Dance of the Dwarfs

by Geoffrey Household

A tale of superstition, science, and horror in the Amazon—an “absolutely splendid spellbinder” by the author of Rogue Male (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). A dedicated agricultural scientist, Dr. Owen Dawnay has set up a lonely post on the outskirts of Colombia’s Amazon River to study the flora that thrives in one of the most remote and inhospitable regions on the face of the Earth. But deep in the heart of darkness, he stumbles across a terrifying nightmare of brutality and death. The behavior of the local population is odd, full of superstitions and terrors. The native villagers fear music and the night, huddling silently in their homes after sunset. They claim that evil spirits emerge from the trees at night to dance—and feed. As a man of science, Dr. Dawnay refuses to believe in the supernatural, yet the mystery behind the fearful beliefs draws him in. But the closer he gets to unraveling the truth, the more he begins to doubt both his science and his sanity. And soon, even in the farthest corners of the rain forest, there will be nowhere left for him to hide . . . A stunning example of thoughtful and thought-provoking suspense fiction, Dance of the Dwarfs is a must-read blend of science and superstition, sanity and madness—a deserving heir to The Island of Dr. Moreau and a spiritual predecessor to the works of Michael Crichton.  

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Adventure

209 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

British author of mostly thrillers, though among 37 books he also published children's fiction. Household's flight-and-chase novels, which show the influence of John Buchan, were often narrated in the first person by a gentleman-adventurer. Among his best-know works is' Rogue Male' (1939), a suggestive story of a hunter who becomes the hunted, in 1941 filmed by Fritz Lang as 'Man Hunt'. Household's fast-paced story foreshadowed such international bestsellers as Richard Condon's thriller 'The Manchurian Candidate' (1959), Frederick Forsyth's 'The Day of the Jackal' (1971), and Ken Follett's 'Eye of the Needle' (1978) .

In 1922 Household received his B.A. in English from Magdalen College, Oxford, and between 1922 and 1935 worked in commerce abroad, moving to the US in 1929. During World War II, Household served in the Intelligence Corps in Romania and the Middle East. After the War he lived the life of a country gentleman and wrote. In his later years, he lived in Charlton, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, and died in Wardington.

Household also published an autobiography, 'Against the Wind' (1958), and several collections of short stories, which he himself considered his best work.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

An agriculture researcher in the backwaters of Colombia has to deal with government officials, rebel squadrons, and a suspicious inhabitants of a local village. The attitude of the locals seems particularly odd: they are terrified of someone--or something--they call "the dwarfs."

The story Household tells here is not without interest. It has many moments of suspense and a few that are genuinely terrifying. Unfortunately, there is only enough plot and atmosphere for a long short story, and this is a 260 page book.

Remember, this opinion comes from someone who is a big fan of Machen and Blackwood and Lovecraft, someone who loves the leisurely atmospheric build-ups of their short stories and novellas. But Household's original conception, although intriguing, is much too slender for a novel.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

GeoffreyHousehold was known for writing the kind of muscular thriller that was especially popular in the 1940s-1960s (you know, the golden age of Ian Fleming et al.). While I read several of his books, including Rogue Male many years ago, this is one I remembered liking so well that I decided to reread it a few years back. I was quite surprised to find that I enjoyed it every bit as much the second time around.

Household created a terrifically suspenseful atmosphere in his tale of a researcher in a remote outpost in South America who becomes curious about a local superstition. His gradual and ultimately horrifying discovery of the legend's genesis drives the story forward with hair-raising suspense. This is more than a thriller -- it's a sort of horror story on a par with Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows." Nature itself becomes a menancing force. Dance of the Dwarfs is a page-turner of high caliber.

[Derek Collett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sixth Geoffrey Household novel I've read (all within the last year) and also one of the most underwhelming. It's not terrible by any means, just slow, unexciting, not scary at all in my opinion and, also, not what I was expecting (the promised supernatural element never turned up).

The first third of the book is interesting enough and very different from the Households I've read to date. Firstly, it's set on the plains of Colombia and not in the heart of the English countryside, the author's natural habitat. Secondly, there's no hint of a pursuit, which is a big change for Household as his principal theme is the man on the run. Thirdly, there's some love interest (and some slightly misguided 1960s-style frankness about sex). Finally, the book is quite political, in the sense that the hero and first person narrator Owen Dawnay (an agricultural scientist who has set up an experimental station on the edge of a forest) is being menaced by a band of guerrillas.

