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Episode 467 - The Loved Dead (Patreon)

Published:
2019-09-14 01:53:23
Imported:
2021-07
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Join us as we delicately and <gulp> lovingly examine The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy and H.P. Lovecraft!

Special thanks to reader Andrew Leman of the AMAZING LEMANS!

Next up: ASHES

Comments

Rick Hound

As soon as I looked at the upcoming story from Patton’s last week was shown, I knew this was going to be pretty...macabre than usual

Anonymous

No way! Lol. No time to listen to this episode just yet, but the ‘nads on you lads! Both excited and nervous to hear you guys take this...interesting story on!

Anonymous

Same as Robert. No time. But I love you guys so much

Anonymous

Chad, any plans to release the outro music on Band Camp? It's one of my favorite pieces and I don't think it's included on any of the earlier releases.

Anonymous

Honestly, I was surprised last week to see this one was coming up, given the times you two have referenced it but not covered it. It truly is Lovecraft's most disturbing work, in my opinion, just because (as you point out) both Eddy and he were able to identify so well with the ideation of serial killers long before modern psychology had identified and popularized their emotional and physiological cycles. It's just so far from Lovecraft's other works, including revisions, which always had at least an element of the supernatural. One is left to wonder about the circumstances that spawned this work, as much as the kind of conversation Lovecraft and Eddy must have had in shaping it (even if only through revisions). What were they thinking, and what was their inspiration? I've never looked for correspondence or Lovecraft's notes related to The Loved Dead, but it would be very interesting to hear from anyone who is aware of any such writings. I also think Andrew Leman should get exceptional special praise this time around for being able to speak the turgid purple prose of this...um...tale (?) without choking on the words. (Maybe a poor choice of words.)

Anonymous

Oof. Plaudits for braving this story, gents. It was a shudder-y one (thanks and praise to Mr. Leman as always for his delivery), but I agree with Chad that the horrors in here were uncomfortably too-real-world, and likewise not my preference. I will say this, though: what's so attractive about literature in general, and to me the horror genre in particular, is that it presents an opportunity for us as humanity to grapple with challenging concepts in a space where they can't outright harm us. This can be said not just for horror, but for science fiction, fantasy, any branch of fiction you like. In that regard, The Loved Dead is what I think H.P. went for so often; an exploration of concepts that SHOULD make us uncomfortable and have us questioning our outlook on the cosmos. That's what I keep coming back for, at least. Which, on a happier note, is why I'll keep coming back to your excellent work. I've yet to be disappointed, and Great Old Ones willing, never will!

Anonymous

Love that you finally tackled this controversial story! It’s gruesome, and (as you said) very close to home in its realistic handling of the narrator’s psyche. I’d never heard of this one, but now I’m very curious to read it for myself. Creeped out, but curious.

Anonymous

Now that was delightful. Not the tale. Listening to you fine boon companions wrestle with a story that removes the uncaring universe and centers on an uncaring one of us. Or wrong caring. Dyscaring. The wires were crossed and we sort of hope that genetics or upbringing or something - *anything* - will explain what happened. Because it is all too terrifying to think we live in a world where some folks are just like this. No explanation. No way to fix it. Maybe not even objectively broken. Just alien. Wrapped in human skin. One more note: I'm a little surprised you didn't conclude that he killed his father. I assumed so. Which, perhaps, says nothing particularly good about me. Hmmm. Time to exit. I'll leave with a riff on that classic last line from Clue, I'm gonna go home and sleep with my very much alive wife.

Anonymous

Take a shot for 'daemoniacal force'.

Anonymous

I'm surprised neither of you pointed out the possible suggestion of post-mortem pedophilia with his last trio of victims. Or...not. Not even remotely. Anyway, I'm glad you finally covered the best of the Eddy revisions. Upsetting as the subject matter is, the tale is actually pretty solid as a short story. I'm honestly more frightened that you'll have to get through "Ashes" next week, Azathoth save us.

Anonymous
>>26824735

Also, I see you used your opportunity to say "Debbie Downer" well, Chris.

