The Music of Erich Zann / The Nameless City / Nyarlathotep

by H.P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, known then simply as weird fiction. His major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. He has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of Enlightenment, Romanticist, and Christian humanism. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality. Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.

Genres: Horror, Classics, Lovecraftian, Short Stories

41 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2008

About the author

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.

Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

— Wikipedia

Reviews

[Luis L.M]

I read The Music of Eric Zann a long time ago, just after The Lurker On The Threshold. And ever since, the violin tunes of la Rue d'Auseil have been resonating with me.

It's strange how some stories have the power to make everlasting impressions, especially on younger spirits.

Even today, it is not rare for me to open the window of the attic on a big waning moon (I love waning moons), and to look for the shadow of invisible stars, for the wake of giant wings, somewhere there at the corner of my eye.

[Ben Ziemecki]

Three very good stories, however I like the music of Erich Zann the most. It's perhaps the scariest thing I've read purely for the implied terror.

[alessandra reads]

This quarter, one of our English units, is dedicated to gothic literature. My teacher explained that H.P Lovecraft is one of these horror story authors. I learned he is recognized for his dark and creepy stories that are at times based on his nightmares. The Music of Erich Zaan scared me so much! I was afraid I was going to get nightmares from it.

I rarely read this genre of literature so going into a unit dedicated to horror, I was not sure what to expect. I can only review these works based on other short stories I have read or snippets of scary movies. I do know one major factor of horror movies is the tension. While reading The Music of Erich Zaan, I felt the emotions of the unnamed narrator. It felt as if I was entering the story, and by doing so, walking inside the house and hearing the music. Lovecraft successfully created a tense atmosphere. This “force” as the narrator described it, I could feel scared by it too. Since the narrator is unreliable, this also created a chaotic vibe. Throughout the story I always wondered whether the events happening were reality or fake. By describing the building, the windows breaking, the eerie behavior of Eric, and the creepy music, this all created the world of this story.

The reason why I am giving this story lower stars is because I was confused at parts whether this was an anecdote or happening in present tense. Perhaps because of the “old language”, but I struggled to understand some parts.

I may be a scaredy-cat, but I know this is a good story.

[Jonathan]

“The Music of Erich Zann” begins with a harmless university student who is being forced to stay at a cheap hotel on the street of “Rue d’ Auseil”. The student/narrator is fascinated by the music he hears from the top floor of the hotel and the narrator follows the music, however he disturb by a big man named Bandlot. However, the narrator is saved when Erich Zann, the one playing the music, calls on Bandlot and lets the narrator listen to his music. When listening to Erich Zann’s music he begins to play horrific tunes, however he plays the music in a way that made it seem that he was trying to keep something out.

The setting for this story is key, especially for the theme being horror, and the music also adds on the to the terror and horrifiying theme. Erich Zann's character fitted the role perfectly, with his Melancholic depression and adding on with his feature of playing scary and creeping music. Erich Zann was tortured by what was outisde his window, with his depression and being scaring of nothing out the window made Zann’s seem crazy and delusional. Zann was frightened and terrified of what was outside his window and he would play horrific music to keep them away, and left the narrator in shock of what was going on. The narrator was able to leave the hotel alive, however he was still drawn to the hotel and he had to do one thing and that was look for the street “Rue d’Auseil”.

[Claudia Negron]

"The Music of Erich Zann," focuses on this young guy, the narrator, who has a really bad memory (unreliable narrator) and ends up in a house at the end of a road. In this house, he develops a fascination for Erich Zann's because it contains sounds he has never heard before and are amazing. He begins to gain Zann's trust in order to get a deeper view into his music, but one day while Zann is playing the music, the guy stands up towards the window to get a glimpse of the normal world. However, the window shatters and all the musical papers fly away, while the guy is trying to catch them. In the end, he runs away from the house and years later he can never find it again, even on a map.