But once one has passed the halfway mark it becomes increasingly apparent that this book is going to conform (eventually) to the tried-and-tested Household template. Dawnay discovers by degrees that the locals are afraid of the dark (the way in which he uncovers the precise nature of their fear is very well done). He teases out the information that the locals believe that a race of dwarves live in the forest and that they emerge from it at night to dance. Dawnay decides to investigate, sometimes helped by Chucha, an orphan girl given to him as a present by the Colombian government who quickly becomes his (underage) lover.

In the best section of the book, Dawnay meticulously combs the edge of the forest for evidence of the 'dwarves'. He discovers that far from being 'duende' (evil spirits) they are in fact a previously unknown form of mustelid (large mammals of the same genus as otters, mink, weasel, etc.) and they only 'dance' when they stand on their hind legs and bob up and down to view assailants (or potential prey). The mustelids are brutal and fearsome killers - Dawnay uncovers evidence that they are capable of killing cattle, horses, pumas and even his friend Pedro, a resident of the nearest town. Gradually, Dawnay realizes that as well as being a hunter, he is also quite capable of becoming the hunted (this is where the book resembles the rest of Household's novels).

Once Dawnay has seen, recognized and tentatively classified the mustelid, I felt that the book lost some impetus. We know from the opening lines of the book that Dawnay has been killed and it's now just a case of finding out when and how it happened. The ending is well done but I also found it curiously anticlimactic. The book contains plenty of curious incidents, some genuinely exciting sequences and is quite bloodthirsty in places. But I didn't really experience the 'tightening grip of fear', 'growing claustrophobia', 'stomach-churning sense of menace' that other reviewers, both here and on Amazon, have referred to. Maybe it's just me. I'm not used to reading horror or fantasy so perhaps my senses are just deficient in that regard.

Written in diary format, as is the same author's Hostage:London, the book is very well written. Household was a born story-teller: like his contemporaries Nigel Balchin, Nevil Shute and Eric Ambler he has a brisk confidence in the telling of his story that is utterly compelling. He plunges us straight into the heart of the action and we believe, unthinkingly, that everything he is describing has actually happened and in just this fashion (not all novelists have this skill!). I just felt let down in the final analysis because the dwarves are emphatically not dwarves and the book is nowhere near as frightening, dramatic or exciting as I was hoping (and was led to believe). Ultimately, what we have here is a big game hunt that goes badly wrong and the guy with the gun in his hand gets killed by the beast he was stalking. End of. But as with all of Household's work, the novel is interesting, gripping and never less than compulsively readable.

[Dejan Ognjanović · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Dance of the Dwarfs: very fine writing, detail, setting, atmosphere, very convincing sense of place, intriguing - until 2/3 in, when the 'dwarfs' are revealed, with a crushing disappointment, to have been just some dumb animals: after that, it was all downhill. pity for wasting such a wonderful setting for THIS tale.
the title and advertising are misleading: I don't even see this as a horror novel, though that is not my major complaint. after the revelation, it is just ridiculous, uninteresting and unintentionally funny (though not in a fun way). I'm glad I read it because the setting is very vivid and close to my heart, but - the point of it all? I see none.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this novel Household takes his distinctive brand of suspense writing to the jungles of Columbia. The story is told in two months of journal entries by an English botanist, who is the only white man for many miles and who--we know right from the beginning--died when his last journal entry was written.

Dance of the Dwarfs is somewhat more slowly-paced than some Household novels and, unexpectedly, includes a dash of conspicuous macho eroticism. All of which is to say: it's a must-read for any confirmed Household fan but maybe not a place to start for the uninitiated.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me put it this way ... I love horror, and this is the most frightening book I've ever read. A book about the nature of fear -- fear of both the known and the unknown, the territory in between -- this is the book. One of the strongest first-person narratives I've ever encountered. Read it and fear the darkness all around you.

