Reading Group #2

Hey everyone. Here are some possible selections for a second round of group reading, since the first went really well:

'The Death of Halpin Frayser' -- Ambrose Bierce
'Pickman's Model' -- H. P. Lovecraft
'The Horla' -- Guy de Maupassant

Unlike 'Usher,' these expand on the Gothic theme more than they follow the script of it, which I thought would make for some interesting contrast. Of the three, the Maupassant is bizarre stuff; the Lovecraft is genuinely freaky; and the Bierce is extremely difficult to classify. I don't know which bodes best for a reading group, and I adore each of these, so I'll leave the picking to other members. Also, I think all of the stories are available online (the Lovecraft, still being under copyright in the USA, is available from a 'fansite' that I can find the link to if anyone should happen to need it).

Any thoughts? Questions? Abuse? Throw it at me, people.

No ideas as I've never read any of them (as I remember at the moment, at least). But I easily found and bookmarked copies of all three on the web (goes a bit against the grain, that), so I'm happy to go with the group choice.

"Do you have difficulty making decisions?"

"Well - yes and no!"

My vote is for the Bierce.

>2 alaudacorax:

Yeah, I totally agree: going with the web does go against the grain. I guess ideally everybody would own or be able to buy a copy of the work (which is easy with Poe, but not so easy with, say, 'The Horla'). Also, reading online is so annoying! Oh well. At least it gives us the option of reading more obscure stuff...

Incidentally, I have a few friends scattered throughout the Levant, and apparently one of the few completely uncensored American websites is Project Gutenberg. How cool is that?!

>3 brother_salvatore:

Since you've picked the Bierce, I'm going with that. Anybody else who responds to this thread, we shall be reading 'The Death of Halpin Frayser,' by Ambrose Bierce. How exciting! I've always wanted to discuss this one with some intelligent people. It's...truly bizarre...

Thanks for the responses, guys.

Sounds good to me. Actually just finished reading it (in my nice FS edition!), but I'll keep my comments to myself 'till everyone has finished. I think I'll have to read it again; probably much more than meets the eye in the first go-around. "Bizarre" is a good description veilofisis.

I have that Folio edition, too! I've yet to read even just any of my old favorites out of it yet, though, so this is a perfect opportunity.

It definitely is the kind of story that needs to be read like a half dozen times. The first time I read it I was almost asleep, and I ended it with my eyelids closing, and it was one of the weirdest, most amazing reading experiences I think I've ever had. I can't wait to see what I think in a more...aware...state.

Yes, I read it an hour or two back and definitely feel I haven't really got to grips with it yet. I'll read it more carefully tomorrow, perhaps. Quite intriguing though.

Wasn't overly impressed with the Lovecraft, though. It can't have been very gripping because, while reading it, I managed to read up quite a bit on Cotton Mather and the artists the narrator mentions. It didn't help that one has got a pretty fair idea of the ending by about half-way.

And wouldn't you know it, my little Penguin selection doesn't have THAT particular story by Bierce. Project Gutenberg has it, you say? I shall report back...

>9 LolaWalser:

Welcome, Ms. Lola! I don't think Gutenberg has that particular story, but here's a link to one:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Halpin_Frayser

Thankee muchly!

Ha: "Halpin was pretty generally deprecated as an intellectual black sheep who was likely at any moment to disgrace the flock by bleating in meter."

Well, I'm confused. Someone help me out, please.

1. Halpin's mother, "Katy" (Frayser) is the same person as "Catharine Larue", right? It seems excessive to have two dead (murdered?) women in such a short story, especially as the men-hunters at the end say that "the murdered woman had been called Frayser".

2. The killer is called Larue (alias Branscome, alias Pardee). The killer is somehow related to "Catharine Larue", i.e. Halpin's mother?

