The Music of Erich Zann

Our instructor posted prompt this week asked us to describe what we feared, a topic I had no difficulty addressing. Similarly, I can state with utter certainty what I do not, so far, fear: the work of H.P. Lovecraft, and in this specific instance his short story “The Music of Erich Zann”.

Simply put, this story failed to terrify me or even to move me much at all. For a “horror” tale, there just wasn’t anything horrifying about this piece. I came away from reading it with one overwhelming emotion: disappointment that this story didn’t scare me at all.

Much like he did in “Pickman’s Model”, Lovecraft gives us an artist – in this case, a musician – and his devotee, neither of which I found particularly intriguing. Their respective fates, consequently, I was never fully invested in. I did feel he did a more than competent job of describing at least the character of Erich Zann, and as I didn’t need to know what the narrator necessarily looked like, that was sufficient. In fact, I thought Lovecraft went a little overboard with his modification when describing Erich Zann. As a reader it was a challenge to assemble so many concrete details in my head.

Again as in “Pickman’s Model”, it seems the dread Lovecraft is trying to evoke in his reader is their fear of the unknown. We are asked to be fearful of what lies outside of Erich Zann’s window and to find the unknown origin of his “weird notes” unsettling. I am not one of those readers that finds the unseen to be frightening. It’s almost, in my view, as if I needed to invent my own back story in order to be remotely interested in the story Lovecraft actually told. In a nutshell, that’s where this story fell flat for me: I simply didn’t know enough about these characters to care what happened to them or even what had already happened to them.

I have to give Lovecraft credit where it’s due, however, and comment on what I did find appealing about this work. The real star of this show was the setting. Beginning in the third paragraph, passages like “shut out the sun perpetually” and “odorous with evil stenches which I have never smelled elsewhere” I found evocative and arresting. I certainly got a clear mental picture of the characters’ surroundings throughout the piece. Erich Zann’s “lofty and isolated garret room” was very masterfully depicted.

Unfortunately the setting porn just wasn’t enough to actively engage and maintain my interest in this work, and my overall impressions of it are that it was a mediocre effort. I don’t even think Hollywood could salvage this one. All the CGI animation, creepy music and special make up effects wouldn’t be enough to make this frightening.

As I stated in my earlier entry about “Pickman’s Model”, I can only hope that before this course is over, I read something by Lovecraft that moves or frightens me. Thus far, however, I am not a huge fan.