Our Hero Walks Into A Bar: An Exercise

Reading through the works of the Lovecraft Circle (and its extensions), it’s possible to see quite clearly how much they influenced each other. It’s not simply the borrowing of concepts and tropes, but also the style and forms of stories that they chose to tell. In doing so, they moved the “weird fiction” tale out of its original format and into what we would today call “fantasy”, “swords and sorcery”, or “dark fantasy”. It’s widely touted that Robert E. Howard “invented” the fantasy novel, but I would suggest that he merely refined the format after consultation with his peers; and all of these guys have a clear debt to Lord Dunsany as inspiration.

As a fun exercise, I’ve gathered here a similar scene from as many ‘Circle writers as I can find in order to compare and contrast. In each instance, our (anti)hero(es) walk into a bar (or similar) on a (possibly) dark and stormy night. In each instance (and they’re listed chronologically) it’s possible to see how each author influenced the others in terms of both style and content.

H.P.Lovecraft – “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” (1926-27)

“The black galley slipped into the harbour past the basalt mole and the tall lighthouse, silent and alien, and with a strange stench that the south wind drove into the town. Uneasiness rustled through the taverns along that waterfront, and after awhile the dark wide-mouthed merchants with humped turbans and short feet clumped stealthily ashore to seek the bazaars of the jewellers. Carter observed them closely, and disliked them more the longer he looked at them. Then he saw them drive the stout black men of Parg up the gangplank grunting and sweating into that singular galley, and wondered in what lands – or if in any lands at all – those fat pathetic creatures might be destined to serve.

And on the third evening of that galley’s stay one of the uncomfortable merchants spoke to him, smirking sinfully and hinting what he had heard in the taverns of Carter’s quest. He appeared to have knowledge too secret for public telling; and though the sound of his voice was unbearably hateful, Carter felt that the lore of so far a traveller must not be overlooked. He bade him therefore be his own guest in locked chambers above, and drew out the last of the zoog’s moon-wine to loosen his tongue.”

Clark Ashton Smith – “The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros” (1931)

“One evening, in an alley of the more humble quarter of Uzuldaroum, we stopped to count our available resources, and found that we had between us exactly three pazoors – enough to buy a large bottle of pomegranate wine or two loaves of bread. We debated the problem of expenditure.

‘The bread,’ contended Tirouv Ompallios, ‘will nurture our bodies, will lend a new and more expeditious force to our spent limbs, and our toil-worn fingers.’

‘The pomegranate wine,’ said I, ‘will ennoble our thoughts, will inspire and illuminate our minds, and perchance will reveal to us a mode of escape from our present difficulties.’

Tirouv Ompallios yielded without undue argument to my superior reasoning, and we sought the doors of an adjacent tavern. The wine was not of the best, in regard to flavour, but the quantity and strength were all that could be desired. We sat in the crowded tavern, and sipped it at leisure, till all the fire of the bright red liquor had transferred itself to our brains. The darkness and dubiety of our future ways became illuminated as by the light of rosy cressets, and the harsh aspect of the world was marvellously softened. Anon, there came to me an inspiration.”

Robert E. Howard – “The Tower of the Elephant” (1933)

“Torches flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the east held carnival by night. In the Maul they could carouse and roar as they liked, for honest people shunned the quarter, and watchmen, well-paid with stained coins, did not interfere with their sport. Along the crooked unpaved streets with their heaps of refuse and sloppy puddles, drunken roisterers staggered, roaring. Steel glinted in the shadows where wolf preyed on wolf, and from the darkness rose the shrill laughter of women, and the sounds of scufflings and strugglings. Torchlight licked luridly from broken windows and wide-thrown doors, and out of these doors, stale smells of wine and rank sweaty bodies, clamour of drinking-jacks and fists hammered on rough tables, snatches of obscene songs, rushed like a blow in the face.”

Gary Myers – “The Four Sealed Jars” (1975)

“That shop bearing Getech’s mark on its iron lintel is very lean and high, and set between two tottering old houses with no lamps in their windows, that wear an evil look. But there was little comfort in certain menacing shapes in the shop-window either. Only one twinkling eye of a quaint little jade idol recalled the stars Wesh had seen from his own window... A bell rang when Wesh opened the door. He had already examined three wonderful dusty tomes bound all in copper (whose pages were closely writ in bestial characters he was unable to decipher), and nodded as he passed the amethyst cups, and was picking up from the counter an ivory daemon, when someone behind him uttered a cough. And the proprietor peered up into the face of Wesh with watery little eyes and made him eagerly welcome.”

Fritz Leiber – “Sea Magic” (1977)

“Although called the Wrack and Ruin by its habitués (he’d learned as he was leaving), it had seemed a quiet and restful place. Certainly no disturbances, least of all by his berserks (that had been last week, he reminded himself – if it had really ever happened), and he found pleasure in watching the slow-moving servers and listening to the yarning fishers and sailors, two low-voiced whores (a wonder in itself), and a sprinkling of eccentrics and puzzlers, such as a fat man sunk in mute misery, a skinny greybeard who peppered his ale, and a very slender silent woman in bone-grey touched with silver who sat alone at a back table and had the most tranquil (and not unhandsome) face imaginable. At first he’d thought her another whore, but no-one had approached her table, none (save himself) had seemed to take any notice of her, and she hadn’t even been drinking, so far as he could recall.”

Thomas Ligotti – “Masquerade Of A Dead Sword: A Tragedie” (1986)

“So three well-drunk and hog-faced men seated in a roisterous hostelry might well be excused for not recognising Faliol, whose colours were always red and black. But this man, who had just entered the thickish gloom of that drinking house, was garbed in a craze of colours, none of them construed to a pointed effect. One might have described this outfit as a motley gone mad. Indeed, what lay beneath this fool’s patchwork were the familiar blacks and reds that no other of the Three Towns – neither those who were dandies, nor those who were sword-whores, nor even those who, like Faliol himself, were both – would have dared to duplicate. But now these notorious colours were buried under a rainbow of rags which were tied about the man’s arms, legs, and every other part of his person, seeming to hold him together like torn strips hurriedly applied to the storm-fractured joists of a sagging roof. Before he had closed the door of that cave-like room behind him, the draft rushing in from the street made his frayed livery come alive, like a mass of tattered flags flapping in a calamitous wind.”

Brian Lumley – “In The Temple Of Terror” (1991)

“Inside it had been business as usual. The sigh and flutter of cards and the skittering of ivory and jade dice: the oohs! and aahs! of spectators; curses or guffaws of gamers; the lamps suspended from the high-beamed ceiling, lending the scene glints of coppery colour; and the half-clad Yhemni slave-girls, moving sinuously among patrons with trays of spicy sweetmeats and clinking goblets of wine, their dusky skins agleam with oils and their filed teeth flashing white in dark faces.”

*****

I know which of these I prefer, but which is your favourite style? Which one suits your own personal style for writing and/or gaming in this genre? Let’s debate!