My Favorite Lovecraft Story

[bendk]

Although I had known about Lovecraft when I was a teenager - I used to play Dungeons and Dragons in the late 70s and early 80s and his mythos was featured in the book Dieties and Demigods - I didn't read HPL until I was around 20 years old. And then the only thing I read was the book The Best of H.P. Lovecraft and his novel At the Mountains of Madness. On my initial read, my favorite stories were "The Outsider," "The Music of Erich Zann" and "The Call of Cthulhu." Then, over the years, I read an occasional Lovecraft story in anthologies, but that's about it. One of the nice things about joining TLO was that some of the member's enthusiasm for HPL (and TL's, of course) made me want to find out more about Lovecraft. I have since read all of his stories that have been collected in the Del Rey/Ballantine series. I have also read H.P. Lovecraft: A Life by S.T. Joshi, plus a bunch of essays, etc. I think I have a fair grasp of his worldview and a much better appreciation of his stories. And HPL is a truly fascinating individual.
My favorite Lovecraft story differs from time to time. My favorite right now is "The Rats in the Walls." It is a great gothic tale, as most of you probably know. If you like this story you should check out Crypt of Cthulhu #72. The entire issue is dedicated to the story. It has an absolutely hilarious front cover by Gahan Wilson. His rats are almost as distinctive as Gary Larson's ducks. Also, the book The Roots of Horror in the Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft by Barton Levi St. Armand is mostly about "Rats."

Algernon Blackwood didn't care for HPL's "The Rats in the Walls." He had this to say:

"I have read Lovecraft with keen enjoyment but, while appreciating to the full his gorgeous imagination and feeling for atmosphere, the thrill of fear I demand in such stories did not come. He has the material in plenty, in more than plenty, but I am oppressed rather than thrilled by what I feel to be overloading. There is a piling up and up of detail that, for me, defeats its own end. He is never wholly what we call "master of his material," and the cumulative effect is a bit bludgeoning on the mind. I long for something to be left to the imagination suggested, insinuated, instead of forced upon me with an adjectival wealth that tends to weary. I also do not react sympathetically to his preoccupation with corpses and decay. It was all I could do to finish reading his "Rats in the Walls," a tale that stirred repulsion rather than woke horror. What we call "spiritual horror" stirs fear in me, while physical horror leaves me unresponsive, even antagonistic. I had never heard of Lovecraft until introduced to him by an American correspondent Allen McElfresh. Then, at just that same time, I was also asked about him by the very gracious August Derleth."


TL's favorite Lovecraft story is "The Music of Erich Zann." See TL's essay "The Dark Beauty of Unheard of Horrors" and Matt Cardin's essay "The Master's Eyes Shining with Secrets." (Speaking of Matt, I wonder if his story "Teeth" was influenced by "The Rats in the Walls"? I don't want to be more specific, because it might spoil the story. A very nice story it is too!)

At the end of the HPL documentary, The Eldritch Influence, they asked the interview subjects what their favorite Lovecraft story was. Here are their picks:

Ramsey Campbell - "The Colour Out of Space"
S.T. Joshi - "At the Mountains of Madness" with nods to "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"
Brian Lumley - "The Haunter of the Dark" and then "The Colour out of Space"
Neil Gaiman - "The Colour Out of Space" and "The Outsider"
Stuart Gordon - "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"


What is your favorite Lovecraft story?

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[G. S. Carnivals]

Among H. P. Lovecraft's finest creations are new religions and cults. I live in perpetual fear of personal contact with members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon and the various Cthulhu cults scattered around the world. "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Call of Cthulhu" are my two very favorite HPL stories. "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "At the Mountains of Madness" are close behind. One can go on and on...

[darrick]

great thread.

1. The Call of Cthulhu - its epic yet small scale, great story in general, and centers around the Sleeping God.

2. The Statement of Randolph Carter - one of the first HPL stories i read. i love the ghoulish anticipation and indescribable payoff at the end.

3. The Hound - my best friend, New Nonsense, and i idolized those two guys in highschool. probably still do.

i like Rats, but wish it had more mythos in it.

