I don't get it but I'm probably reading it 120 years too late. Though I can certainly see similarities to Lovecraft's work.

It actually made me think of how things that are commonplace and milquetoast in media today were once pushing the line like how it was once scandalous to show a man shot on screen or how the bounds of what sexual activity can be showed on tv now versus 50 years ago. Something I just shrug at or don't even notice might shock or scandalize someone who hasn't watched as much tv or as many movies as I have.

In The Great God Pan, the horror of what happens at the parties is very vaguely alluded to (I did some external reading to get a more concrete idea) but I guess I can see the allusion but my jaded eyes weren't terribly bothered by it. The first two victims definitely affected me more but first, they were children and second, the story took a moment to dwell on them and while it still doesn't go into detail on what they went through, it does focus on the aftermath and how they're suffering now.

For the later victims though, their deaths are related second and third hand and just don't have the same impact. The way everything is so darn vague doesn't help. Sure, something awful happened but all we know is that something awful happened.

And the way the mad doctor just casually justifies experimenting on Mary and nobody comments, objects or even asks about is so freaking matter of fact and awful that now it circles back around to uncomfortably funny. He just drives a woman insane and his reaction amounts to, "Huh . . . whoops ."