Category: lovecraft

This afternoon I was chilling out a little after listening to Radio4’s ‘Afternoon Play’. It was an interesting one too, a ‘chiller’. The story involved a guy telling someone a story on a train, a two handed piece between an older man and a younger woman set in the late 1960’s and harking back to Ypres and the First World War for its ghost. I do love a good ghost story and it reminded me of these excellent recordings I have of some H.P.Lovecraft tales. One of those stories, about the music of Howard Zinn if I recall, has these screeching violins and the ‘Afternoon Play’ used little bits of that at the end today. It was as though there’s a sound, quite a specific sound, to this particular genre of story. The world-slipping, uncanny, ‘chilly’ world. Somewhere it’s going to be very cold in those stories. The shiver down the spine.

This particular story also made me think about a connection with Kierkegaard’s tale of Abraham. The shiver down the spine and the shudder of thought. (more…)