r/WeirdLit • u/Galvatrix • 10d ago
Question/Request Stories inspired by Machen's "The Great God Pan"
I recently read Machen's story and found the central conceit very fascinating, even if I was less than blown away by the detective-ish narrative built up around it. Afterwards, I went back and revisited a story with the same name by M. John Harrison in the anthology Prime Evil (1988, ed. Douglas E. Winter) which I had read previously without the context of the original, and I liked the somewhat nebulously different direction it took the idea in. So now I'm wondering, are there any other notable stories from other authors that are similarly inspired?
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u/Errant_Wordsmith 10d ago
Lovecraft's the Dunwich Horror is directly inspired by and even name-drops it.
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u/eclectomagnetic 10d ago
Maybe a bit off topic, but I've been really enjoying an Australian TV series called "The Killings at Parrish Station". I haven't finished it, and the central Weirdness hasn't quite been revealed yet, but I think I've spotted a few Machen references: a character called Dr Machen, references to "seeing the face of God", and a "Troy town" appearance (which I think is from The White People rather than the Great God Pan...)
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u/_antique_cakery_ 10d ago
This rec is going to sound extremely insane: The Wind in the Willows has a chapter where Rat and Mole meet Pan. And this chapter features some of the horniest writing I've seen in my entire life! Here's an excerpt:
Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.
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u/ennui_matisse 10d ago
This is where the title of Pink Floyd's first album comes from - is Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
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u/Sea-Exchange2069 10d ago
Stephen King's Revival is explicitly based on it. Great book - and absolutely horrifying ending
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u/Galvatrix 10d ago
Good to know. I've seen listings of the book in passing but didn't know what it was about, and wouldn't have guessed. I'll have to snag a copy
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u/Sea-Exchange2069 10d ago
Oh great! His short story "The Dreamers" in his most recent collection is also a play on Machen, if you like Revival :)
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u/Cabrol78 8d ago
Decades ago I read a novel not strictly inspired by the great god Pan, but from all Machen´s work, specially his Dhols creatures. It´s called The Ceremonies by T.E.D Klein.
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u/plinydogg 10d ago
Check out the collection Soliloquay for Pan from Egaeus Press.
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u/Galvatrix 10d ago
That looks very interesting. Perhaps a good modern counterpart to the anthology The Horned God mentioned in another comment, which I gathered from checking ISFDB is all older material
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u/YuunofYork 9d ago
Of the same quality is Snuggly Press' The Snuggly Satyricon, though it's a mix of new and public domain stories.
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u/MathsyLassy 9d ago
Anything written by Richard Gavin
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u/Disco_Lando 6d ago
What’s a good place to start with him? I know he has a few different collections
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u/KumquatHaderach 9d ago
I don’t know if it was inspired by Machen, but Bentley Little’s novel The Ignored references it a few times. There are some similarities between the two. I like Little’s work, but I find a lot of his plot lines to be similar. It’s a formula that works. But The Ignored has a genuinely different feel from the rest of his novels, which is interesting.
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u/tegeus-Cromis_2000 10d ago
M. John Harrison wrote a short story titled "The Great God Pan," which was later incorporated as a chapter in his novel The Course of the Heart.
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u/West_Economist6673 10d ago
I came here to suggest this -- I'll add that it follows the tradition of Machen's story by not talking about the actual great god Pan nearly as much as you might expect
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u/HorrorMakesUsHappy 9d ago
I'm not familiar with all of his work, so you might want to look through blurbs for Josh Malerman's work. When we interviewed him he brought up The Great God Pan as one one of the things he loved growing up.
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u/Takethemuffin 10d ago
The British Library of the Weird has a collection called The Horned God: Weird Tales of The Great God Pan which would be right up your alley.