Pictures, Houses, and Thunderbolts

[spiderdave]

I just picked up a copy of Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre and dove in headfirst; this is my first experience with Lovecraft outside of tabletop games, and I must say, I am enjoying the ride. I do have something scratching at my insides a little, and this seemed like a good place to ask!

It seems to be the general consensus on the internet that the narrator of "The Picture in the House" made it out alive. Is there some evidence of this in the text? The abrupt ending and "the oblivion that alone saved my mind" make it seem to me as if he did die. A second reading of that passage makes it seem as though it was a literal thunderbolt, not a metaphor for the narrator's death like I first thought.

Another question: I've read that the picture described in the story is different than that which appears in the actual book. How does it differ? What is it that HPL got wrong?

 

[Ningauble]

It seems to be the general consensus on the internet that the narrator of "The Picture in the House" made it out alive. Is there some evidence of this in the text?

He is alive to tell the story. Besides, there is this phrase: "[FONT=&quot]The interruption was not produced by my fright, nor by the rapidly increasing storm amidst whose fury I was presently to open my eyes on a smoky solitude of blackened ruins."[/FONT]

The abrupt ending and "the oblivion that alone saved my mind" make it seem to me as if he did die. A second reading of that passage makes it seem as though it was a literal thunderbolt, not a metaphor for the narrator's death like I first thought.

It is a literal thunderbolt.

Another question: I've read that the picture described in the story is different than that which appears in the actual book. How does it differ? What is it that HPL got wrong?

HPL describes the cannibals as "negroes with white skins and Caucasian features". This is due to him having only a reproduction in another book as his source.