carved golden pedestal in the background.

      Avenues of limitless night seemed to radiate in every direction, till one might fancy that here lay the root of a contagion destined to sicken and swallow cities, and engulf nations in the foetor of hybrid pestilence. Here cosmic sin had entered, and festered by unhallowed rites had commenced the grinning march of death that was to rot us all to fungous abnormalities too hideous for the grave’s holding. Satan here held his Babylonish court, and in the blood of stainless childhood the leprous limbs of phosphorescent Lilith were laved. Incubi and succubae howled praise to Hecate, and headless moon-calves bleated to the Magna Mater. Goats leaped to the sound of thin accursed flutes, and aegipans chased endlessly after misshapen fauns over rocks twisted like swollen toads. "

Final consensus is that it's probably my least favorite so far, though as aforementioned, some of the descriptive ramblings he goes on when recalling Malone's "dream" are pretty admirable.

The Music of Erich Zann, by H.P. Lovecraft

This is another favorite of mine. It's about a poor college student that accepts a room in this strange apartment building on this weird street where all of the buildings lean one way or another. Lovecraft mentions that on certain parts of the street, if the buildings on either side are both leaning inward, they almost touch at the top. Certain buildings have bridges from one to another. These aren't necessarily important details, but I find them absolutely charming imagery.

So the student starts hearing music from upstairs. It's crazy, haunting music, using notes and melodies that the protagonist has never heard before. He eventually decides to visit the man upstairs, who is a mute man named Erich Zann, who plays the viol. I will admit I had no idea was a viol was (it is, in fact, a type of viola, which I was guessing) and had to look it up after hearing this story. In any case, the man plays him a rather boring song, and the student gets frustrated and insists that he's heard more. He attempts to whistle one of the melodies that he'd heard Mr. Zann playing on previous nights, and Zann becomes agitated and kicks him out, even going so far as to petition the landlord to move the student further away in the building. The student is still able to hear him play nightly, however, and one night hears his music become frantic and then cease. Worrying about the old man, he visits his room and rouses him. In the course of his brief visit, he looks out the man's window and sees that it's not a view of the street, but rather an endless and violent oblivion which Erich Zann believes to be the entrance to another dimension. Before he rushes from the room, he discovers that the music Erich Zann plays is to keep back creatures that are fighting to get in through the window.

Like 'The Rats in the Walls', I really have no negative critique to offer as far as this story is concerned. One thing that both stories have in common, that I absolutely love, is a subtlety that hints at a terrifying, alien, monstrous existence rather than the physical and dynamic presence of monsters. I was not surprised to see, when looking up the correct spelling of the name 'Erich Zann', the huge amount of bands that have named themselves, their albums, or a song in some manner after this story. What an awesome and terrifying concept, and an unbelievably haunting role it would be, to play the gatekeeper between dimensions, armed only with a musical instrument. Can you imagine the things that man may have witnessed hurtling towards his window?

The Shunned House, by H.P. Lovecraft

Supposedly this is the actual house that inspired this story. I think it's nice.

This isn't one of my favorites. The end is great, but there's sooooooo much lead up. He goes through generations of people, all becoming sick and dying while living in this house, and any babies born while in the house are still born, etc. The story is written from a man who's fascinated by it, and his uncle, and after the owner is unable to rent it due to all of the deaths and sicknesses linked to it, they ask if they could be granted access to it. To at least leave some intrigue, the man and his uncle encounter some vicious supernatural occupants in the basement of the home and that whole description is rather entertaining and creepy. I do like this story, but I feel like such a large part of it is spent detailing the history of the house and that the entertaining meat of the story is rushed a bit.

It looks like this was made into a movie in 2003 that got a terrible rating- so I'll give you a bonus recommend and tell you to not bother with the movie ; )

The Rats in the Walls, by H.P. Lovecraft

I hadn't heard/read this one before, so I happily obtained it when it was recommended to me by a friend that knew I was Lovecrafting it up. It is so utterly fantastic it almost defies description. I can so clearly hear Wayne June saying "The Rats in the Walls" every time I think about it and that alone sends a shiver down my spine.

In this story, a man inherits an estate and moves there, with several cats. He begins to notice that at a certain time of night, there's a scuttling sound as of rats in the walls and the cats start going mad clawing at them. The noise can get very loud at times, even seeming to make the rooms tremble. The cats seem to always follow the sounds down to the subcellar door. The man eventually invites some friends over to help him scout out the sound and discovers that an altar in his sitting room can be pried open to reveal a path descending downward. They follow it and discover a terrible subterranean city in which there's evidence of human beings having been raised as cattle and cannibalized by his ancestors.

I mean, really now. Do I even need to say anything else? That's just perfect. There's nothing I would change about this story at all. Nothing.

The Call of Cthulhu, by H.P. Lovecraft

This is the ICONIC story that has inspired games, movies, comics, etc. etc., almost so much that I should tag it as 'Classic' as well.

The story is based on the writings of fictional character Francis Wayland Thurston, found among his belongings after his death. Within them, he describes having found notes left by his granduncle, whose abrupt death was somewhat questionable. Along with the writings was found a small figurine that Mr. Thurston describes as "A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings", which is later identified to represent Cthulhu. Further research reveals that this figurine was used in "voodoo-esque" rituals in which human bodies are being used by a cult that's formed to worship the "Great Old Ones". Thurston uncovers a lot of history behind the cult and eventually sets out on his own to investigate a shipwreck of suspicious detail, which leads him to conclude that he now knows too much and will likely be killed, for "the cult still lives".

