Episode 3 - Dagon

[osyrisdiamond]

Yep, I'm resurrecting (or should I say reanimating?) old episode discussions like Dr. West... who I like a lot more than C. Ward's despicable ancestor. >_>

Anyway, so I've ben listening to the old episodes again (if you haven't noticed) and came upon something I'm not sure has been thought of. Please tell me if it has.

It is mentioned at the first and lastly implied by the end of the story that the narrator hurled himself from the window. The addition of the phrase(s) "The Window! The Window!" seems a bit silly in this context, and I agree. Thus, after reflecting sometime on The Haunter of the Dark, I came to an alternate interpretation that makes a little more sense, even if it was not what Lovecraft had intended. Like the narrator in Haunter, this poor soul whites about a impending doom, real or imagined, coming towards him as he writes. It then makes more sense that like the Haunter narrator, this one also sees something at the window and thus dies from fright. This is almost impossible to concretely argue as we are daft as to what happens to him beyond the summation that he followed through with his plan.

However, if we can agree that writing the phrase "The Window! The Window!" was meant to be written by the narrator rather than spoken, though more likely it is an error on Lovecraft's part where he forgot himself as writing a written statement than a verbal narration, and considering how the previous descriptions of an impending physical (though imaginary) describes something creeping around his room, it seems a better interpretation of the ending of this story that the narrator saw something, or misinterpreted something he saw, and thus he is exclaiming some horrible vision at the window and the failure of further explanation is do to his sudden death from shock or fright.

And yes, that was one sentence. Your take on my idea?

[old book]

I don't remember this exactly, but could it be a narrative shift immediately before the climax of death by defenestration? A shift from a subjective to an objective voice? I remember reading somewhere that "window" comes from an older compound word, "wind eye." That might be incorrect.

[Bob Lovecraft]

I like this take on the ending of the story. If I remember (and I may not) the narrator was going to blow his brains out, not jump. If that was the case, then, yeah, I can see him seeing something in the window. But let me add a bit of a wrinkle here. Maybe what he saw in the window wasn't outside of his room, but a reflection of something inside of his room that he was when looking up from his writing to look out of the window. Just an idea, but I kind of like it better than the plunge that is implied in both the text and podcast.

Bob

[osyrisdiamond]

I like this take on the ending of the story. If I remember (and I may not) the narrator was going to blow his brains out, not jump. If that was the case, then, yeah, I can see him seeing something in the window. But let me add a bit of a wrinkle here. Maybe what he saw in the window wasn't outside of his room, but a reflection of something inside of his room that he was when looking up from his writing to look out of the window. Just an idea, but I kind of like it better than the plunge that is implied in both the text and podcast.

Bob

In Dagon, the character states, "I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below." You might be confusing this with the intro for The Hound, "St. John is a mangled corpse; I alone know why, and such is my knowledge that I am about to blow out my brains for fear I shall be mangled in the same way."

When I wrote the above, I did consider both inside and outside the window as you point out, and so whole-heartedly agree with you on that end. I just did not make it clear in my original post of this fact, but I thank you for making it clear as it would be interest to think he merely saw a distortion of his own reflection and caused his own apoplectic demise.

[Bob Lovecraft]

Ah, you are correct, I did get that confused with "The Hound", although I was thinking more of a monster behind him, reflected in the window than his own reflection causing his eventual suicide.

Bob (I really need to reread these stories again)

[osyrisdiamond]

Ah, you are correct, I did get that confused with "The Hound", although I was thinking more of a monster behind him, reflected in the window than his own reflection causing his eventual suicide.

Bob (I really need to reread these stories again)

I see; that also makes sense, considering the assume position of the character to the door he references.

[Kryptych]

Neil Gaiman actually makes fun of Lovecraft for this in the Fear of the Unknown documentary. "The tendency to write... and to keep writing."

I think it's a little more acceptable in The Hound because it can be taken either as an actual suicide note or perhaps a transcript of his thoughts. As a suicide note, he relates the story as it occurred, and then says, "Now, as the baying of that dead, fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings circles closer and closer, I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnamable." I don't think it's unusual for someone in a fractured state of mind to basically write, "I keep hearing it. It torments me. So... I'm going to kill myself." End note. Dead body.

In The Haunter of the Dark, I always interpreted it that he was writing frantically as a combination of his fears and thoughts with his being possessed by Nyarlathotep - he does say "I am it and it is I" and "The thing is taking hold of my mind...." So he's not exactly in a normal state of mind. I always imagine that scene in my head a bit like Erich Zann... I picture Blake sitting at his desk, his gaze constant and fixed as he stares out the window, but his hand is frantically writing - almost mechanically, resulting in "those final frenzied jottings."

As opposed to Dagon, which seems more a transcript of his thoughts as he's writing rather than the writing itself. After all, why would he write in the suicide note, "God, that hand! The window! The window!" if the story itself was actually a suicide note? But he does say that he's "writing this under an appreciable mental strain," so that does imply that it is indeed the case - the story IS the suicide note. So, really... it's a little silly.
But Dagon was only the second story that Lovecraft wrote as an adult when he started to actively pursue writing as a career, and I think what's great about this Podcraft is that going through each story chronologically, we get to see the development and improvement of his writing as he matured. Of course, Messrs. Fifer and Lackey even made fun of this in the story (Lovecraft's notes about "less describable things" or how "one might well imagine that my first sensation would be of wonder at so prodigious and unexpected a transformation of scenery, I was in reality more horrified"), so while Dagon is a great little story, it's hardly the best example of Lovecraft's abilities as a writer. For its story, it's the archetype for practically all that would follow... for that, it's great.

[Genus Unknown]

Perhaps he was dictating.

[osyrisdiamond]

Perhaps he was dictating.

I will agree to this.

[Kryptych]

Perhaps he was dictating.

I will agree to this.

You nailed it! =)

[kulain]

probably borrowed wilmarth's dictaphone

[old book]

Wilmarth's dictaphone once belonged to Harley Warren.