H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
By Michel Houellebecq and Stephen King
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Best known for his acclaimed novels, such as the Prix Goncourt-winning The Map and the Territory, Michael Houellebecq devotes his single work of nonfiction to the pioneering author of horror and weird fiction, H. P. Lovecraft. In a volume that is part biographical sketch and part pronouncement on existence and literature, France's most famous contemporary author praises his prewar American alter ego, whose style couldn't be less like his own.
With a foreword by Lovecraft admirer Stephen King, this eloquently translated edition is an insightful introduction to both Lovecraft’s dark mythology and Houellebecq’s deadpan prose.
Michel Houellebecq
Michel Houellebecq (1958) es poeta, ensayista y novelista, «la primera star literaria desde Sartre», según se escribió en Le Nouvel Observateur. Su primera novela, Ampliación del campo de batalla (1994), ganó el Premio Flore y fue muy bien recibida por la crítica española. En mayo de 1998 recibió el Premio Nacional de las Letras, otorgado por el Ministerio de Cultura francés. Su segunda novela, Las partículas elementales (Premio Novembre, Premio de los lectores de Les Inrockuptibles y mejor libro del año según la revista Lire), fue muy celebrada y polémica, igual que Plataforma. Houellebecq obtuvo el Premio Goncourt con El mapa y el territorio, que se tradujo en treinta y seis países, abordó el espinoso tema de la islamización de la sociedad europea en Sumisión y volvió a levantar ampollas con Serotonina. Las seis novelas han sido publicadas por Anagrama, al igual que H. P. Lovecraft, Lanzarote, El mundo como supermercado, Enemigos públicos, Intervenciones, En presencia de Schopenhauer, Más intervenciones y los libros de poemas Sobrevivir, El sentido de la lucha, La búsqueda de la felicidad, Renacimiento (reunidos en el tomo Poesía) y Configuración de la última orilla. Houellebecq ha sido galardonado también con el prestigioso Premio IMPAC (2002), el Schopenhauer (2004) y, en España, el Leteo (2005).
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Reviews for H. P. Lovecraft
173 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There has been a great deal written about Lovecraft over the years. This is a very worthwhile addition to the oevre. As a long time reader of The Old Gentleman I was pleased & surprised by some of Houellebecq's insights. Very good.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I don't generally read what authors have to say on other authors, so this book was an exception for me. It turned out to be a very nice exception: Houellebecq expanded my perspective on Lovecraft with his witty analyses that were delivered without much fanfare. His exposition of Lovecraft's unique style, coupled with the context of Lovecraft's life helped me realize the layers of this beloved author of weird and horror fiction. To make things more meta, the book has introduction by Stephen King, and it added more layers to the literary pleasure, that is, King's writing Houellebecq's writing on Lovecraft.I must also congratulate the translator Dorna Khazeni for the end result that flows so smoothly, becoming a part of the English literature, too. Translator's notes at the end of the book made clear how challenging some had been. After King's introduction, Houellebecq's unique exposition, reading the famous stories from the master of his craft made me a happy reader. For a while, I really was against the world I live in, because the fictional one was such a grandiose achievement. In short, I'm all for more Lovecraft, and Houellebecq for that matter. Well done!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The value of a human being today is measured in terms of his economic efficiency and his erotic potential--that is to say, in terms of the two things that Lovecraft most despised.
My chief surprise in this exploration was the effectiveness of the Introduction by Stephen King, equally erudite and folksy -- just as we'd expect him. Moving on to Houellebecq's love letter, I was disappointed that there simply isn't much there in terms of girth or ideas. The cataloguing of Lovecraft's extreme bigotry also appeared as an affectation on Houellebecq's behalf: see, I'm not alone in my vitriol and condemnation.
HPL's use of one-dimensional characters and the employment of scientific language is explored, though not at length. Houellebecq finds a resounding NO (or NON) in HPL, his attitude towards life. My response, remains that one must simply move on. We shouldn't worry about the Old Ones and instead about our own agency.