If the above is true, I suppose there are all kinds of genealogical ramifications: is Halpin legitimate, what was his relationship to the killer etc. And what happened to his parents while he was "shanghaied" in the navy? Could his mother have remarried? But who cares? It's more dramatic if she had had a previous lover/husband.

Finally, the identity of the killer. The men-hunters call out a beastly male, while Halpin "saw" something "like" his mother. Recalling the motif of inheritance (Halpin being "like" his maternal grandfather, for instance); perhaps this male-female apparition signifies some blood relationship between Halpin's mother and the killer--sister and brother, say.

Actually, although I haven't the faintest clue what Bierce might have "plotted", I'd suggest incest as the theme--double incest. Let's say Halpin's mother was Catharine Larue, with a brother (the killer Larue), who was also a lover, and why not, maybe even Halpin's father. He eclipses himself (madness, criminality, prison, who knows) as Catharine marries Frayser. Then Halpin grows up into his own unhealthy incest-tinted relationship with his mother, now referred to as "Katy". Why does Halpin up and leave? Well, maybe it was just a casual trip, maybe he was feeling something was going wrong in regard to his mum.

Anyway, they are separated, until he comes upon a vision of her--a monstrous, soulless avatar, perhaps her "true" self. It kills him.

At the same time (or thereabouts, or little before), the crazy brother/uncle/father Larue finds Catharine and kills her.

What say you? Did I or didn't I SOLVE it? :)

Innnnnnteresting, Lola. I agree that Catharine and Katy are the same individual, though I don’t know (and perhaps Bierce didn’t either) just what precisely her relationship with the killer, Larue, is…whether sister, or wife, or both, or otherwise…

I had typed up a whole long, involved thing on Word, only for the program to mysteriously close before I could save it, without that 'emergency save' thing it usually does. Annoying!

So, to summarize, I essentially was putting forth that I agreed with Lola in the sense that there is a strong oedipal relationship between Frayser and his mother. I think that the name of Catharine Larue is something that Frayser glimpses on the headboard in a half-stupor, about to fall asleep, and is unaware of (thought it sets off a subconscious, pregnant association in the back of his mind that initiates his bizarre dream). I think that when he awakes his latent guilt (rendered fresh in his dream-state) regarding his willful/un-willful separation from his mother/'love' brings about a hallucination, married with the violent ‘memories’ of the area around him (which in a sense is like haunting but in another is quite different), in his half wakeful state, and that the person who strangles him is actually the killer, Larue/Pardee, who is being sought in that place by the two men towards the end of the story. I believe Frayser, in his hallucination, transposes the face of his mother onto Larue, who, in an amazing coincidence, has also murdered Frayser's mother some time before, when she had come west seeking information of Frayser's whereabouts after the death of her husband. But there seems to be more to these hallucinations and dreams and locations and ‘coincidences’ than just what I’ve explained them to be; there seems to be a profound, insistent sense of menace that exists independent of them and…I just don’t know how to explain it, really. What a bizarre piece of writing.

Whoo! Now did any of that s*** make any sense?! It seemed a lot better, and certainly more in depth, when I typed it out the first time!

In essence, I think the story escapes the Radcliffian Gothic trappings of 'supernatural incidents that are actually fully explainable' and exists in a world in which supernatural occurrences commingle with earthly occurrences, in a way that is fascinatingly disturbing and thought-provoking. The story, intentionally, leaves a lot more questions than answers. It also seems to be something of a study in how many coincidences can be woven together before they cease to be simply ‘coincidences,’ and more likely the incomprehensible mechanics of fate (though it’s a strange fate to be sure). Lastly, I detect a hint of the nature of perception, and how much it affects reality: and that I suppose is the most powerfully eerie thread in the entire narrative… (At least for me.)

So! All that said, I really adored this story! Very weird, and very well done. I also appreciate Bierce's wit, acid though it may be, because it is often very difficult to suffuse terror with humor effectively. Bierce's humor disarms, allowing the impact of his story to catch one off guard, while lesser writers would merely distract or play for 'comic relief.' I think that he was certainly not a 'great writer,' but the occasional flashes of absolute genius in his work, like in 'The Death of Halpin Frayser,' are enough to cement his legacy as a truly original author. I’m proud that he belongs to my nation’s roster.