[Nikolai Nikiforov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Дочитал, потому что в свое время очень понравился Rogue Male. Почему-то я думал, что книга про "первобытный ужас, живущий в каждом", что-то в этом роде, но этот ужас там хотя и упоминается, но не является темой. В принципе, это вполне безыскусный "охотничий триллер": кто-то ходит на зверя, изучает его повадки, подстерегает, зверь этого кого-то тоже подстерегает, тоже изучает его повадки. Кто победил, известно из предисловия. Наверное, у этого жанра должны быть свои любители, но я, увы, не отношусь к ним.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

An agronomic scientist conducting research in the hinterlands of South America...learning about the intricacies of fear while living on the edge of the unknown. Household's exemplary writing style is easily digested and quite enjoyable, allowing the reader to focus on the nuances of his stories. I love the manner in which Household chose to deliver this story...brilliant and attentive. Why I ranked this a shade lower than his masterpiece Rogue Male, I would still highly recommend it. Consider yourself fortunate if you're able to find a copy...

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because my husband felt it was one of the most frightening things he'd ever read, and nothing ever seems to scare him. Unfortunately, the bits he found frightening were the bits I found funny. The ending is presumably intended to shock, but it's ridiculous (and this trick doesn't work in books. only in films). The rest of it is an interesting portrayal of fish-out-of-water life in rural South America.

[Paul Zink · Rating 5 out of 5]

This lesser-known work by the late Geoffrey Household is every bit as good as his famous classic “Rogue Male”, I’d say. Told in diary entry style, the story is set in the Amazonian jungle (Household spent some time in pre-war South America), and builds suspense relentlessly, creating growing unease in the reader. Highly recommended if you can find a copy (try your local library: used copies are expensive).

[Kamas Kirian · Rating 1 out of 5]

The movie was WAY better than the book, and the movie was escapist crap. I read this in high school and had to force myself to finish it. Told as a series of journal entries, the narrative just doesn't flow well. The premise is very interesting (a white researcher in the jungle searching for a mythical creature of native folklore), it just didn't get pulled off as a well written story.

[Jed Mayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very peculiar book: I would not necessarily recommend it but I can honestly say I've never read anything like this before. The author of the abiding classic Rogue Male is likely incapable of writing dull prose, and this certainly keeps the pages turning--and the head scratching!

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very strange read for me as it is very different from any horror book I've ever read. I'm not sure if I could even classify this as horror. The ending was unsatisfying and just as bizarre as the rest of the book. Not my cup of tea I guess.

[Janek Bogucki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Household exhibits mastery of the story telling art in this brief compelling tale.

[Drew Padrutt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sort of like if The Shining took place on a creepy, isolated Colombian grassland rather than an isolated hotel. Surprisingly scary!

[Viki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suspenseful until the last part of book. Once the dwarfs were identified, the plot dwindled and ended with little emotion.

[Shoshana Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting tale

Unusual subject matter and intriguing tale of myth, biology, relationships and the South American outback. A bit sad as well..

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: at the edge of the Amazonian jungle, Dr. Owen Dawnay has an agricultural station. The local cattlemen fear the dark. Elusive dwarfs?

[Nick Pemberton · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, very good in parts, but also fairly repetitive. A combination of gripping and boring.

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually don't know how to categorize this one. There are elements of an adventure story, of potential supernatural manifestations, a hint of politics, and more. This is a strange one! After I finished it, I had to go back and reread the preface. So pay attention to it on your first read.

Household does deal with the arrogance of researchers, particularly those from the global north working in the global south, as well as the quest for truth (whatever that is), even when that search drags one outside one's field of expertise and into potential danger. There is also some love--for place, for one's work, for one's friends, for one's horse, and, yes, some romantic love.

And there are some cool creatures!

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creepy but inconclusive

This story reminded me a bit of T.E.D. Klein's novella Children of the Kingdom -- the native superstition, vague sighting of "something" and a brave attempt to solve a mystery.
This story is from the mid-1960s and suffers from some dated attitudes. I also wish the author had included some sort of map because the relative positions of land formation are crucial to the overall story. .
In general, the author seems to alternate between passages of promising suspense, followed by pages full of pointless ruminations that are somewhat irrelevant to the story. It's very inconclusive, and Stephen King could have done it a lot better.