Apparently HPL faced a difficult, isolated life. He found fleeting happiness and likewise a multiculturalism which sickened him. He was poor, proud and died, as we all will, alone and misunderstood. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A love-letter to Lovecraft that deserves a love-letter to it. Arch and impassioned, zealously gloomy and decidely not for everyone - much like the writer it discusses.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I have an emotional repulsion to the conclusion of this essay, though found portions of the middle quite moving. Construction (some possibly the original French, some translation related) is odd and jumpy.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Originally published in French back in 1991, this book provides deep insight into the mind of Lovecraft. It's also the perfect setup for much of Houellebecq's own fiction, though perhaps most directly related to his latest: The Possibility of an Island...In real life, Michel Houellebecq is semi-involved with the Raelians. This tidbit may give further insight into his profound interest in Lovecraft. And then again, maybe not.Frankly, I enjoyed the book because both Lovecraft and Houellebecq are the perfect archetypes for misanthropy. This reminds me not to take life so seriously lest I fall into the trap of solipsism.
Book preview
H. P. Lovecraft - Michel Houellebecq
Published in the USA in 2019 by CERNUNNOS An imprint of Dargaud 57 rue Gaston Tessier 75019 Paris www.cernunnospublishing.com
© Cernunnos/Dargaud 2018
First published in France by Editions du Rocher, as H.P. Lovecraft. Contre le monde, contre la vie.
© Editions du Rocher, 1991, 1999, 2005
© Stephen King for the introduction
Cernunnos logo design: Mark Ryden
Cover illustrations: Ying-Ju Lu
Cover design: Benjamin Brard
Composition: Le vent se lève
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior consent of the publisher.
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
ISBN: 9782374950846
eISBN: 978-1-68335-974-6
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LOVECRAFT’S PILLOW
AN INTRODUCTION by STEPHEN KING
CHRONOLOGY
H.P. LOVECRAFT: AGAINST THE WORLD, AGAINST LIFE by MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ
PREFACE
PART ONE: ANOTHER UNIVERSE
PART TWO: TECHNICAL ASSAULT
PART THREE: HOLOCAUST
MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ
H.P. LOVECRAFT
INTRODUCTION
Lovecraft’s Pillow
by STEPHEN KING
Michel Houellebecq’s longish essay H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life is a remarkable blending of critical insight, fierce partisanship, and sympathetic biography—a kind of scholarly love letter, maybe even the world’s first truly cerebral mash note. The question is whether or not the subject rates such a rich and unexpected burst of creativity in what is ordinarily a dull-as-ditchwater, footnote-riddled field of work. Does this long-dead, pulp-magazine Johnson deserve such a Boswell? Houellebecq argues that H. P. Lovecraft does, that he matters a great deal even in the twenty-first century.
As it happens, I think he could not be more right.
Have you ever scared yourself?
Here’s a question every writer whose work has touched upon the weird, the supernatural, or the macabre has been asked, not once but many times. I am sure that H. P Lovecraft faced the query, and that he replied with his customary gravity and politesse no matter how many times he heard it. Certainly he would never have answered as did one writer at a World Horror Convention I attended some years ago, with another question: Have I ever taken a piss?
Vulgar, that, but otherwise not a bad response. Because any writer who has worked this field of literature more than occasionally has scared him or herself. Men who’ve spent their lives in coal mines cough. Guitarists have calluses on the tips of their fingers. Deskmen and women often walk with a pronounced stoop by the time they reach middle age. These are occupational hazards. For the horror writer, the occasional scare when the imagination performs especially well is another. It comes with the territory, and most of us who work that territory consider a passing frisson no more interesting than the coal miner considers his cough, or the guitarist the tough spots on the ends of her fingers.
There is, however, a related question. Ask a group of writers who have specialized in tales of horror and the supernatural if they’ve ever had an idea too scary even to write about, and their eyes will light up. Then you’re no longer talking about occupational hazards, which is boring; then you’re talking shop, which is never boring.