Oh, and if anyone needs some clarification on just what the hell I’m yammering on about, please ask…this has got to be the most disjointed thing I’ve ever written down…

Salvatore, rankamateur, what did you two think?

Honestly, I found the story too confusing on a first read regarding who's who. At this point I won't even have a vague idea until a second or third reading.

Me too.

There is a very interesting paragraph about Halpin Frayser in this entry on Lich:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich
Spoilers, if you wish to avoid.

Not sure if the partial summary is truly accurate, but having some background on what a Lich helped a little.

Started re-reading the story again last night, but only the first couple pages. Already starting to see more clearly what might be going on. I'll share later. But I will claim at this point, that Catherine Larue and Katy are not the same person. (Unless this changes by thed end mof my re-read.) This seems evident to me from a particular sentence in the first couple pages. I'll have to quote it later, since I'm at work, and don't have the story immediately handy.

This has turned out to be quite a demanding little story, and more layered and fascinating than I expected.

#13

Anything is possible!

#17

Hey, thanks for that link! So the lich did it! I feel like a fool for missing the Byron reference--"Myron Bayne"--could it be more obvious...

But I will claim at this point, that Catherine Larue and Katy are not the same person.

An audacious claim, Fra Salvatore! That's about the only thing *I* feel certain about! Although I suppose some kind of mystical unity across time and space, is not out of the question (as opposed to actual identity).

According to the OED, 'lich' just means 'corpse', and that seems to be the sense used here - I think the Wikipedia person is misreading it.

Question: why does Frayser think he might get 'garotted' if he stays in Nashville?

>18 LolaWalser:
ah yes, mystical unity across time and space is certainly likely. I suspect they are not literally the same person, but more like a doppleganger/double, which is very classic gothic indeed.

#19

It may be a corpse, but it has superpowers! Mobility and brains, for one thing. Setting it apart from an ordinary corpse by an archaic term for the same works for me.

Question: why does Frayser think he might get 'garotted' if he stays in Nashville?

You know, I'm not sure how much of the mystification Bierce planned... For instance, that passage with Katy's dream and Halpin's "interpretation" is really puzzling on a basic level. I think they both may have had the same dream--Halpin dead--his mother's dream hinting at strangling with bare hands, Halpin's at garrotting. Does the difference have some "deeper" significance? I sure can't tell.

I agree with Lola, regarding #19's question. I think the 'signifigance' is up to very subjective interpretations...and I think, whether Bierce intended this or not, that it's still a pretty interesting approach to such a cliche idea (dreams turning into reality). I suppose my own opinion is that elements of their dream are both true, while the wholes themselves, perhaps, are not. That's a creepy idea. Comes back to perception, for me.

As for the lich, my only experience with the term is in Lovecraft's 'The Thing on the Doorstep.' I'd have to spend some more time looking into the idea before forming a solid opinion on the subject...

Salvatore, your 'double' idea is an interesting approach. I suspect, as I said in my lengthy post, that there is neither an utterly material conclusion (like Catharine or Katy being the same person, inarguably) or a totally supernatural conclusion (that they are some sort of doppelganger, botched reincarnation, dybbuk-type-shit, whatever) to be made.

I'm glad, in a way, that this story wound up being a lot to tackle, and I'm especially glad we're not all left parroting other peoples' opinions. I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone for joining this group and doing the group reads; your opinions are all original and fascinating, and I appreciate your taking the time to share! If anyone has a suggestion for another story, please post it. I just read Joyce Carol Oates' 'Secret Observations on the Goat Girl' in my Oxford Book of Gothic Tales and that was FABULOUSLY weird...