Anonymous

Listening to this podcast and getting a news notification about Dr. Ulrich Klopfer having over 2,200 bodies just found in his home after he died last week is creepy! Edit And at the end were it is mentioned that this story was banned in Indiana, Holy Synchronicity Batman ,this happened in Indiana. Surely we are closer to the Return of the Dark Gods and their Judgement upon us, Hail Cthulhu!

Anonymous

I have not listened yet, but I read this one last week since I saw it was going to be next. I remember you guys talking about it back when you were covering HPL's work, and that it created a rift between Lovecraft and Farnsworth, because of how it disturbed Farnsworth. So I was expecting something much more lurid or racy, with vivid descriptions of necrophilia. Instead it turned out to be much less extreme. That is not a bad thing, IMHO, just that it did not seem even half as disturbing as I expected. TBH, I found The Screwfly Solution to be far more emotionally brutal (though for obviously much different reasons). I saw HPL's influence very directly here with the very vivid and lush prose. "...sepulchral sentinels guarding unkempt graves, the tilting, decrepit headstones lie halfhidden in masses of nauseous, rotting vegetation." Pure HP, mood-building writing here, which I tremendously enjoyed. I am sure the subject matter was purely (or nearly so) Eddy. Though it does take me back to The Tomb, with its protagonist who spent all his time in the old family tomb. Or did he? This takes it much farther than just hanging out and laying in a coffin however, with the protagonist going that extra step to kill people to satisfy his love for death. Like I said earlier, I was expecting there to be sex with corpses as well. On my first reading I did not see anything to suggest that, except by reading deeply into subtext that might not really be there. I am always very leery of trying to read subtext, because of how subjective that is. For example the Dirty Harry movies, and all of their homoerotic subtext. Like the "Did he fire six shots, or only five?" scene. Harry's gun is a blatant phallic metaphor. He may as well just drop his pants and pull out his unit while he says "Make my day!" or "Do you feel lucky?" Oh wait, that's total B.S. That is the problem with subtext. We can pretend whatever we want to be there. But now that I listened to the episode, I realized that I missed a few key words, that must have vanished into the mist of purple Poeish prose this story is filled with. Notably the word "carnal", which is really blatant. On the other hand I still do not imagine the protagonist had sex with his father or mother. Just that he enjoyed being around the dead, who were no longer judgmental, but safely compliant. But toward the end, yeah, total sticking his necro into their philia. Still, I thought it was a good story as well. So far the best of the CM Eddy stuff I have been exposed to. The prose creates a really dark mood, the characterization is a wonderful (maybe that is not the correct word) portrayal of what we might consider a modern serial killer, far before that became a staple of the media. I still don't find it that horrific though. Maybe I am just so incredibly jaded that a little thing like a serial killer banging his victims just cannot put a dent in my emotional body armor.

Anonymous

I have to agree with Chad here. It’s a good story about a bad topic; didn’t know our boy had it in him. I’m actually very impressed with Lovecraft in this one. The idea of serial killers in general were known. Between Burke and Hare and of course the later Devil in the white city murders my understanding is the later were splattered all across the newspapers. Those two however are driven by financial gain as opposed to what Lovecraft has here, that of a purely emotional serial killer. We are always quick to say “this is your generic Lovecraft stand in”. I don’t believe it is a true stand in but his upbringing and isolation with loved ones can certainly be seen through the writing style. Thank you for covering this I highly enjoyed it. PS- the entire time I was listening it reminded me of a comment Chris made several years ago in that “You can’t disappoint someone when your dead.” I think it might have been the house of Usher podcast?

Anonymous

I think there are a few other glimpses into Lovecraft's understandings of how wrong and horrific actual humans can be, which is perhaps overshadowed by the more cosmic horror. This story reminded me of The Picture in the House, as the old man of that story was clearly also a serial killer. That story also had the descriptions of how he felt after looking at the photos and dispatching a... sheep. There are other stories that hint at horrors done by other depraved folk. What sets this apart for me is the more obvious content and the apparent lack of any 'reason' (using Lovecraft's understanding, problematic as it is) for the character's actions.