I’ve had at least one such idea. It came to me while I was attending my first World Fantasy Convention, in the dim and antique year of 1979. That WorldCon happened to be held in Providence, HPL’s hometown. While wandering aimlessly about on Saturday afternoon (and wondering, of course, if Lovecraft had once wandered the same streets), I happened to pass a pawnshop. The window was crowded with the usual bright assortment of goods: electric guitars, clock radios, straight razors, saxophones, rings, pendants, and guns-guns-guns.
While I was looking in at all this rickrack, Mr. Idea Man spoke up from his Barcalounger at the back of my head, as he sometimes does, and for reasons no writer seems to fully understand.¹ Mr. Idea Man said, What if there was a pillow in that window? Just an ordinary old pillow in a slightly dirty cotton slip? And suppose somebody curious about why such an item would be on display—a writer like you, maybe—went in and asked about it, and the guy who ran the pawnshop said it was H. P. Lovecraft’s pillow, the one he slept on every night, the one he dreamed his fantastic dreams on,² maybe even the one he died on.
Reader, I cannot remember—even now, a quarter-century later—ever having an idea that gave me such a chill. Lovecraft’s pillow! The one that cradled his narrow head when he left consciousness behind! And Lovecraft’s Pillow
would, of course, be the title of my story. I hurried back to my hotel fully intending to skip everything else I had planned, two panel discussions and a dinner, in order to write it. By the time I arrived, a great many details about that pillow had come clear in my mind. I could see the slightly yellowish cast of the cloth; I could see a ghostly, brownish ring that might have been a tiny leakage of spittle from the corner of the thin-lipped, sleeping mouth; I could see a dot of darker brown that was surely blood which had slipped from one nostril.
And I could hear the low squeal of the dreams trapped inside. Yes indeed. The chittering of H. P. Lovecraft’s nightmares.
If I had started the story right away, as I’d planned, I’m almost sure it would have been written, but as I was walking down the twelfth-floor corridor to my room, some hilarious soul popped out of another room, slapped a beer in my hand, and pulled me into a group of happy, promiscuously talking writers. Then came the panel discussions (after all), and the dinner (naturally), followed by a great deal more drinking (of course) and talking (to be sure). Not a little of the talk was about HPL, and I participated gladly, but I never did write that story.
Later that night, in bed, my mind turned to it again, and what had seemed marvelous in the afternoon light became awful to think about in the dark. It was thinking of his stories, you see—the ones that had been in that narrow head, horrors separated from the pillow by only the thinnest shield of bone. The best of them—what Michel Houellebecq calls the great texts
—are uniquely terrible in all of American literature, and survive with all their power intact. Lovecraft’s only stylistic rival at mid-twentieth century, ironically enough, may have been the noir writer David Goodis, whose language was entirely different, but who shared Lovecraft’s inability to ever stop, to say enough is enough, but had that neurotic need to simply keep drilling away at the column of reality. Goodis, however, has fallen into obscurity. Lovecraft never did. And why not? I think because, unlike Goodis, the shrill pitch of HPL’s compulsion was balanced by a kind of lumbering poetry and an unearthly range of imaginative vision. His screams of horror are lucid.
And was I, I wondered as I lay sleepless upon my own pillow, actually going to try and put all that into a story? The idea was ludicrous. To try and fail would be miserable. To try and succeed would require an expenditure of psychic energy—not to mention simple nerve—far beyond what any short story (save perhaps one by Gogol… or Lovecraft himself) deserved. And the idea of trying to maintain such a gruesome conceit for the duration of a novel, even a short one, was too daunting for serious consideration. I felt like a would-be diver on the cliffs at Acapulco, who probably would have been all right if he’d just gone ahead and jumped after a cursory look to make sure he was on the right side of the rocks. Instead, I paused too long to consider the drop and the possible consequences. Thus was I lost.
Lovecraft’s Pillow
wasn’t written that weekend in