I have to say that I don't believe in this Byron business. I'm not really much of a fan of him, but I've just been looking through my Byron and comparing his stuff to Frayser's poem and - well, just too far-fetched!

I don't find any reason to not identify Katy with Catharine. It seems straightforward to me: Halpin goes to California and disappears; she gets widowed, so goes to California to look for her son; she marries Larue, who then murders her.

But then the questions start. Why did Larue murder her? Is he really mad or did he have some 'crime of passion' reason (his visits to her grave could be seen to support either but the fact that he got the drop on the detective without doing him harm suggests he's not some homicidal madman)? When, exactly, did he change his name, or, to put it another way, why is her grave marked Larue and not Branscom?

More questions: In Halpin's dream, what's the significance of his coming to the fork in the road and knowingly choosing the evil path? In Katy's dream, what's the significance of her drawing attention to Myron's being 'young' and 'handsome' - I assume it's put in for a reason? In Halpin's dream, what's the significance of his own voice and those of the spirits he hears both being garbled?

Is the story really about incest again (or, at least, desired incest)? Larue realises that the real love of Katy/Catharine's life is Halpin, murders her in a fit of jealous rage, then, on a visit to her grave, comes upon Halpern lying round the place, recognises him (presumably Katy took Halpin's portrait from her Nashville boudoir with her to California), and murders him in another jealous fury. But this seems to suggest that Katy and Halpin are punished for their incestuous desires when they'd 'done the right thing' with their mutual decision to separate.

I'm not sure this is a story where one can get to the bottom of it.

Or is it all a spoof with Katy and Halpin's real crime being their shared love of gloomy poetry?

Down in Mexico, was Ambrose Bierce strangled and quietly buried by a baffled reader?

ETA - I'm not completely joking about the spoof - noting some of the humour in it and wondering for what might that fog be a metaphor.

>24 alaudacorax:

Since it's Bierce, I'd say a humorous approach is not entirely out of the question, but the story is too...un-staged...for me to boil it all down to that, I think.

As for Mexico, AHAHAHAHA...could be!

More seriously:

The story certainly runs deep. There's so much to consider, that in the end it's not the kind of thing where any one interpretation is 'right' or 'wrong.' Some stories people dig too deep into, and I think 'Frayser' is the exact opposite: there's really no end to the digging here, and that's part of the story's power. And it IS powerful. Baffling, too.

His other famous short, 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' is in the same vein, in that it deals with psychic themes that are bottomless and difficult to fathom. But that story has a conclusiveness behind it, and one can exhaust his interpretations eventually. 'Frayser' is hard to reach a conclusion with—like, say, Heart of Darkness. And that lack of conclusion, perhaps, is what best defines (and qualifies for) that most over-used of adjectives: 'haunting.'

This story has really stuck with me. I don't think I'll forget it anytime soon. That last paragraph, the laughter rising from the woods like smoke, keeps intruding on my thoughts, defying my attempts at dismissal. What powerful images...and what a mind to have strung them together...

Incidentally, and completely off-topic (though still Bierce-related, I suppose), leafing through The Devil's Dictionary this afternoon, I found this delightfully mordant scrap:

MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

You gotta love a man who gives us 'Halpin Frayser' with the same hands he gives us THAT little drop of venom...

#25 - I was very impressed on some literature course I did with the idea that in Victorian times and earlier the act of reading had a noticeable financial cost for most of society. On the darker evenings of the year expensive candles or oil would have to be expended for one family member to read a book, twice as much for two members, and so on. The result was that reading was much more of a social pastime: one person would read aloud and the rest would listen. The outcome was that an author could expect his work to be pretty thoroughly discussed and argued over as an integral part of the reading process and had to provide 'meat' for this (and I imagine the short story writer, publishing first in magazines, was in a pretty competitive market).

So all this discussion we're having - Bierce probably anticipated and intended it. So, not exactly a spoof, but I suspect he might, somewhere, be having a chuckle at us: rather than layers and hidden meanings to be teased out - deliberate red herrings and contradictions.

