Dover's LOVECRAFT'S BEST SHORT STORIES

[j d worthington]

Whilst I am always glad to see a new edition of HPL's work come out -- especially one which is likely to be as affordable as this -- nonetheless, the contents of this collection give me grave pause. True, picking the "best" work of any writer always involves a deal of personal preference, but here I'd say the selection is skewed, to say the least:

Lovecraft's Best Short Stories

Had it been truly his "short" stories, perhaps some of these could be excused. But with the inclusion of "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Shadow Out of Time", it is obvious that longer works are also counted, and therefore such things as "Beyond the Wall of Sleep", "The Lurking Fear", "The Temple", and perhaps most especially "From Beyond", are about as far from his best as one can get -- the latter two are frankly among his worst stories (save for "The Street" and the C. M. Eddy, Jr. revision "Ashes"), by any critera worthy of the name: they are often hackneyed, poorly written, cumbrous, stereotyped, overly loaded with supernatural phenomena (especially in "The Temple"), and simply thin in contrast with so much of his other work; and their replacement by others ("Celephaïs", "Polaris", "The Rats in the Walls", "The Cats of Ulthar", "Nyarlathotep", "The Music of Erich Zann", "The Shunned House", etc., etc., etc.") would have come much, much closer to such a description.

So I have to ask: Why did Ashley pick these -- among his poorest efforts -- to include in a selection of what purports to be his best (short or long)? I will be interested in reading any introduction Ashley has, which may explain the reason for their inclusion, but by any critical standard, these cannot be considered among his best.

Comments from others are welcome... and I'd also be interested in hearing what others think might make up a selection (of roughly the same size) of Lovecraft's best short stories, as well.....

 

[Lobolover]

Why so much hate on "The temple" , ? I loved it imensely .

 

[AE35Unit]

So tell me JD,where does one look for a good collection?

 

[Lobolover]

The Library of Babel would be a good start

 

[j d worthington]

Why so much hate on "The temple" , ? I loved it imensely .

"So much hate"? An honest criticism of a story's faults doesn't constitute hate, Lobo -- simply that: honest criticism, rather than adoration. While there are several things I like about that story, nonetheless it is far from Lovecraft's best, and is riddled with far, far too many supernatural phenomena where the connections are either quite vague or missing altogether. I'm not saying everything should be laid out diagrammatically, but enough should be given the reader to make some sense out of the series of events and their connections (unless you're dealing with a true nightmarish tale, in which case less strictures may apply -- not the case here, where a striving for meticulous realism was the keynote).

This is simply a case of Lovecraft throwing in too many ideas in too short a space without thinking them out clearly beforehand. As a result, the quality of the story, both structure and sense, suffers. And then there is the almost parodically stereotyped German narrator.....

So tell me JD,where does one look for a good collection?

In mass market paperback... I don't know as there is one, as all of these I am aware of are still using corrupt texts which have needed to be ditched for 40 years, where sentences are often garbled and (in the case of At the Mountains of Madness) entire passages are missing, or (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) the opening of one chapter is repeated at the beginning of another, rather than the proper text.

Otherwise, despite the typographical problems, I'd suggest the Penguin editions (3 vols. of his original fiction). These are relatively inexpensive, quite attractive, and utilize the preferred texts....

 

[Lobolover]

It was a turn of speach .

But are you sure it wasn't meant as a parody ? Besides, alot of people were under the impression of the Lusitania incident for a bit, maybe it could have been influenced by that (I remember a story where it was thought that that medal was issued by the german government , it's calld "The lusitania waits" but the author eludes me)

 

[Ningauble]

I've taken a look at the contents, and Gawd, that's the strangest "Best of Lovecraft" collection I've ever seen!

 

[j d worthington]

It was a turn of speach .

But are you sure it wasn't meant as a parody ? Besides, alot of people were under the impression of the Lusitania incident for a bit, maybe it could have been influenced by that (I remember a story where it was thought that that medal was issued by the german government , it's calld "The lusitania waits" but the author eludes me)

No, there's nothing in either the tale itself or in anything Lovecraft said elsewhere to indicate any attempt at parody. Even if it were, it is still unsuccessful because of the other points mentioned above, as even a parody either has to provide enough connections to make sense of the phenomena, or make the very lack of such a notable part of the parody.. and Lovecraft didn't do either in this tale.

And yes, Martin, I agree. Ashley has done some odd things with selections in anthologies before, but this one may well take the cake....

 

[Lobolover]

I did find the ""Iron german will" and "american pig dogs" remarks to be quite ludicrous at times , though .

 

[j d worthington]

That's part of what I was referring to. It is a ridiculously hackneyed stereotype even for its time. The trouble is, there is absolutely no indication that Lovecraft intended the story as parody, so the (quite likely conscious) savage satire of the German U-boat commander simply comes across as ham-fisted and lacking in either subtlety or skill.

Lovecraft was occasionally a bit too broad with his satire and/or irony: "The Terrible Old Man", "In the Vault", or "The Street", for instance; but he was seldom as clumsy at it as he is here. Most often, when it came to his fiction, his parodies and satires were either outright parodies ("Ibid", "Sweet Ermengarde", "Some Reminiscences of Dr. Samuel Johnson", etc.), or were much more subtle, such as his note about how "Possibly Gilman ought not to have studied so hard" in "The Dreams in the Witch House", or the parody of the crucifixion at denouement of "The Dunwich Horror", or the thoroughgoing religious parody of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", the final lines of which are extremely close to the Twenty-third Psalm, while the entire "Esoteric Order of Dagon", with its worship of a "god" who is "dead but dreaming" and will return to initiate a new heaven and new earth (to borrow an appropriate phrase), its new life and immortality -- even to the extent of a pointed "baptism" into that new life when one returns to the sea, etc. -- is both savage and subtle; and so on.

Actually, if we were going for a "best short stories of", regardless of genre, I'd suggest putting in either "Sweet Ermengarde" (a delightful parody of the Horatio Alger school) or "Some Reminiscences of Dr. Samuel Johnson", which is a truly marvelous tour-de-force in which he manages to poke fun at Johnson, Boswell, Goldsmith, various amateurs, numerous figures of belles-lettres, and himself and his antiquarian pose, pedanticism, and love of the eighteenth century... all in a flawless early eighteenth-century idiom maintained throughout. Now, these -- though not the horror for which he is most well-known -- are certainly among the shining examples of Lovecraft's abilities as a writer in various modes, as well as simply enjoyable send-ups in their own right, and are therefore much more justifiable as "best" than some of the selections Ashley has made for this odd little volume....