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Review of H. P. Lovecraft’s Dagon For Beginning Readers
Blurb from the publisher:
'So a last word of warning,
for what it is worth:
when the monsters arise
they will conquer the Earth'.
What you get: Your EUR 15,96 or USD 17,99 or GBP 14,05 will buy you the 80-page H. P. Lovecraft's Dagon For Beginning Readers in both full-colour hardcover and pdf format. This is a children's adaptation based on HPL's classic story of the same name, published by Chaosium. Those preferring the pdf version only, an 82-page affair, can obtain it for EUR 7,09 or USD 7,99 or GBP 6,24 . This is the second book in Chaosium's 'For Beginning Readers' line. We examined H. P. Lovecraft's Τhe Call Of Cthulhu For Beginning Readers a year and a half ago.
I don't think I need to insert a spoiler warning for an adaptation of a story that is, as of the writing of this review, 112 years old. Do I?
Contents: The book is a combination of imagery and poetry written in anapestic tetrameter, with one three or four-verse stanzas every two pages or less. If you are wondering what anapestic tetrameter is, it is a common poetic rhythm often used in children's stories ("Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house / not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse).
The imagery is big and simply drawn and compliments the verse. Just reading the verse without looking at the imagery will lead to a certain dislocation from the story, which, even though presented in its entirety when it comes to the plot, has been obviously abridged and edited when it comes to the details.
Chaosium itself gives a fair warning about the book's contents and it being 'likely not suitable for younger readers'. They are right. Keep on reading.
The strong points: Dagon follows the same recipe the inaugural The Call of Cthulhu did: quirky drawings that fall in-between endearing and disturbing, and a narrative that narrates the gist of the story without getting bogged by the details. Those familiar with the story know how grim it is. Transposing it to this kind of verse does not turn it into an exciting adventure where the protagonists live happily ever after. On the contrary, it keeps the disturbing aspects alive, even though that is now achieved through different means. The story is still about cosmic horror, about being alone in the uncaring universe without anybody being able to help. This might not be appropriate for children, but for Mythos fans with a twisted sense of humour, it is spot on. Think about it: a book allegedly for beginning readers, ends with a defenestration and a close up of a body on a pavement. When it comes to dark humour very few things can top that. I enjoyed its ending thoroughly, exactly because it shows more than the original novel did.
The weak points: Dagon has a very grim subject matter; it is a suicide note in the form of a short story. This comes out undiluted in the present version. The book's final image is the body of a man on the pavement, looked upon by scary eyes. In The Call of Cthulhu book of the series I warned that some children might not be mature enough for this subject matter. Here I wholeheartedly agree with Chaosium's statement that this book is not for children of any age, full stop. This is for young adults at best, even though the quirkiness of Dr Seuss-like drawings mixed with such a horrific story might be lost on them.
The original material is in fact what drags the book down. It is a bleak story of a man surviving to see the otherworldly, the unbelievable, the horrifying. Contrast this to the original The Call of Cthulhu where stuff is happening: there is action, numerous encounters, different scenes of varying natures. Compare now The Call of Cthulhu to the Dagon of this line, and Dagon comes out as severely underpowered. In a similar number of pages, Dagon has almost half the text. The book's size feels bloated when there is no text driving the images. In a substantial chunk of the book, the protagonist wonders around, yet without things happening, the images don't have something to depict and ramble endlessly. The desolate landscapes that H. P. Lovecraft masterfully describes in the short stories cannot be brought into the spotlight through this drawing style without text as a building stone. Twice the designer opts to show nothing but the waves of the unfriendly sea. The palette of colours is limited mostly to shades of blue. It is done on purpose, yet this doesn't help at all.
Like in the first book in the series, there are no page numbers. This probably happens in order not to dilute the beauty and potency of each image. Taking this book's subject matter into account, and the fact that children are unlikely to read it, I do not mind.
Unlike the first book in the series, the pages of Dagon are matte and not glossy. I do not mind that, it is however noticeable.
Conclusion: H. P. Lovecraft's Dagon For Beginning Readers is a strange beast. It follows the recipe that The Call of Cthulhu did in the exact same line, but does not achieve the same results. Instead of quirky and entertaining, it comes out as empty and grim, malevolent and inappropriate even for some adults, due to the idiosyncratic nature of the original material. It is not a bad book per se. It is however a book with an extremely limited target audience, a mere fraction of this line's The Call of Cthulhu. If you would enjoy reading a suicide-note-as-novel adorned with Dr Seuss-like imagery, this is for you (and me) alone.
For more info on H. P. Lovecraft's Dagon For Beginning Readers and Chaosium, visit its website at https://www.chaosium.com.
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