Baranger Visualizes The Dunwich Horror

The latest Lovecraft edition by Baranger is in the standard folio size.

“The Dunwich Horror” is one of H.P. Lovecraft's best known stories and important.  Its mention of Yog-Sothoth, the One Ones and the dreaded Necronomicon are cornerstones of the impressive Cthulhu Mythos.  So it is a “canonical” story, though I do not personally consider it one of his best efforts.  It spins a weird enough tale but I think he wrote more affecting pieces.  Still, Lovecraft manages to create a complex mystery of cosmic proportions and finish it with fantastic conclusion.

That makes it a perfect choice for François Baranger's next edition of his illustrated Lovecraft series.  But, unlike Baranger's previous wonderful adornments of Lovecraft tales, in this case the book actually makes the story better.  Previously, Baranger successfully captured the tale as told but in this case his visualization actually enhances our experience of the story.

The story suffers somewhat because it is told in third-person.  In fact, it is oddly told at an objective, distant time after the events actually occurred.  Lovecraft calls it “our sensible time” and enough of it has passed (and due to the hushed-up nature of the horror) that no one recalls exactly what it is about Dunwich that is so peculiar.  Why the air has a certain odor to it.  What the subterranean rumblings are about.  The horror is in the past tense, which unnecessarily burdens the story, in my opinion.

Lovecraft's best stories are usually in first-person or, at least in present tense.  Lovecraft chooses to make the story's hero, Dr. Henry Armitage, an objectified character instead of the narrator or at least as a character to whom we can relate to his humanity.  I think the story never achieves its potential impact because of it.   But, Lovecraft manages to overcome this to some extent by the sheer complexity and phantasm of the narrative and in authoring an excellent finish to the tale.

It also strikes me as a tad convenient to have the triple degreed scientist, Dr. Armitage (Miskatonic, Princeton, Johns Hopkins), decipher Wilbur Whateley's coded journal, assimilate all this esoteric occult knowledge in the span of a few continually obsessive weeks.  Apparently, he had no prior understanding or talent for the occult.  If he was a specialist in this way Lovecraft does not tell us.  

Though he suffers a near complete breakdown, the 73-year-old Armitage is what we would call today “antifragile” and bounces back.  Nothing wrong with the stamina, it's just convenient to have Armitage embody so much certainty and effectiveness in the complicated and multifaceted cosmic horror.  There is far more to how the sinister and horrific structure unfolds than to its abruptly feeling, though necessary given the choices Lovecraft made, resolution.

To begin with, his wife devotedly brings him meals which he barely acknowledges as he applies himself to the occultist writings.  A lot of hard linguistic work leads to many dead ends, what fragments he manages to piece together terrify him though we are not specifically told why. Then poof!  He's got it all figured out and has a plan of action.  Despite the agonizing weeks, the complete breakthrough is too neat and handy though by this time the novelette needs to pick up the pace.  As I said, the final pages of the story feature great writing.

Another aspect of the story that seems too contrived is the whole business of the Whateley's needing a larger and larger space inside their farmhouse.  Wilbur ends up moving himself and all his possessions into nearby sheds to make accommodation at one point.  Instead of building an atmospheric mystery it comes off more of just a curiosity, along with the random rumblings under the ground around Dunwich.  The added touch of Wilbur's strange albino mother is likewise not something that connects with the story in a contributory manner.  It is just another weird piece of information, as if Lovecraft is checking off a list.  Finally, there's all the business with the huge amount of cattle required to feed the family of only three.  This serves as gossip for the people of Dunwich but it is another unweighted piecemeal fact that is, as I said, curious but only mildly atmospheric. Fortunately, Baranger supplies ample atmosphere and thereby makes the prose better.

But there is nothing wrong with the conclusion to “the Dunwich Horoor.”  Armitage and two others climb atop a bald mountain with an semi-cultist standing stones to battle the monster, which is invisible.  But they are cleverly armed with a spray tank of white powder which renders part of the creature briefly visible.  The three utter an incantation and the “horror” is sent back through “the gate” from hence it came.  Meanwhile, the rest of the party observe these happenings at a distance through an small handheld telescope.  The action is described imperfectly from their coarse perspectives, which is classic Lovecraft – the imperfect verification of events.  The backwoods and uneducated characters interpret what happens for the reader while “the experts” actually banish the threat; the telling is through terrified and uncomprehending men.  Lovecraft uses the crude articulation of the men with a wonderful flair.

One strongly atmospheric quality to the story is Lovecraft's use of whippoorwills (which Baranger interestingly chose not to illustrate).  The sound of these  birds is highly effective.  They seem to be in touch with the estranged Whateley family.  They erupt in hideously loud profusion when old Whateley draws his last breath.  They become agitated again when Armitage and the others do battle with the monsterous off-spring of Yog-Sothoth.  Each time Lovecraft uses nature to ramp up the tension in the story.  His use of the woods and hills of this rural area in “western central” Massachusetts is unusual for him.  This is one of his most nature-filled stories – appropriately, it is a version of nature imbued with the same sinister power that pervades the Whateleys, suspected black magic practitioners.

There's not much left of Wilbur Whateley in this marvelously atmospheric rendering.

Another strong episode in the story is when Wilbur is mauled by a guard dog while trying to steal a special book he desperately needs.  His body then gradually disintegrates.  Initially he is revealed a a horrific half-man, half-mutant but soon even that dissolves into an oozing odorous mass.  It is another terrific part of the story which is further accentuated by Baranger's graphic edition.  This descriptive text is terrifically horrifying, some of Lovecraft's best writing.  There is plenty to this story to justify multiple readings but taken as a whole, this is not top-notch Lovecraft.  This is a long portion of it, however, is solid gold Lovecraft.