Anonymous

It's crazy how this predates Dahmer by almost half a century but seems to capture the very essence of his psyche, and those like him. Dahmer even said things eerily similar to the narrator: "The only motive that there ever was was to completely control a person; a person I found physically attractive. And keep them with me as long as possible, even if it meant just keeping a part of them." He also went so far as to try and create a living zombie out of one of his victims, pouring acid in his brain, stating that he felt bad about taking life (as insane as this sounds!) and would rather keep his victims living under his control without objection. And though it's true, he was driven by a seemingly irrational, uncontrollable compulsion to kill and completely disregard other human beings as objects for his pleasure, Dahmer, it seems, was also very well aware of his obsession with the dead and relished in it, like the narrator of this story, going so far as to draw up plans for a sacred shrine devoted to the dead with all the skulls he had collected from his victims.

Anonymous

Great coverage once again. This sounds like a truly sinister story, with classic HPL language. I've always heard it wasn't a good story but, and maybe this was Andrew Lehman's amazing readings combined with your insights, it sounds kinda awesomely horrific. Also, the entire time, I kept thinking: aren't vampire romances really necrophilia stories? Don't they at least tap into these same taboos? Just a thought.

Anonymous
>>26883494

Sort of, but in reverse. With vampire "romances," it's the corpse exerting power over and violating the living.

Anonymous
>>26829492

I think it is because I do not really identify with the victims in this story. None of them are really fleshed out as people. So they do not feel real to me, and I cannot feel empathy for them. So I don't feel the impact of their deaths, or their post-mortem entertainments. The story is written from the POV of the murderer, and this certainly mirrors how he views them as well. He does not care to know their names. They are not people to him. Their lives have no meaning or value to him. Except what he makes of them. Maybe that should chill me. But instead it just makes it all feel academic to me.

Anonymous

Listened to this with my wife, and at the end she says, "that's a little messed up" followed shortly by "wait, did they just thank you?" :P

Anonymous

Did anyone else get the impression that the narrator killed his father? That he caused the "hitherto unsuspected heart affliction" so that he could again feel the "diabolical ecstasy" he felt when his mother died?

Anonymous

Regarding the lack of necrophilia as a theme in popular culture/movies etc. I recently watched the film 'Weekend at Bernie's' and was surprised to see an unwitting act of necrophilia played for comic effect, in a film rated PG13. Either somebody at the Motion Picture Association of America dropped the ball, or the subject matter is more prosaic than you think.

Anonymous

Just listened. Totally gross, but an excellent episode!

Anonymous

Wow, I wasn't sure this one would ever get discussed. It's one of the only HPL stories I haven't read so I was glad its time finally came. This went somewhere dark for sure, but like all the actual necrophilic acts, the darkest stuff in the story is just hinted at. Can you imagine what it must be like to only be able to feel comfortable with or be able to be 'intimate' with corpses? That sounds like a horrible existence, though whether or not people who live that way actually experience it as horrible is hard to know. We have a natural aversion to corpses and experience them, and the smell of death, as extremely unpleasant because we've evolved to do so - likely to keep us safe from illnesses that can be spread through rotting things (I think I've read but I have no idea where so don't quote me on it). So the idea of that instinct being perverted is incredibly upsetting to us. I also love spooky, creepy, stuff with themes of death, etc. but when it comes to ACTUAL death - in the flesh - I find that I want as little to do with it as the next person. I've read way more graphic stories and I think the fact that this story just sort of implied all these terrible things without describing or naming them explicitly made it worse. Once you've described something it becomes far less horrible. It's way worse to leave it to the imagination. I was making this face the whole time https://gph.is/1bC9Z62

Anonymous

Andrew’s opening reading reminded me of a question I’ve wanted to ask you for a while: why do Americans pronounce fungi ‘fun-jye’? Haven’t you ever heard the joke ‘Why are mushrooms good at parties’? I feel sad that an entire continent are missing out on this joke, whilst it also adds a new take on the Mi-Go, who would also be great at parties.

Anonymous
>>26913071

The answer is that we generally don't. Some people say "funji," but most say "fun guy."

Anonymous

Ah, ok. That makes me feel better.

Anonymous

I believe that the arthouse movie Chris was thinking about was Kissed, which was based on the true story of Karen Greenlee, a woman who was caught after she stole a hearse to have sex with the corpse it was carrying.