Then again, I've only read it twice, so far.

Also, previously I've only read The Devil's Dictionary (love it) and the jet-blackly humorous and very short story about the chap being buried alive and the grave-robbers*; so those might be overly colouring my opinion.

ETA - *One Summer Night

Having written #26, I hasten to add that I quite enjoyed this story and I'm quite eager to read more of his stuff.

Try 'The Eyes of the Panther,' 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' as well as 'The Death of Halpin Frayser,' and his more intense, darker side comes through in spades. He often mingles the macabre or otherworldly with the humorous though; 'The Damned Thing' is a creepy little yarn in the vein of 'The Horla' (which we all really do need to read together some time!), but his chapter titles are a RIOT. The first refers to a dead body laid out before a coroner: that title being, 'ONE DOES NOT ALWAYS EAT WHAT IS ON THE TABLE.'

And I can't resist: one of my all-time favorites from the Devil's Dictionary:

ALONE, adj. In bad company.

That about sums up the man, if you ask me...

veilofisis - you're freaking me out! How the devil did you manage to answer #27 in about two seconds flat?

AHAHAHA

It was actually a response to #26!

Though it is about 3 AM here in California, and I can't believe I'm on frakking LibraryThing!!

But I can see how you'd think that! :D

I was thinking crystal balls or some such!

Anyway, sweet dreams to you and an hour or so out in the sunshine for me (enjoying our current heatwave).

I meant to add more to the discussion, but once my week starts I'm usually swamped at work. I hope by the weekend I'll follow up on what's been discussed. Lot of great minds at play here.

#33 - Perhaps we should be thinking of something like a lower time limit? Something like agreeing to give each work a minimum of a week or a minimum of two weeks or a minimum of two weekends ... or something. Personally, I'm still finding myself mulling over 'Usher'.

But, to get back to 'The Death of...':

I'm going to give it another go tonight and I have yet more questions.

That quote at the start: what is it for? I'm tempted to say that the story could manage pretty well without it; but, if it has to have a reason, the only one I can see (so far) is to tell us that the 'Catharine' that Halpin comes up against is a mindless thing not motivated in any way by the doings in the 'Katy' bit of the story - which neatly scuppers at least half of my theories.

Is it safe to talk about incest as I did above? This was published six years before Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, so would Bierce really have expected his readers to pick up a sexual nuance as a modern reader would? Or would he have expected it to be seen as more about an overly protective mother and an overly dependent son?

Well, people were hinting at nefarious sex goings-on long before Freud, no? There's incest already in the Bible, not to mention all those orally transmitted myths.

I agree with Isis that Bierce didn't necessarily "plan" for any specific insight or idea in his readers. I think he was just aiming to freak us out, by any means necessary! :)

#36 - I think he was just aiming to freak us out, by any means necessary!

To be honest, I think I agree with you, really. It's fun digging round, though! {That last sentence really needed a smiley or something, but I can never bring myself to write 'lol' in cold blood.}

I can never bring myself to write 'lol' in cold blood.

It took me years of training and cringe-fighting too. :) ;) LOL!!1!

>34 alaudacorax:

Yeah, I totally agree. I think one week for stories under say, ten pages is a decent amount of time. Maybe two weeks/weekends for anything over that?

>37 alaudacorax:, 38

...but I can never bring myself to write 'lol' in cold blood...

AHAHA

Fellow conspirators, I submit a tentative theory for your perusal.

The story is a spoof. I read it again last night and spotted what had been staring me in the back of the head all the time.

I think I've mentioned above the question of why Katy and Halpin meet violent deaths. What have they done to deserve it?