“The thing that lay half-bent on its side in a foetid pool of greenish-yellow ichor and tarry stickiness was almost nine feet tall, and the dog had torn off all the clothing and some of the skin. It was not quite dead, but twitched silently and spasmodically while its chest heaved in monstrous unison with the mad piping of the expectant whippoorwills outside. Bits of shoe-leather and fragments of apparel were scattered about the room, and just inside the window an empty canvas sack lay where it had evidently been thrown. Near the central desk a revolver had fallen, a dented but undischarged cartridge later explaining why it had not been fired. The thing itself, however, crowded out all other images at the time. It would be trite and not wholly accurate to say that no human pen could describe it, but one may properly say that it could not be vividly visualized by anyone whose ideas of aspect and contour are too closely bound up with the common life-forms of this planet and of the three known dimensions. It was partly human, beyond a doubt, with very manlike hands and head, and the goatish, chinless face had the stamp of the Whateley's upon it. But the torso and lower parts of the body were teratologically fabulous, so that only generous clothing could ever have enabled it to walk on earth unchallenged or uneradicated.

“Above the waist it was semi-anthropomorphic; though its chest, where the dog's rending paws still rested watchfully, had the leathery, reticulated hide of a crocodile or alligator. The back was piebald with yellow and black, and dimly suggested the squamous covering of certain snakes. Below the waist, though, it was the worst; for here all human resemblance left off and sheer phantasy began. The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur, and from the abdomen a score of long greenish-grey tentacles with red sucking mouths protruded limply.

“Their arrangement was odd, and seemed to follow the symmetries of some cosmic geometry unknown to earth or the solar system. On each of the hips, deep set in a kind of pinkish, ciliated orbit, was what seemed to be a rudimentary eye; whilst in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being an undeveloped mouth or throat. The limbs, save for their black fur, roughly resembled the hind legs of prehistoric earth's giant saurians, and terminated in ridgy-veined pads that were neither hooves nor claws. When the thing breathed, its tail and tentacles rhythmically changed colour, as if from some circulatory cause normal to the non-human greenish tinge, whilst in the tail it was manifest as a yellowish appearance which alternated with a sickly grayish-white in the spaces between the purple rings. Of genuine blood there was none; only the foetid greenish-yellow ichor which trickled along the painted floor beyond the radius of the stickiness, and left a curious discoloration behind it.”

Several paragraphs later, there is the dissolution of the body.  “Meanwhile frightful changes were taking place on the floor. One need not describe the kind and rate of shrinkage and disintegration that occurred before the eyes of Dr Armitage and Professor Rice; but it is permissible to say that, aside from the external appearance of face and hands, the really human element in Wilbur Whateley must have been very small. When the medical examiner came, there was only a sticky whitish mass on the painted boards, and the monstrous odour had nearly disappeared. Apparently Whateley had had no skull or bony skeleton; at least, in any true or stable sense. He had taken somewhat after his unknown father.”  Wonderful prose which makes the story's final (and biggest) reveal even more powerful.

“The Dunwich Horror” appears in my Lovecraft collection more than any of his other stories.  But, until I bought my Baranger edition, I had not acquired any of my other editions with this story in mind.  Again, it is not one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, though it is a good one.  Nevertheless, now I believe it is the only story I have read in all my various editions.  So, while I consider it a decent but not great Lovecraft tale, it is nevertheless an enjoyable read every time.  It is not as atmospheric as Lovecraft's best works, but Baranger significantly corrects this with his marvelous illustrations, and it is still a entertaining story with an excellent ending.

I'm so glad to have discovered these Baranger editions and that I am now collecting them (despite my shortage of shelf space).  He takes the bold (and necessary) step in this excellent graphic novel of actually showing Wilbur Whateley's twin brother – a horrific monster that is revealed in only a vague glimpse of terror in the story.  

Baranger no longer casts Armitage's work through the lens of uncomprehending characters.  He is visually free to depict the look and feel of 1928 in a backwoods village and also the academic library that factors so heavily in the story.  Minute details, including the random nature of the coded writing of Wibur's journal, first discovered by flashlight in a dark room, filled with marginalia with the desk highly realistic looking for the 1920's.  The book is filled with such details and, in part, this is what generates the story's atmosphere in a way Lovecraft only partly succeeded to do.

Some might question his outright depiction of the “horror” that was left invisible in the story.  But, being inherently a visual medium, the invisibility of the main creature would seem flat, not terrifying at all.  Baranger respects the original story and offers an accurate depiction of it as described by those witnessing the horror through the telescope.  I think it works.  The big reveal is the most frightening thing Branager draws and it is horrific to behold.  I have spent a long time gazing at these couple of pages where the monstrous second son is revealed, and how its invisibility is still visually implied though the reader can plainly see it.  

There is a subtle but surgical aspect to it that in no way dishonors the original tale.  Baranger's depiction is horrid of its own accord, another plus for this splendid edition.  As I said, the addition of all the visuals in this edition enhances the story instead of merely depicting it.  This makes the Baranger edition the best way to experience “The Dunwich Horror.”

Appropriately, this English edition (the original was published in France lasy year) was made available in the US on Halloween, a few weeks ago.  I plan to collect them all.

Dr. Armitage with two companion scientists confronts the horrific spawn of Yog-Sothoth.