There are certain subjects that, to me, are more likely to induce fear. Cult activity and ritual sacrifice are among those. This is one of my favorites for that reason. It not only includes a lot of those topics, but presents them in such a way that they're so conceivably being read from actual manuscripts found among a dead man's personal belongings. I also feel that overall this story is more likely to appeal to those that aren't necessarily huge Lovecraft fans, because its focus is a lot more on ritual and rumor and less on the beasts themselves.

The Dunwich Horror, by H.P. Lovecraft

This is my favorite of the images Google presented me with.

A word about H.P. Lovecraft before I go review-crazy-

I personally feel there is a difference between the way most people interpret horror and the way a Lovecraft fan interprets horror. Horror these days is generally associated with any wide array of 'scary' movies, most of which are associated with a fairly sparce and typical assumptions of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, demons, psychopaths or aliens. There are attempts to be ground-breaking and unique in inspiring fear in others, but generally it boils down to the same basic plotlines and antagonists. Writers, directors, etc. are on a constant quest for shock value. They devise and come up with stories to tell that they hope will scare people and/or create a sensation. They are very much in-your-face.

H.P. Lovecraft does not need to think and devise plans with which to shock and scare people. This a man that simply eats, breathes and dreams the grotesque, unnatural and weird, in the truest sense of the word. His stories are scary in that they're generally written in journal or auto-biographical form by the subject or a relative thereof. Typically the person begins as a skeptic and is confronted with undeniable evidence of something obscene and troubling, and gets in over his head in a situation that is evil and otherworldly, more often than not, ending with his death. A lot of the times, there are not any monsters actually present in the stories, just hints or one. Sometimes you are entirely left to your imagination. When you're not? Maybe it's even worse. Monsters in Lovecrafts stories are strikingly unusual and entirely unattractive in nature- no sparkly vampires here- sometimes falling to the other side of the line between plainly disturbing and perverse. They are their own entities, and fans of Lovecraft can doubtlessly point out their influence in other media. These are not stories for everyone, not because they're "too scary" for most, but because they're written with a passion for the obscene that might be off-putting for those that aren't equally passionate about their content.

I decided to celebrate October and the approaching Halloween holiday- my favorite- by listening to as much of the Lovecraft collection as I can on audiobook. My drive to work in the morning is done before sunrise, and on wooded, isolated roads, so I thought it was the perfect atmosphere for such things, and I was right. NOTE: SINCE THESE H.P. LOVECRAFT STORIES I'LL BE REVIEWING ARE SHORT STORIES, THERE'S NOT MUCH LEFT OUT IN MY DESCRIPTION. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN READING OR HEARING THEM AND WANT TO BE SURPRISED, JUST DO IT, AND QUIT READING THIS.

The Dunwich Horror was the first story I listened to. All of the stories I obtained are read by Wayne June, who has a deep, gravelly voice that lends perfectly to the serious and creepy atmosphere of the writing without going overboard or making it campy in any way. The Dunwich Horror takes place in Massachusetts, in the fictional town of Dunwich. Lovecraft goes through a great bit of detail about the area of Dunwich, setting a very ominous tone right from the get-go. The tale goes on to describe the Whateley farm, where an albino woman lives with her father. She gives birth to a son, father unknown, and names him Wilbur. The boy grows very rapidly, being the size of a full grown man by five years old. The townsfolk aren't sure what to think of him, and generally keep their distance. Wilbur and his grandpa are constantly adding to their house, and strange noises are heard from the upper floor when visitors call. Cattle are constantly disappearing, and the townsfolk notice a ramp has been added leading from the ground to the upper story of the house. Grandpa Whateley dies, and the albino mother eventually follows of unknown means.

Wilbur begins seeking a copy of the book Necronomicon at a nearby university and is denied. Finally, with urgency, he attempts to break in and steal it and is attacked and killed by the guard dog. With Wilbur dead, what's revealed to be an invisable creature growing inside the farmhouse is unchecked and breaks free to bring horror and death upon the town of Dunwich.

I can't very well debate the mastery of any of Lovecraft's stories because he's practically his own genre of writing. When I offer "critiques" it's to explain why I favor or do not favor the particularly story, and nothing more. I am still humbled by him and his expansive creativity and ability. Having said that- The Dunwich Horror isn't one of my favorite, I will admit. I feel that there are parts of the story where the action lulls a bit. Wilbur dying and the monster breaking free of its captivity is a huge and fearsome chain of events but I don't feel it was highlighted enough to make a serious impact. The end of the story is, in my opinion, somewhat anti-climactic. This one doesn't inspire chills in me the way some of the others do. Concept, however, is fantastic. The idea of Wilbur and his grandfather perpetually adding on to the house to contain the beast is chilling in and of itself. That the monster is invisible is PREFERABLE to me. I was almost let down when a glimpse of it is allowed and the description that followed- the unknown struck me as more frightening in this case. Still a fantastic and entertaining listen, especially in the dark in the woods!