The answer lies not in incestuous feelings - that doubles up as a red herring and an extra layer of Gothic convention à la 'House of Usher' - but in old Myron Bayne. I suggest that Bierce deliberately concocted this name from 'mire' - a bog or morass - and 'bane' - 'a source or cause of evil, misery, etc.' (Chambers Dictionary - the OED site seems to be down this morning). In the opening quotation it is Bayne, not Katy/Catharine, that is the spirit 'in life ... benign' which in death becomes 'evil altogether' (metaphorically, of course).

The important point is that Katy and Halpin are devoted to his poetry.

The key to the mystery and the 'punchline to the joke' is the poem at the end; which Jaralson immediately identifies as typical Myron Bayne. The poem is pure Gothic.

The 'crime' for which Katy and Halpin are punished is that, rather than being 'upright citizens' like her first husband's people, they are (roll of drums or something, here) fans of the Gothic!

ETA - I suggest this explains the business of Halpin wilfully choosing the 'evil' branch of the fork in the road - or Gothic fiction over his father's family's interest in politics (irony, there, as Bierce clearly didn't have a very high opinion of politicians).

And, of course, it's a pretty good horror story in its own right. I'm beginning to think this is a really special piece of work.

>40 alaudacorax:

Ah, rankamateur, I wish I agreed! What a tempting conclusion. But, alas, there is just too much mystique here for me to draw the same...

If that's what happens to fans of the Gothic, though...I suggest we disband this group immediately. :D

In other news, another 3 AM night here in foggy California, and I have decided to use this idiotic product of my having (idiotically) a coffee at midnight at the local watering hole to reread an old favorite. You think you're playing it smart staying away from the booze, and then...anyway, so I'm sitting here rereading Dracula. I bought the Easton Press version recently, which is blah to me (except for that cover!), and which will now go sit in a dark corner waiting for someone who appreciates the illustrations (I don't) to pick it up on eBay, whenever I get around to listing it. I have now compulsively bought an Everyman's Library edition (always love those). Perhaps, like Frankenstein, it is too archetypal a story to illustrate: you can never please even just most of the people half of the time...

Digression? Yes. Sorry about that, folks...

Rankamateur: any thoughts on a story you'd like to read next time, when everybody is caught up? I think it's time to pass the baton on that. We should all trade off, so we can get a mixture of tastes, sub-genres, and styles. Or am I being presumptious?

#42 - Having come round to the idea that Bierce is quite brilliant (plus having been re-reading this thread while you were posting ("But you have jobs to do!" - "Shaddup!")), I now have to allow for the idea that there is even more to 'unpack' in this story. I can imagine him deliberately allowing for and plotting multiple interpretations.

Anyway, a vote of thanks to you, veilofisis, for putting me on to him; I am now officially an Ambrose Bierce fan and I definitely mean to read more of his stuff.

A story for next time? I'll give some thought to that, but later - jobs to do, as I said. Actually I'm a bit rusty on the subject as this group has brought me back to the genre after a gap of I don't know how many years, so don't wait on me to come up with something if anyone has something in mind - but, as I said, I'll give it some thought.

Actually, it occurs to me that it's not quite true about the gap as I'm a big Tanith Lee fan, but, for practical purposes, we really want something out of copyright, don't we?

Anyway, now I really must put this machine to sleep and go and do things!

There are a few more 'modern' Gothic stories worth reading, I believe, but I think the very early 20th Century was the final gasp of Gothic Lit as we understand it today. Gothic themes and motifs, of course, have survived and even thrive today, and certainly we have people like Du Maurier, Lovecraft, and even Stephen King to thank for that. Also, like you said, things out of copyright (and hence available online) just make it easier for everyone to join in, since some of these yarns can get pretty obscure, and I'm sure there are a few good choices that are difficult to obtain in print in one country or another at any given time.

As for Bierce, I'm glad you are a fan! He's certainly one of my favorite authors. I've always loved the kind of writer who is impossible to divorce totally from his work: Wilde, Byron, Beckford, Bierce, Conrad, etc...

