"The Shunned House"

[Extollager]

Just reread this... herewith a few quick comments.

1.Perhaps especially in the first chapter, the story really is vulnerable to objections about the style. JDW has suggested that some of Lovecraft's writing works better read aloud than read silently, an idea that makes sense. I think, though, that some of the writing here might sound pretty lame, as they say these days. Take the paragraph beginning "This much I knew."

It's nothing unusual for a writer to have to write his or her way into a story. The writing improves.

2.In this story Lovecraft is combining "Gothic" elements + suggestions of science + antiquarianism. Suppose this had been the last story he had written: I think it might well have influenced writers who'd have worked more with possibilities of that combination. Of course, he did live to explore it further himself (and other writers often imitated his developments of the combination -- right?).

I'd forgotten the material about the scientific apparatus!

3.The story is strengthened by having a narrator who relates to another character rather than being simply a curious solitary. If I'd been an editor, I might have suggested to HPL that he shift the emphasis a little in places from talking in general terms about the bizarre and even cosmic horror to develop the sense of the narrator's loss a bit, and try to let more of the former quality come through dramatically rather than rhetorically.

4.The climax seems to owe something to the climax of "The Great God Pan."

5.HPL wrote the story with a real house in mind, although photos of the structure don't match his description. I think HPL was real-izing an imaginative impulse that is frequent with creative people, the desire to make a story with a real location. One of my young daughters was struck by an impressive stone house that we passed on a walk and wanted to write a story, probably with a mysterious angle, about it. I don't know that I've had this feeling about a specific building myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if some Chronsfolk have.

 

[w h pugmire esq]

The idea of a "titan elbow" always makes me laugh--what a curious image to use so as to convey unutterable horror. This was the first story that Lovecraft wrote during his New York exile, & it seems a bit poignant that it is a tale of Providence. Although not initially inspir'd by the Babbitt house on Benefit Street, latter musings on the yellow house caused E'ch-Pi-El to set the story there (he had written earlier of the Babbitt house in his 1920 poem, "The House"). The story was rejected by Weird Tales. It's wonderful, that the actual house (the John Mawney House at 135 Benefit Street in Providence) is now such a vital part of the Lovecraft legacy, visited and photograph'd by Lovecraftians visiting the city. In October of 2007 I stay'd in a bed & breakfast just across the street from it, and going to touch the lower portion of the house gave a frisson of Lovecraftian enthrallment.

"The Shunned House" is one of ye moft unique of all weird tales, combining so many elements and blending them into a smooth and effective whole. It begins with an example of Lovecraft's penchant for beginning a tale with a strangely effective, strong opening sentence, something at which he was brilliant. I find absolutely nothing objectionable about the tale's opening portions--they are an effective evocation of the aura of the house and its haunted legend, making the house as much a focal point, almost a character, as the mortals who are its victims. The style of the opening section is a perfect blend of matter-of-fact reporting of a history concerning the house and its inhabitants, and of arousing a sense of terror concerning the effects of living within its haunted walls.

I love the story, and it enchanted me to visit it, and to explore the haunted grove adjacent to it, a grove that has figured in many of my own weird tales. I look forward to walking that grove again, beside ye Shunn'd House, when attending NecronomiCon Providence 2013.

 

[Ningauble]

5.HPL wrote the story with a real house in mind, although photos of the structure don't match his description.

It doesn't? The door that opens from the basement into the street, etc., seem to match pretty well.

 

[Extollager]

It doesn't? The door that opens from the basement into the street, etc., seem to match pretty well.

Note -- I'm not criticizing Lovecraft if his descriptions departed from the house that "inspired" the story.

In what I say about the house, I have to go by pictures, since I have never been there myself, unlike Wilum and perhaps others here.

HPL wrote, "a brick basement wall had to be made, giving the deep cellar a street frontage with the door and two windows above ground, close to the new line of public travel. When the sidewalk was laid out a century ago the last of the intervening space was removed; and Poe in his walks must have seen only a sheer ascent of dull grey brick flush with the sidewalk and surmounted at a height of ten feet by the antique shingled bulk of the house proper."

It appears to me that there are four openings at the level of the on-street basement, from the photo above: two that certainly are windows, and two doors (?) -- or if they are not doors, what are they?

In the photo, the basement wall appears to be stone rather than brick.

The house isn't shingled; it has siding. Of course, it may have had shingles in Lovecraft's day.

One other observation -- "The Shunned House" reminded me of "The Colour Out of Space" in that you have the idea of a mysterious sort of miasma that debilitates people gradually. The latter story is more impressive -- as I've said, I think it is Lovecraft's finest. "Shunned House" is interesting in its own right, though. One thing I think about is the contrast between the narrator and his uncle, on the one hand, and the seemingly rather passive townsfolk on the other. The pair go to trouble and expense to investigate, and then to eradicate the danger. One might wonder about the neighbors who put up with the place.

(Trivial anecdote: I was reminded of my own experience in an absurd way. Over 25 years ago, my family bought a house that had been for sale for a while, and got a good price for it -- the owners accepted our offer. We moved in. Well, we hadn't really investigated the neighborhood, specifically the barnlike house next-door to us. Turns out it was a notorious college-kid party house and had a bad reputation going back a ways. However, people in the neighborhood basically seemed just to put up with it all -- and the house next-door [which we bought] sat on the market. Well, during our first year there we tried to persuade the gentlemen across the (dirt) driveway to spare us the loud music, obscenities, etc. that disturbed our children's sleep, etc. We started to compile a record of police complaints. We went to the city council, talked with the mayor, talked with university authorities, contacted the out-of-state property owner. At last we went to the city attorney, who discovered that the landlord was in violation of a city ordinance. "The Barn" is now a decent residence and the neighborhood in general is a better place to live thanks to many people's efforts. So when I think of how people in Lovecraft's story put up with the dilapidated and unwholesome house, which, thanks to the narrator, is now a desirable residence -- with Wilum's b & b across the street! -- I am reminded of this real-life history!)

 

[j d worthington]

According to the sources I've seen, yes, the house at 135 Benefit Street has been heavily renovated over the years since HPL knew it. At that time, it was falling into desuetude, and (if memory serves) it did not have the windows at street level. In addition, the actual inspiration for the tale was a house in Elizabeth, New Jersey (which no longer exists), which reminded him strongly of the Benefit Street house (see his letter to his Aunt Lillian, Nov. 4-6 1924, in Letters from New York -- also cited in both Joshi's biography and the Joshi/Schultz H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia).