3/16/22

Fifty American short stories—indeed, that's what's here. I read this quite a while back, and honestly, there is only one story amongst such great authors as Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Bierce, James, O. Henry, Dreiser, Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and 38 others (why is Updike here?), that really stands out in my mind, and which I quite often honor in remembrance.

That story is Fitz-James O'Brien's "What Was It?". The story revolves around two men, which are of the several tenants in the old large and stately residence of Twenty-sixth Street New York. The old house, due to its history and the strange goings-on there, is widely considered haunted by the community.

Harry and Dr. Hammond both smoke opium (in large Meerschaum tobacco pipes—a small ball of opium within a bowl of Turkish tobacco) and digress on such things as opium-induced Arabian fairyland, Shakespeares "The Tempest", and so forth and so on. Eventually the two dragon-chasing friends come one evening to an "unusually metaphysical mood", conversant upon such supernatural literature such as "the calling of the voices in Brockden Brown's novel of 'Wieland'", "the picture of the Dweller of the Threshold, in Bulwer's 'Zanoni'", and a fellow named, apparently synonymous with the macabre, "Hoffman".

The two friends, deciding that "opium and nightmares should never be brought together" each go to their beds. Harry, in the habit of reading before bed, picks up a volume only to find that it is Goudon's 'History of Monsters', "a curious French work". In his current state of mind, reached through the discussion of occult topics and opium, he throws the book down.

I won't ruin the rest of the story! It is one of my all-time favorite shorts. There is a lot more great weirdly stuff in this collection. Also, that which remains strong in my memory is Ambrose Bierce's "The Damned Thing". ( )

Don't miss "A Mother's Tale" by James Agee.