I suppose my suggestions for another read would be: 'The Horla,' by Guy de Maupassant; 'The Listener,' by Algernon Blackwood (my favorite short story ever, incidentally...and it's creeeeepy); or another Poe: I think 'The Masque of the Red Death' is quite appropriate, and that's my all-time favorite of his works. Of course, this is becoming a very subjective list...

A more modern Gothic read would be Paul Bowles' 'The Delicate Prey.' That might be hard for eveyrone to get a hold of, though, and I warn that it is extremely violent and stains the brain for a long time. And I mean EXTREMELY violent; not like 'war-time' violent but like, slow-awful-death-of-an-innocent-person violent. Not graphic violence, precisely, but so well-written that you feel you are there, all blood-and-guts played as minimalistic as they are (as Bowles tends to do). But, if anyone can handle that, it's a profound and beautifully wrought story...

Anyway, there're my thoughts. I've never heard of Tanith Lee...

My dear Goths, your conspiracy and literary theories put me to shame! I listen and wonder.

#43

I'm reading Penguins new little compilation, The spook house, and dying to ask the editor why they DIDN'T include Halpin. Maybe they know something we don't?

In other semi-, quasi-Gothic news, I've decided to read the two books I have about the notorious Countess Bathory, the 16th century Hungarian aristocrat who reputedly had some 650 young girls murdered so she could bathe in their blood and preserve her beauty. They are The blood countess by Andrei Codrescu and The bloody countess by Valentine Penrose.

However, I'd read the Maupassant for the group read. Maybe the Blackwood too if it's in the compilations I have...

Ever see Countess Dracula with Ingrid Pitt? That's a Bathory-themed flick worth taking in...as inebriated, perhaps, as is possible...

Here's hoping we get horla-ed. (That sounds a little naughty, now doesn't it...)

#46

No, didn't see that! Ha, I'll make a note to have some wine handy. I admit enjoying Jean Rollin's vampire oeuvre too in alcoholically enhanced mood. The trick is to calibrate well--a drop over my puny limit and I'm asleep as the opening credits fade. ;)

Here's hoping we get horla-ed.

Well, who's to stop us!

By the way, have you read Robert Hichens' horror stories? There's one in Alberto Manguel's collection of the fantastic literature, Black water, deeply creepy, and a psychological cousin to the Horla. (Title escapes me at the moment... will look it up if you don't know it.)

By the by: as far as the Penguin goes, I think 'Halpin' probably misses most 'canonical' Gothic radars, but I think it's Bierce's most obviously Gothic story: the poetry, scattered in Udolpho-style; the dream focus; the suggestions of 'sin;' etc etc. I'll have to check the Blackwell guide at my library, since they included a note on Bierce, and see what they have to say. I also need to buy that at some point, but I keep er, redirecting my funds into things like this:

And no, I don't know Manguel. Sounds innnnteresting, Ms. Lola...

Oh, you should keep on the lookout for Black water--and there's also Black water 2. Probably can be found cheaply second-hand (at least that's how I found mine).

Ah, found the story--HOW LOVE CAME TO PROFESSOR GUILDEA

>48 veilofisis:

nice! What do the insides look like? Are the illustrations good? I sure hope FS reprints this eventually.

>50 LolaWalser:
I have that story, actually, in my copy of Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, I just realized. I'll give it a read this weekend!

>51 brother_salvatore:

I don't know about the insides yet. I pick it up tomorrow morning in San Francisco. I'm QUITE excited! I'll let you know/take some photos when I get a hold of it...

On the subject of our next read:

#50 - I see 'How Love Came to Professor Guildea' is available free online, so perhaps that.

Also 'The Horla', of course.

Also, as the group is still fairly new, I thought a couple of the iconic writers of the genre might be timely, so I put these forward as possibles - Mary Shelley's 'The Transformation' and Bram Stoker's 'Dracula's Guest' - though perhaps the latter is too overshadowed by the novel? Or is that a plus for the purposes of discussion?