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written as a series of diary entries, Household's novella about an agricultural scientist performing research on the edge of the Amazon jungle who comes face to face with a deadly local legend is a quick read and genuinely suspenseful in places (though I wouldn't say scary.) However, it hasn't aged well. I realize that it was first published in 1968, and some outdated attitudes are to be expected, but I was put off by the treatment of a teenaged girl who is sent to a much older man as a "gift" to be used for sex and discarded. She becomes an important character, too, so readers are constantly reminded of that plotline.

All in all, not a bad book, but very much a product of its time.

[Ann Harleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A toast to Geoffrey Household (1900-1988), British author of 20 great thrillers! 📚My personal favorites is the haunting, scary, tender Dance of the Dwarfs. 😊. Also, don’t miss Olura (heart-stoppingly romantic) and Rogue Male (made into the 1976 movie starring Peter O’Toole and soon to be remade with Benedict Cumberbach). And then there’s Household’s wonderful autobiography, Against the Wind. I’ve learned so much about the craft of writing from this terrific writer! 😇

[Rani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Won in a goodreads giveaway. This is written in the style of a diary, and somewhat slow, so not for everyone. It could have been nearly cut in half in length. Once you get to the meat of the story it really picks up so keep with it.

[Qylie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes, this was scary! I loved the suspense and probably read it as a teenager - perfect timing.

[Lyle Royer]

Beautiful science FACTION story. While reading it, it's like science and science fiction are parallel universes.

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a short preface, we learn that Dr. Owen Dawnay, a researcher at a remote agricultural station in the Colombian jungle, and his 15-year-old female companion have been killed, presumably shot by Cuban-sponsored revolutionaries. The government assumed he had been murdered for failing to cooperate with the guerrillas. More than two years later, a small metal box is delivered to Dawnay's publisher. It contains Dawnay's personal diary and other possessions.

What follows is Dawnay's personal diary, with entries from March 9 through May 18, the day he and his female companion were murdered.

Household was the author of Rogue Male (1939), perhaps the best hunted-man thriller ever published (yes, better than John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps), a book that inspired Ian Fleming's James Bond spy novels and Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal. Beneath the surface pleasures of a fast-paced plot and engaging narration lies Household's rich prose, filled with motifs and patterns that are endlessly entertaining to explore. Household was an intelligent and exceptionally stylish storyteller.

Although Dance of the Dwarfs may seem like a strange departure for Household, it exhibits many of the same patterns of Rogue Male. It is obsessed with the natural environment Dawnay inhabits, and there is wonderful writing about the Colombian grassland and the jungle:

I have never seen such a concentration of brightly colored life, animal and vegetable. The branches which hung out over the still water were loaded with epiphytes. There were yellow-flowering cassia, orange bignonia, several species of short-stemmed nymphaeaceae and a very fine purple ranuncula which may be unknown. Hummingbirds and green-and-blue tree creepers were everywhere, and there were enough butterflies to keep old Samuel busy for a month. Nature’s passionate exhibitionism, always repressed under the trees, had been hurled on stage by the sun.

There is also Household's fascination with the hunter and the hunted. Dawnay hears stories from the natives of frightening duendes (spirits) that live in the jungle. At first, he assumes these duendes are the remnants of a native pygmy tribe. He becomes obsessed with the "dwarfs," determined to encounter them firsthand so that he can witness their mythical nocturnal dance. But in his obsessive pursuit of these strange and deadly creatures, Dawnay ultimately finds that he has become the hunted.

Some reviewers have pointed out the shocking age difference between Dawnay and his teenage Indian companion, Chucha, who is crudely gifted to him by a friend. She is only 15, and he is 33. Although her age is problematic, Dawnay apparently loves her. The book was originally published in 1968, which may account for its provocative views on sex.

Dance of the Dwarfs is a spellbinding story of isolation, the power of myth, and the mounting and paralyzing fear of the unknown. That fear is what propels the story, which makes it similar, at least in form, to a ghost story. Like many epistolary stories, the book ends mid-sentence (ironically, Dawnay's diary abruptly ends as he is writing the word "imagination"), allowing readers to supply their own terrifying ending. The unresolved ending is also similar to endings in other weird classics such as The Night Wire by H.F. Arnold. It may have inspired Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead (1976), another epistolary novel with a similar ending.

