Goddamn Noisy Neighbors...
The Music of Erich Zann is quite possibly my favorite Lovecraft tale. It was also one of Lovecraft's favorite Lovecraft tales.
I adore this piece for two reasons, first because there is a lot of action and not a lot of abstract description. More so than many Lovecraft stories, we feel connected with the nameless protagonist, the student of Metaphysical Studies. I don't like him much, but his hubris makes the dramatic irony delicious. Every time he calls the Zann crazy for staring out the window, or being afraid that something could get in on the sixth floor, we Lovecraft readers know that not only CAN something get in the window, but we bet it will. The language in this piece is not as flowery as HP sometimes can be, and I think it punches all the harder for that. He still gets to use his wonderful descriptive prose, the opening establishing paragraphs of the Rue d’Auseil set a really nice, melancholy mood which resonates through the piece.
Random fact: The "viol" in the story is NOT a violin, but a cello. Says Wikipedia: "The name Cello is an abbreviation of the Italian violoncello, which means "little violone", referring to the violone ("big viol"), the lowest-pitched instrument of the viol family, the group of string instruments that were superseded by the violin family."
The second reason this piece warms the dark ichors of my heart is that literally the exposition goes OUT THE WINDOW! Zann spends an hour writing to the narrator, telling him everything that has happened, explaining the music, what's out the window, all of it. And it blows out the window, the narrator never sees it or has a chance to translate it. H.P. Podcraft's hosts Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer described this story as though Zann is the average Lovecraft protagonist, but just this once HP though it would be fun to tell the story from the POV of the guy downstairs. Lovecraft is often criticized for telling us too much about his unspeakable horrors, here he does not. The outsider's vantage point makes the story a mystery for us, though it's a flashback, we're discovering the mystery along with the narrator. How many books would benefit if the big reveal went out the window, leaving the characters in the all too real position of not knowing what's happening to them. It wouldn't make for satisfying reading all the time, but I think a lot of horror and dark fantasy would benefit.
In the Pseudopod outro for this story, Alasdair Stuart describes Zann as "One person, standing at the gate of destruction, facing them down for one more night," (Pseudopod Outro, Episode 100). Did he fail because of the narrator? Sure he was old, probably was headed in the direction of failure sooner or later, but if the narrator hadn't intervened, would Zann have kept up holding them off? And it's fun to speculate (since the answer blew away!) how Zann got in this mess. I imagine it as a Faustian/Devil Went Down to Georgia kind of bargain (the song sticks in my head for days whenever I read the story, and I imagine Zann's "strains of his own devising" as the section of the song that the devil plays). Fifer and Lackey hypothesize that whatever Zann couldn't hold back removed the entire Rue d’Auseil out of existence and removed everyone's memories of it. What fun to speculate.
I especially like the close of the piece. This line stuck with me, "And I recall that there was no wind, and that the moon was out, and that all the lights of the city twinkled." And also the very last line, drawing the untidy package together with a neat bit of closure: "Despite my most careful searches and investigations, I have never since been able to find the Rue d’Auseil. But I am not wholly sorry; either for this or for the loss in undreamable abysses of the closely-written sheets which alone could have explained the music of Erich Zann."
If you have any passing interest in Lovecraft, or especially if you DON'T, check out the HP Podcraft Literary Podcast. http://blog.hppodcraft.com It greatly enhanced my appreciation of H.P., it's funny and interesting all at once!
Works Cited:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello
http://blog.hppodcraft.com/2009/12/09/episode-23--the-music-of-erich-zann.aspx
http://pseudopod.org/2008/07/25/pseudopod-100-the-music-of-erich-zann/
I adore this piece for two reasons, first because there is a lot of action and not a lot of abstract description. More so than many Lovecraft stories, we feel connected with the nameless protagonist, the student of Metaphysical Studies. I don't like him much, but his hubris makes the dramatic irony delicious. Every time he calls the Zann crazy for staring out the window, or being afraid that something could get in on the sixth floor, we Lovecraft readers know that not only CAN something get in the window, but we bet it will. The language in this piece is not as flowery as HP sometimes can be, and I think it punches all the harder for that. He still gets to use his wonderful descriptive prose, the opening establishing paragraphs of the Rue d’Auseil set a really nice, melancholy mood which resonates through the piece.
Random fact: The "viol" in the story is NOT a violin, but a cello. Says Wikipedia: "The name Cello is an abbreviation of the Italian violoncello, which means "little violone", referring to the violone ("big viol"), the lowest-pitched instrument of the viol family, the group of string instruments that were superseded by the violin family."
The second reason this piece warms the dark ichors of my heart is that literally the exposition goes OUT THE WINDOW! Zann spends an hour writing to the narrator, telling him everything that has happened, explaining the music, what's out the window, all of it. And it blows out the window, the narrator never sees it or has a chance to translate it. H.P. Podcraft's hosts Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer described this story as though Zann is the average Lovecraft protagonist, but just this once HP though it would be fun to tell the story from the POV of the guy downstairs. Lovecraft is often criticized for telling us too much about his unspeakable horrors, here he does not. The outsider's vantage point makes the story a mystery for us, though it's a flashback, we're discovering the mystery along with the narrator. How many books would benefit if the big reveal went out the window, leaving the characters in the all too real position of not knowing what's happening to them. It wouldn't make for satisfying reading all the time, but I think a lot of horror and dark fantasy would benefit.
In the Pseudopod outro for this story, Alasdair Stuart describes Zann as "One person, standing at the gate of destruction, facing them down for one more night," (Pseudopod Outro, Episode 100). Did he fail because of the narrator? Sure he was old, probably was headed in the direction of failure sooner or later, but if the narrator hadn't intervened, would Zann have kept up holding them off? And it's fun to speculate (since the answer blew away!) how Zann got in this mess. I imagine it as a Faustian/Devil Went Down to Georgia kind of bargain (the song sticks in my head for days whenever I read the story, and I imagine Zann's "strains of his own devising" as the section of the song that the devil plays). Fifer and Lackey hypothesize that whatever Zann couldn't hold back removed the entire Rue d’Auseil out of existence and removed everyone's memories of it. What fun to speculate.
I especially like the close of the piece. This line stuck with me, "And I recall that there was no wind, and that the moon was out, and that all the lights of the city twinkled." And also the very last line, drawing the untidy package together with a neat bit of closure: "Despite my most careful searches and investigations, I have never since been able to find the Rue d’Auseil. But I am not wholly sorry; either for this or for the loss in undreamable abysses of the closely-written sheets which alone could have explained the music of Erich Zann."
If you have any passing interest in Lovecraft, or especially if you DON'T, check out the HP Podcraft Literary Podcast. http://blog.hppodcraft.com It greatly enhanced my appreciation of H.P., it's funny and interesting all at once!
Works Cited:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello
http://blog.hppodcraft.com/2009/12/09/episode-23--the-music-of-erich-zann.aspx
http://pseudopod.org/2008/07/25/pseudopod-100-the-music-of-erich-zann/