Anonymous

Thank you for covering this story! It had actually been dramatised in a Swedish late night radio and then published in the same anthology that I read my first Lovecraft stories. I found it intensely frightening then when I was twelve. Thanks to the insights of Chad and Chris it still intensely frightening. I did not know then it had been revised by HPL. Another movie that deals with necrophilia is Pedro Almodovar's Matador. I find that movie sickening and definitely overrated.

Anonymous

That opening monologue was as gratuitous as a 10 course meal of nothing but dessert.

Anonymous

On my afternoon walk I decided to listen to podcasts as I took in the late summer breezes of Providence. First up was this engaging discussion on necrophilia, and then next in my playlist was an episode of ‘Lore’ dealing with cannibalism. Truly a charming afternoon stroll if ever there was one...

Anonymous

Another great episode, and what a grizzly story! Interestingly, it reminded me of the first story in the episode of Black Mirror entitled 'Black Museum', despite the subject matter being quite different - I think it is the element of addiction which is explored extensively in both, and perhaps that is one of the things that makes them so chilling. Addiction itself can be seen as a kind of madness; we can form nonsensical, unbreakable habits that can even drag us all the way to the grave, and we're all susceptible to varying degrees. I thought that framing the main character as an addict made the horror all the more palpable.

Anonymous
>>26928887

oh, and that Black Mirror episode is based on a short story, Penn Jillette's 'The Pain Addict'. I've not read it but it is definitely on the list! The Black Mirror adaptation is some next level darkness!!

Anonymous

I had read this story before and knowing of the so called connection to necrophilia ,I found no real firm basis for the theory.As an Alice Cooper fan the song “I Love the Dead” always comes to mind ,in which “other uses “ is the only inference of something sinister and it tells more of the reader /listener that sex first comes to mind.Also the time of this writing was when the industry of professionals came into body preparation for burial as opposed to families.Just like the “Satanic Panic “ of the eighties,which newly liberated mothers handed over their children to daycare and to potential Satanic worshipping rapists (as the never explored backbone of the whole idea that the religious Right fostered) ,the press could have been protected a new industry and advertising dollars bought about by the newly found commercialization of death by banning this story.I sure all this was floating around the at the time and Lovecraft just picked up on it and had a joke on everything.

Anonymous

I've been waiting for you guys to cover this for years! I'd hoped you'd get Bruce Green for the reading, but I'm always happy to hear Andrew's voice.

Anonymous

I don't know too much about Eddy, but when it comes to Lovecraft (and Poe) I think the idea that somebody just wants to sit and gaze longingly at a dead body is... Well, maybe “normal” is the wrong word, but it doesn't seem misplaced in that fictional world.

Jason Thompson

“I felt my form straighten without conscious volition” 😶

Jason Thompson

No WONDER you didn't read it at the live show!! This one seems like a great example of "Lovecraft as edgelord" (by which I mean, he was consciously trying to offend and shock people, not just be scary). Like the masturbation subtext in "The Picture in the House," or the Christian subversion in "The Dunwich Horror."

Jason Thompson

BTW, now that you're going all the way back to C.M. Eddy, y'all should also consider covering Sonia Greene's other horror story, "Four O'Clock"! In the old editions of Arkham House books it was actually credited as a Lovecraft revision, but IIRC it was eventually determined he didn't work on it. It's super short, though, so maybe you'd have to pair it with another short-short story: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Four_O%27Clock

Anonymous
>>26964380

What is the masterbation subtext in "The Picture in the House? Pretty much all of Lovecraft is a Christian subversion.

Anonymous

This reminded me of the Maupassant story "Diary of a Madman," which you covered a few years ago. I think it was trying to get at roughly the same mentality of a serial killer, though without the Necrophilia angle. I wondered initially if this story was inspired by the case of Carl Tanzler, the doctor who stole the body of a young TB patient who he'd become obsessed with and lived with it for 7 (!) years before the he was discovered, by I checked the dates and he wasn't found out until 1940. I'm surprised you didn't mention Wuthering Heights, since there is that scene were we're told that Heathcliff digs up Cathy's (extremely well preserved) corpse, and er, cuddles with it. I wonder if that had any influence on Lovecraft or Eddy when writing this? Anyway, as usual great episode - this story was definitely better than The Ghost Eater on its merits, but on the whole I much prefer my weird fiction with a dash of the supernatural

Anonymous

I think this story puts to rest the idea that Lovecraft was this uptight shut-in that wasn't very worldly. If nothing else, he can imagine enough of what might go on to consider himself unhindered by convention. It took some real guts to put this thing out there, and he thought it worthwhile enough to do so. He doesn't strike me as the kind of person to put trash out there with no redeeming value.

