The Call of Cthulhu, a Seussian parody
January 22, 2018 · file under: Books
Guest Minor Reviewer: "G" International Pre-teen of Mystery
This article made possible due to the gift of a review copy, QWERTY and rolling natural 20s.
Hello! Have you wondered about adding Cthulhu to something almost complete opposite? Well, the authors have done it. And they softened the H.P. Lovecraft style. H.P.Lovecraft is somewhat known for his intense wordiness. So, take a sentence like: "I am eating an apple." Lovecraft will morph that into something that goes on for maybe a paragraph. Seuss, however, makes things simple. So this must have been a challenge to combine such drastically different styles.
The Call of Cthulhu cover © Chaosium Inc.
Right off the bat, the drawings are the same Seuss style. The cover's label, "For Beginning Readers" is just a joke, actually. It's made to look like it fits in, but it doesn't really. Beginning readers would not be able to read this, but their parents would enjoy reading it to them.
The racism in Lovecraft has really been cut out with scenes and incidents reformed, then put back in. It's all been softened and Seussified, solely in the form of illustrations, so that it seems to be more of an acknowledgement of this aspect of Lovecraft's work rather than an endorsement
The protagonist, is the same, the three chapters are three chapters, the rhyming style of Seuss adhered to and scans well. I would recommend this book for teens or as a gift for new parents who love sci-fi or RPGs. There is a bit of death in there which is not found in Seuss books, but found in Lovecraft books. That makes it a really interesting mix of incongruity. I have to say that some parts are not right, that the book had to forgo some events in the original story for rhyming purposes, but it's not too much different.
Just as a review, the book has the drawings of Seuss, the rhyming of Seuss, the book design of Seuss, and the story of H.P. Lovecraft. The protagonist explains a sculpture of horrors, a mystery with an inspector, and a mystery with the One himself, Cthulhu. Everything you'd look for if you wanted your Dr. Seuss a bit darker and scarier.
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