In my opinion, the author unifies the feelings of fear and curiosity are combined. For example, the narrator has an extreme curiosity and yearning for Erich Zann's music; however, he does not realize that his pursue in finding more about this music will lead him to a darker path. The use of these two emotions intertwined also make it relatable to the readers because as a person we tend to chase the unknown even though it could lead us into bad circumstances. In the case of the story, the narrator is fascinated by Zann's music; although, he feels the music takes him into haunted and distressing feelings. Furthermore, curiosity certainly comes from the narrator but the fear is incorporated into the setting of the story since the road is described as a dark and gloomy area.

[Giorgio Fraguio]

When the main character is out of funds he is forced to move in to a strange apartment on a strange street. He meets a man named Erich Zann who plays strange melodies on his cello, he says he does this to keep creatures away from his window which looks out onto an abyss. One night when the mans music reaches its peak, our main character looking out of the window hoping to see a normal world sees the abyss and as the window breaks all of the music is swept away. Many years later he tries to find records of the street he lived on but it never existed on any of the maps.

The way HP love craft uses mystery to create fear is very fascinating aspect to this story in my opinion. As much as he describes the surrounding he leaves enough for the mind to fill in the gaps. When you read the story you maintain the same feeling that is established at the beginning because the story keeps pushing that eerie feeling, that aspect never wavers. Another interesting aspect is Zann, as he tries to persuade our main character to move down from the fifth floor, probably for his own safety. However what intrigues me the most is his relationship with the window and the abyss behind it. Why does he still stay there in that room why not move?

[Austin Wright]

Very cool and interesting story. Lovecraft isn't one to really descibe music, so this story is a breath of fresh air.

[Philippe St-Onge]

The 4 star rating is for TMOEZ only.

[Sabrina]

2.5⭐

[Ana Valles]

"The Music of Erich Zann" was about an unnamed narrator who is trying to look for a street he once lived in. What was really odd about this was that the narrator couldn't remember where the street was, and it almost seemed like the street disappeared from the maps. His unforgettable experience of living in those apartments is what makes him want to find the street. During his time of living there, he would always hear a violin playing every night. The neighbor was called Erich Zann, and his playing would get worse and worse every night. The narrator was intrigued by this bizarre music, and decided to see what the case was with his neighbor. That night, Erich Zann began playing his violin hysterically, to the point where it was hurting the narrator's ears. Harsh Violin sounds took over the building, the windows shattered and papers began flying everywhere, darkness took over the setting. All this creeped out the narrator to the point where he had to flee the building. He tried taking Zann with him, but when he went to move him, he was dead. The narrator flees and never finds the building again.

All together, this story has the characteristics of Gothic literature. Its gloomy and supernatural effect applies to those characteristics of Gothic literature. We also have a very unreliable narrator who cannot remember where exactly this happened. This story is meant to give us the creeps. The vibe “The Music of Erich Zann” radiates is a gloomy and Gothic vibe. The story for sure gave me shivers, imagining harsh violin sounds playing on a dark night, eventually killing the player. It was an interesting story, but I found no point in it. This story is simple to give you the creeps, not much more than that. I also don't think it was that scary in general. Music playing terribly isn't even that scary and imagining it gives me a headache. It was an interesting story, but didn't really scare me much or didn't have a deep meaning.

[Ivan Vuković]

I've never read anything by Lovecraft before, so I had to give it a try, since a lot of people think he's great.

Well, maybe I had high expectations, but these three stories were just... meh, nothing special.

The Music of Erich Zann promises a lot at the beginning (as do all these stories), but kind of left me completely disappointed at the end, it was simply too dry and somehow sterile, missing something which I'm not sure I can describe properly.

The Nameless City was somewhat better and it is the main reason I give this two stars instead of one. To be precise, it is those two lines from a poem by the Mad Arab which I really liked, but those are just... lines from a poem, the story could have been much much better, in my humble opinion.

And the last one... Nyarlathotep... What's up with that? Terrible and uninteresting, complete waste of time.

However, I'm not quitting on Lovecraft here, he can't be that bad with all the hype, can he?

[Elizabeth]

I'll be frank with yous, I'm running out of stuff to say about Lovecraft. It's gonna have to be a repeat of "He's good, his stuff's good" and leave it at that.

[🌲]

"We must both flee from the unknown things of the night">