I agree that 'The Alchemist' clearly is a juvenile story (i.e. the narrative technique isn't fleshed out yet and contains numeral 'mistakes') and also that at least the first paragraph consists of nice evocative sentences. I was curious what S.T. Joshi had to say about this tale, so I looked it up in his 'The Weird Tale'. He's actually quiet positive about this story because of how Lovecraft handles the supernatural in a (according to him) innovative way: first the 'typical' supernatural explanation seems to be a familiy curse (so, sorcery), but then the typical HPL-way of wanting to use a natural explanation causes the solution of a living human being, killing the aristocratic scions. Then, Joshi explains, Lovecraft puts the supernatural back in by having this alchemist to prolong his life unnaturally. I myself think that this latter was way to obvious in the tale (but yes, Lovecraft still had to learn better story telling techniques). On the other hand Joshi's take on it in itself (as a new way of approaching the supernatural) is interesting.
He also points at the typical Lovecraftian archetype of 'the very old man' which has its starting point in this tale (and indeed he has given one of his tales the name 'The Terrible Old Man'). I think this is something to go back to when discussing other HPL tales, like 'The Picture in the House' or 'Cool Air'.
Yes, Lovecraft had something of an obsession with old men that I never really thought about before! And I'm looking forward to getting to all of these stories.
Joshi makes a good point here, too, that we can see Lovecraft's scientism very early on. Even his new supernatural element is scientific in that it's just a matter of chemistry not actual magic. This is something we should be paying more attention to as we cover HPL.
Hi, Fellows, I know it has been a while since this episode on "The Alchemist" debuted, but I have to say that I really enjoyed it. You asked questions that, for some reason, never even occurred to me. Where is Antoine's agency? Where is his arc? Why is Pierre, our one supporting character, so unsupportive? Also, you caught a number of more minor annoyances: Why is the framing narrator so old? Why are these nobles ignoring their tenants? Why did Antoine's father (having, himself, known of the curse for more than a decade) wait so long before starting a family? Why was Charles cursing in English? How does a peasant kid learn to read Latin and distill chemicals? All of this added up to a challenge that stuck with me, perhaps because I have always just read this story as-is. It seemed like the above issues would not be too hard to fix, so, encouraged by your detailed discussion, I decided to give it a try. In retrospect, they were hard to fix, especially if the fixes should remain consistent both among themselves and also with the rest of the story (oh, and turns out my Latin is more debased even than Charles's and my French is... worse). Still, if you happen to find yourselves with both the time and patience for a read, here is my attempt, published on Wattpad:
https://www.wattpad.com/story/249448511-i-commenced-my-descent Just clicking "Read" on that page should display the story. This version retains as much of the original text as I could manage, but is also clearly longer than the original. Also, I have to apologize for the minor formatting issues. I centered the section headers, byline, attribution, and Charles' curse, but Wattpad insists on left-justifying everything. Still, if you get a chance to check it out, I hope it proves enjoyable.
This was really good. Very authentically HPL sounding, but better structured.
Thanks for sharing.
@ktvician Thank you very much for taking the time to check it out, and even more for the kind compliment. I did my best to capture HPL's tone. I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)
Excellent work, thanks for sharing! A great improvement, still in keeping with the style of the original. I didn't have as much of a problem with the narrator's age as Brandon, but the lack of agency and of action after breaking "the curse" are major issues that you have completely overcome. I think I would have been tempted to make the narrator slightly older than you did (maybe mid-40s) to give the prosperity more time to return, but that is a very minor point in the grand scheme of things.
This is really wonderful and thank you for taking us up on the challenge! I bet you could get this published in one of the numerous HPL fanzines if you're so inclined. In fact -- and this is a serious-business challenge -- I would definitely pick up an entire book of Lovecraftian rewrites like this, even of the masterpieces.
Thanks very much for reading it, I'm glad there was some fun to be had! As far as publishing goes, I'm sadly a newbie. I've checked out the Writer's Market guides, but haven't yet broken any ground there. I'm intrigued by the fanzine idea, but unsure about process (submission, reply times, multiple submission, etc.). I've looked into self-publishing a bit (because it seems to have fewer variables) and was tempted by Draft2Digital as well as the Kindle marketplace, but haven't bitten that bullet yet either. ...Hmm, maybe I ought to just get off my duff? I won't lie... I really enjoyed reworking this story and it did make me think I'd like to try more, but I hadn't considered attempting an entire book. I'd definitely think twice about tackling the masterpieces, but there are some stories that I always wished were better ("Medusa's Coil" comes to mind... started off strong, ended up blatantly, stupidly racist with a copious side-dish of misogyny). That one isn't quite in the public domain yet (as far as I know), but there are some low-hanging fruits that are. (There is an IMO-excellent ranking of most of HPLs solos and collabs here: https://freelanceflaneur.blogspot.com/2017/01/ranking-h-p-lovecraft-stories.html) You guys and your writing challenges!! ;) Thanks again! Y'all stay safe and be well! P. S. as far as reworks go, have you checked out "The Lovecraft Investigations" from BBC Radio 4? They're making no attempt to mimic Lovecraft's style (instead, capturing only major characters and settings, and filling in alternative action, similar to the treatment of Doyle's work in the recent Sherlock BBC TV miniseries), but the result is still some pretty-darn-good Lovecraftian podcasting: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06spb8w
Thanks for the referral. I just listened to the first season, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". It was really good: well-produced and acted, which I'd expect from BBC.
@ktvician I'm really glad you liked it. IMO the next two series hold up just as well, even though the tone changes a bit. The BBC really gets radio drama, and their production values are fantastic. A lot of folks (especially in the Call of Cthulhu RPG community) have suggested that Lovecraftian plots (which depend so much on heirloom letters, found journals, and dusty tomes lost in obscure shops) can't survive in a cell-phone-connected, wikipedia-documented age, but I think the writers, cast, and crew do a great job of injecting modernity into those podcasts. They also often deliver a nice, action-story pace alongside an occasional tasty slice of X-files, Serial, and maybe even a dash of Scooby-Doo ;)
@thomasiota I've listened to all three stories. Very well done. I like the way the stories lead into each other.
I was unaware of this show, so thank you for that!
I feel your pain about figuring out how to publish. It's the part of writing that isn't fun and the marketplace is just getting worse and worse.
A lot of small press magazines have presences on Twitter. Most have instructions on submissions on their websites. I've submitted short stories to a few, though never been published in a paying venue.
@ktvician It's the paying venues that have really diminished with the advent of the Internet even while the Internet has made non-paying small magazines much easier to manage and distribute.
@thomasiota It took a while, but today at last I read your story 'I commenced my descent'. I really liked it, especially with the original next to it to see what changes you made (that is: at the beginning, most of the second half was completely new). I think it's a really good 'aemulatio' of Lovecrafts' story - it was well fixed and far more suspenseful, especially the 'dungeon crawling' part. Lovecraft himself wrote this dungeon crawling parts of course in an unforgettable way in his later stories, in particular in 'Mountains of Madness'.
Like Glenn I think your story is very publishable, but I know myself which bumps are to overcome when you want to do that. However, I hope we can read more of your writing in the future!