Page:Weird Tales Volume 44 Number 7 (1952-11).djvu/10

I see that you occasionally publish letters from people. You seem to like knowing which story we readers like best—and I am an old reader of W. T.

Well, sir, this time it's no doubt the story about the waiter and the table (Table No. 16 by Curtis W. Casewit in Weird Tales for September) which is the very best. I'm a waitress myself, and I know how very money-greedy my male colleagues are! I was much impressed by the story. P. Joske

I feel that last issue's letter from Joseph V. Wilcox contra H. P. Lovecraft contained enough misleading and opinionated matter to war rant a rebuttal in your pages. Mr. Wilcox objects to Lovecraft's style as "affected, turgid, and labored." That is to say, it was complex and dense. So was that of Poe. Lovecraft belongs among writers who cultivated a special manner consciously. As time passes, such writers tend to refîne their style until an almost esoteric effect is produced. This makes for difficult reading, but if the style is warranted by the effect, it is certainly permissible. I feel that in the main Lovecraft justified his mannerisms by employing them skillfully and controlling them judiciously.

If H. P. L. "lacked the ability to tell a plain tale and tell it straight," so did Machen, Conrad, Faulkner, and Dickens, to name just the first that come to mind. Neither clarity nor objectivity is necessary in the dream-like effect Lovecraft sought.

Similarly, "reticence and detachment" are not necessary for "a good ghost story" (I can't think of a single true ghost story in Lovecraft's work). Reticence and detachment are earmarks of a certain kind of horror story; not of all. Lovecraft felt emotional involvement, and wrote that way. Concerning the Mythos and its genuine contribution to fantasy, I can only say that to me it rings true as an admirable feat of the creative imagination. In the midst of one of H. P. L.'s stories I momentarily share his superb escapist dream of an awesome cosmos of veiled, implacable forces and unknowably vast patterns. This is the highest praise I can offer this artist.

Weird Tales has pioneered in presenting three unique talents of the first rank: Lovecraft, Derleth, and Bradbury. Each has his special strengths and weaknesses, each his special admirers. Though my preference is probably clear. I hope I do not overvalue my favorite to the point of undervaluing others.

I have a two-fold purpose in writing to your magazine; in the first place, although I always mistrust the "your magazine is wonderful" type of letter, I must say in all fairness, that as regards the quality of material published, you are way ahead of the other pulps. I don't mean that I like all the stories, many of them are too inspired for my atrocious tastes, but all seem to me to have some thought behind them, they don't read as if they were dashed off by an author with the single thought in his mind, "That's another ten cents."

I should like to see more of H. P. Lovecraft. I have an insatiable appetite for his work; anyone not agreeing has no business to be reading Weird Tales anyhow.

The illustrations are good; some of the covers don't excite me, but one can't expect everything for a shilling.

After the bouquets, the ulterior motive! I am interested in getting in touch with any fellow readers of like morbid and bloodthirsty tastes in literature, for the purpose of corresponding and forming a loosely-knit Fan club here. If anyone interested will write to me, I will undertake to circulate names and addresses.