ETA - Oops, forgot to say I'd also be happy with 'The Masque of the Red Death' or 'The Listener'. I haven't read either in years and I'd be happy to renew my acquaintance.

>53 alaudacorax:

I've never even HEARD of the Mary Shelley story. We'll definitely have to give that a go, if not this next time, then soon. As for 'Dracula's Guest,' I think it's a pretty strong story (certainly, in my opinion, the best of Stoker's short fiction), but it's always better to read it either pre- or post-novel. That said, if everyone has read Dracula proper, it could make for a good discussion.

I'm really leaning towards 'The Horla' and Lola's suggestion of 'How Love Came to Professor Guildea.' 'Masque' and the Blackwood (which I think I mentioned is my favorite short story) are more traditionally 'Gothic,' I suppose (especially Poe's), but one of the high points of discussing 'Halpin' was the departure from discussing 'conventions,' or whatever you'd want to deem the trappings of the genre in question, and looking at the sometimes disparate influence of the Radcliffe/Walpole set on people who were being much more creative with Gothic motifs.

I'm up for most anything, though. For the consideration of the busier folks about here, though, here are the rough lengths of the stories:

'The Masque of the Red Death' -- around ten pages
'The Horla' -- just over twenty pages
'How Love Came...'-- around forty-five pages
'The Listener' -- less than thirty pages

My vote (decisions, decisions!) is for 'The Horla,' because, like 'Halpin,' here we have a somewhat ironic personality writing a story that is on one hand terrifying and on the other leaves lingering questions of the reliability of our narrator (this story is told diary-style, like 'The Listener') and our own perceptions of the 'facts.' I'd love to keep the others on the list for our next few reads, of course. They're all gems.

Incidentally, I pick up my Folio Radcliffe set in San Francisco today! I'l post some photos later this weekend.

I'm all for "The Horla." I haven't read Maupassant since high school, and I've never read this one.

I'm happy to go with that - I read it last night - plus all the other stories mentioned (there was some wedding all over the telly).

'The Horla' it is, then! I'll give it a read tonight, after I finish my obnoxious Henry IV papers...oy...

I've started a third reading group thread, to keep us organized!

#47 - I admit enjoying Jean Rollin's vampire oeuvre too in alcoholically enhanced mood.

I finally got around to looking up Jean Rollin as the name didn't ring any bells. Hah! I saw 'Requiem for a Vampire' on late-night TV many years ago and it's stuck in my mind ever since - the only words I can think of are 'unique' for the film and 'gobsmacked' for me. One of those rare films that's a load of rubbish and a load of fun (with a bottle of wine, at least) at one and the same time.

They had a documentary about him, too. If I remember right, it was a series. Each week they'd have a documentary about a director and then show one of his films. I think Jess Franco was one of the others, so you'll get the kind of thing they were covering - all very ribald and late-night (just found it on IMDb - it was called Eurotika!).

#59 - Very belatedly, I've just discovered that I got my wires not so much crossed as seriously tangled on that one. I was confusing Jean Rollin with Jess Franco, and Rollins' 'Requiem for a Vampire' with Franco's 'Female Vampire' - which was what I was actually remembering when I thought I was writing about 'Requiem ...'

I'm still trying to work out whether I've actually seen 'Requiem for a Vampire' - the name is so familiar but none of the online plot descriptions ring any bells.

Is this Jess the same as Jesus Franco? I've only seen the Sacher-Masoch story by the latter. Venus in furs. Nothing vampirical. Will be on the lookout...

Rollin also wrote horror, but I haven't read any.

> 60

Jean Rollin was included in Channel 4's Eurotika! series - it was around 1999 - but the film they screened was "Shiver of the Vampires".

#61 - Yep, he's the same chap (and a few others).

#62 - Eurotika is probably where I'm remembering the 'Requiem ...' name from - they probably mentioned it in the little documentary they used to do for each director.