I won't reveal here exactly what the "dwarfs" are, but they are not anthropoid lizards shown in the silly 1983 B-movie adaptation of Dance of the Dwarfs starring Peter Fonda and Deborah Raffin. Best to skip that movie; it’s goofy and forgettable.

Despite the abrupt ending of the novel, it could make a wonderful movie, particularly with today's sophisticated digital effects. I hope another filmmaker finally recognizes the enormous visual potential of this story.

As I read the novel I kept thinking of a 1973 TV movie called A Cold Night's Death starring Robert Culp and Eli Wallach, about two scientists at a remote Arctic research station. Granted, the Arctic setting is very different from Dance of the Dwarfs, but that movie brilliantly captured the characters' isolation and mounting tension. It's a wonderful thriller, available here on YouTube.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somehow or other this book popped up on my recommended list and I decided to give it a shot since I remember the (poorly done, 1983) movie this was based on starring Peter Fonda and Deborah Raffin. This book falls into that "thriller" genre (a genre I normally avoid), but it does have a few elements of horror ("scary monsters") that could make it more than just a "thriller."

The summary is a little, um, melodramatic so I'll add a bit to it. Owen Dawnay is a botanist in Colombia trying to figure out how to generate cash crop growth. He lives in a compound maintained by a husband-wife team of locals who are terrified of going out of doors after dark because of the "duendes." Owen scoffs at their fear, but the entire area is also under this fear, and many of them will not go into the forest even in the daytime. Set against the revolution of the area (communists fighting against the government), there is some political turmoil that spills over enough to make for some person-to-person tension, but this politicking serves the main purpose of creating some opportunity for a couple untimely deaths that add to the mystery of the duendes/dwarfs. There is also a romantic angle in here, which seems to offer little to the story other than some mentions of Owen and Chucha being very "involved" with each other, though in a manner that is far from equal. (Honestly, if Chucha had been left out of the book it would have been a better story as her character added nothing outside of the "Europeans are better than South Americans" angle.) The story is then about Owen trying to do his work and then getting caught up in the mythology of the duendes that turn out to be quite real.

There are a lot of parts to this long novella that did not age well, but for all of that the story has some quite tense parts to it and you do develop some emotional involvement. Then, once you learn what the duendes are, there is a man vs. nature plot twist that moves the book from possible horror story to semi-thriller. The main character, Owen, is mostly believable, and the backdrop of the story is very well done. I felt like there was more that could have been done with the story to make it more tense, but given that it was written and published more than 50 years ago, it fits the time period and probably tense enough for its audience back then.

To be fair, this book is more like 3.5 stars than 4, but I'm giving the benefit of rounding up. If you are willing to put aside modern sensibilities (subtle racism and overt sexism) and focus on the plot, it's a fairly decent read that won't take you too long.

[Sam Reaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Geoffrey Household is an old favorite; besides his classic Rogue Male he produced thrillers set in a wide variety of locales, including the Middle East and Latin America. Most of them involve the out-of-doors, with themes of hunting, pursuit and going to earth. This one, from 1968, has a British botanist researching local plants at a remote station on the grasslands of eastern Colombia where they run into the Amazon jungle. Owen Dawnay is the type of robust, self-reliant adventurer-scientist who is content to pass months away from civilization while dedicated to his research; here he is lodged in an old adobe ranch compound, abandoned some years before for reasons that are unclear, served by an old Indian couple who are afraid to go out at night and reliant on the government riverboat that docks at the nearest village, twelve miles away, for supplies and mail.
Dawnay is in his element, but there is trouble in paradise, with Marxist guerrillas in the nearby cordillera and the mysterious reluctance of the locals to enter the forest or cross the plains at night. When the local head man is found dead in the jungle with inexplicable wounds, Dawnay gets curious and starts to probe the depths of the forest. What he finds seems to jibe with the local superstitions about the enigmatic figures who come out of the trees to dance at night; as he gets closer to the heart of the mystery he realizes that they pose a tremendous danger to him and his whole establishment.
It's a good yarn, written with Household's usual urbane and literate style, evocative of the setting and wonderfully creepy. It kept me turning pages.

[Tylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

this a great book so far