Quote

I live in perpetual fear of personal contact with members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon and the various Cthulhu cults scattered around the world.

do not fear me, even though i am

Venger Satanis
Cult of Cthulhu High Priest

www.CultofCthulhu.net

[Aetherwing]

This is always, shall I say, a trying question. It's no secret around these parts that I am now, and always be an HPL superfreak. I love so many of those stories, it is a real trial to choose. I'll just change my mind later, probably...

After approximately 24 years of reading and rereading the Old Gent's work, several stories stand out to even my surfeited mind as being the most thought-provoking and numinous. They are (in no particular order):

The Whisperer in Darkness
The Shadow out of Time
At the Mountains of Madness

I love the sheer aeons of Ago, administered in megadosage by those three. I also love that the concepts are more advanced and scientific than some other stories. Hey, I love a Giant Monster Rampage as the next guy, but to me, TCoC was a failure. Great buildup, classic opening and closing paragraphs, but the climax? The Big C should never have been described so clearly, or better yet, not seen at all. The more subtle horrors of advanced science beyond human ken, including its failures, that's what gets my mind reeling in wonder and awe.

Now, as for his best story, I'll go with The Colour Out Of Space. Many of the reasons cited above hold true here, as well. And the writing! It would be hard not to like this story.

I'll also mention two short-shorts. The Terrible Old Man and Nyarlathotep.
The former is a well-polished gem. The tone, word-choice, atmosphere, all done as well as one could hope. And, the damn yarn is actually side-splittingly funny! If you've not read it recently, give it a try. HP spun that one with tongue firmly in cheek.

Nyarlathotep....not the best written vignette. Even so, it has power. The Teslaesque nightmare and the apocalytic finale pretty much sum up Lovecraft's worldview. The last few lines hit like hammerblows if one reads them in the right state of mind.

That'll do for now.

Feeling the Ambien Kick In,
-Aether

[hopfrog]

Hey, I love a Giant Monster Rampage as the next guy, but to me, TCoC was a failure.

In his interview on The Eldritch Influence DVD Neil Gaimon called the tale "a crap story" (this is the same interview in which he explained that HPL's continued fame is due to the fact that "Lovecraft is rock and roll," which convinces me that Neil has crap for brains). I find the tale a complete & satisfying success, and I was pleased when S. T. included it in his Penguin anthology, American Supernatural Tales, as representation of Lovecraft in fine form. In fact, Cthulhu isn't a giant rampaging monster -- yet; and that "yet" is one of the terrifying prophecies of the tale. The Old One's appearance was, I thought, deftly handled. It is built up to be the climatic horror, and succeeds for me in being such -- and yet it's a wee appearance, just a moment in ye dreadful eternity of Time. Cthulhu is one of HPL's attempts to describe alien horror as authentically alien, and perhaps here he failed, for all of the daemon's physical components are made up of terrestrial traits -- ye octopus or squid, the humanesque body, &c. The silent film version superbly depicts the utter horror of the scene in which Cthulhu appears -- and although the general approach of a gigantic thing chasing humanity may indeed be comical, I thought the film did a great job of shewing every awesome aspect of this daemon from dark cosmic chaos.

[waffles]

For what its worth,

1) At the Mountains of Madness - all that desolation and remoteness.

2) The Dreams in the Witch House - This is the story that made me want to study math in grad shool. If the math department knew they probably wouldn't have admitted me. I recently saw the Stuart Gordon adaptation on dvd. It really pissed me off.

Cheers!

[ElHI]

As soon as I read the title of this thread, a story jumped to my mind : 'The Colour Out Of Space'. So I guess it means it qualifies it as my favourite.

I especially love his description of decaying and corrupted land.

[Nemonymous]

I suppose it has to be 'The Outsider' as this is the first one I read (in 1964).

I also adore:
Dreams In The Witch House
The Hound
The Lurking Fear
Shadows Over Innsmouth
Rats In The Wall

A lot of these I read aloud to others during regular 'horror orgies' during the sixties.
des

[Steve Dekorte]

"The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath"

[Nemonymous]

If there is a single genuine 'one-off' in literature then it is HPL's KADATH novella. Not a story as such. But a work that probaby deserves, in hindsight, the highest regard. (I tended to mock it in the sixties!)