Anonymous

I am so, so honored to have been thanked at the end of THIS episode! This story made me think of a novel from 1972 I read a year or so ago, "The Necrophiliac" by Don Bapst and translated from French by Gabrielle Witkoff. Certainly ghoulish material, but I felt it was handled pretty well. Anyway, thanks for your awesome show! It is always a pleasure to listen to and always a wonderful way to find new literary material to check out. :)

Anonymous

My own recollection of this tale is that I had read it way back when in an EC black and white comics version (or some other similar publication). I've been searching for it, but can't find it. Still, the narration really brings back memories of particularly gruesome images (in black and white rectangles), but EC did have a lot of tales involving getting up close and personal with the dead (though often with the dead waking up to turn the tables on the creep before he could get really creepy). As far as what others have mentioned about how the audience of the time would have been shocked, well certainly the actual necrophilia would have been the horror that dare not speak its name, but I think Eddy and Lovecraft were making use of the fact that people of the early twentieth century were far more comfortable (probably not the right word) of corpses than later generations. Many of them probably had those Victorian photos on the mantelpiece of their parents as children lined up with their far too many by today's standards of siblings that could include at least one who was dead and propped up. And remember those weren't polaroids, with everyone standing for what must have seemed like an eternity sometimes holding or posing the dead one. Of course, even more salient would be that fact that most people died at home attended to by the family, plus wakes. While embalming itself was an established practice by this time, it wasn't always done. There were still many, especially in rural areas, who did not make use of it for either financial or religous/cultural reasons, the latter looking upon embalmers with greater suspcion and disdain than even the general public. I think that is one aspect Eddy and Lovecraft are making use of, and while not brilliantly, part of the whole creep-out atmosphere. Besides tapping into a serial killer's mindset (it wasn't the first in that regard and certainly not the best), the story has always seemed Stephen Kingish in that here is the normal world where unspeakable horror lurks just beneath the surface. The narrator is the transgressive element that upsets the societal pact made with the reality of death and how it's dealt with and simultaneously how the less pleasant aspects are ignored or supressed. The really noteworthy point is that they made the transgression non-supernatural (as King has done from time to time). It could've been better written of course, but I got more than a few chills down the spine, even if they came from misremembered devourings (oh language) of forbidden mags read behind a gas station at the age of 12.

Anonymous

The first time I read The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler I finally understood how much the Hays Code skewed my understanding of the past. Stories like these are such excellent peaks at society behind the manners. Like you said, serial killers aren't new, and I've even less doubt now that people have always has some level of understanding of them. Even when violence was a more acceptable form of communication there was a limit. Neighborhoods were aware of who crossed the line, even if they didn't talk about it. Stories like this help dispel the myth of the good old days more effectively because it takes a certain understanding of cruelty in order to create such characters. The story may not hold great literary value, but historically I think it hints at a lot about where people's minds were.

Anonymous

Attended a campfire reading the other night and a friend read poetry written by serial killers, which we collectively criticized and then tossed into the fire. I guarantee none of them could write as well as this. They do tend to reveal what they think of themselves, their ego. I doubt HP or CM considered the killer's self-obsession and it shows up here only as a result of narration.

Anonymous

Hah, who knew my small eldritch library of forbidden tomes of arcane knowledge would some day come in handy? I have the 4 volume Arkham house set of Lovecraft stories so I'll actually be able to read these Eddy jr stories in hard back instead of online like most of this stuff

William Rieder

Complete reading now up on pseudopod: http://pseudopod.org/2020/01/17/pseudopod-685-the-loved-dead/

Anonymous

When he said he had his arms around the naked, fetid corpse do you think he was in dead earnest?