H. P. Lovecraft

by Michel Houellebecq

He faced death with courage. Struck by intestinal cancer that spread to his entire upper body, he was transported on March 10, 1937, to the Jane Brown Memorial Hospital. He was an exemplary patient, polite, affable, whose stoicism and courtesy impressed all the nurses, in spite of his very intense physical suffering (thankfully attenuated by morphine). He underwent the pangs of death with resignation and perhaps with a certain secret satisfaction. This life that was leaving behind its carnal envelope was his old enemy; he had denigrated it, fought it, he would not utter a single word of regret. And he passed away, without further incident, on March 15, 1937.

  As biographers have said, “Lovecraft died, his work was born.” And indeed, we have just begun to put him in his true place, equal or superior to that of Edgar Poe—in any event, resolutely unique. In the face of the repeated failure of his literary creations, he at times felt the sacrifice of his life had actually been in vain. Today we can pronounce a different judgment; we can, for he has been our essential guide, taking us on initiatory journeys to different universes that lie somewhere well beyond the limits of human experience, but that provoke in us a precise and terrible emotional impact.

  This man, who did not succeed at life, did indeed succeed at writing. It was hard for him. It took him years. New York helped him. He who was so gentle, so courteous, discovered hatred there. Returning to Providence, he composed the magnificent tales that vibrate like incantations, that are as precise as a dissection. The dramatic structure of the “great texts” is impressively complex; the narrative procedures are precise, new and bold. Perhaps all this would not suffice were it not that at the center of the ensemble, one feels the power of a consuming interior force.

  Every great passion, be it love or hate, will in the end generate an authentic work. One may deplore it, but one must recognize it: Lovecraft was more on the side of hate; of hate and fear. The universe, which intellectually he perceived as being indifferent, became hostile aesthetically. His own existence, which might have been nothing but the sum of banal disappointments, turned into a surgical operation, and an inverted celebration.

  The work of his mature years remains faithful to the physical prostration of his youth, transfiguring it. This is the profound secret of Lovecraft’s genius, and the pure source of his poetry: he succeeded in transforming his aversion for life into an effective hostility.

  To offer an alternative to life in all its forms constitutes a permanent opposition, a permanent recourse to life—this is the poet’s highest mission on this earth. Howard Phillips Lovecraft fulfilled this mission.

  Brief Bibliography

  LOVECRAFT LITERATURE AVAILABLE IN FRENCH by MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ

  I. LOVECRAFT’S WORKS

  Dans l’abîme du temps and La couleur tombée du ciel (Denoël, « Présence du Futur », or J’ai lu).

  The “great texts.”

  Dagon (J’ai lu or Belfond).

  Some stories are as good as the “great texts,” others frankly don’t work at all. A prodigious variety of settings and époques. An eclectic, bizarre, and in the end very successful collection.

  Fungi de Yuggoth et autres poèmes fantastiques (Néo, out of print). Lovecraft’s poems are surprisingly beautiful, but all their musicality disappears in translation. Fortunately, this is a bilingual edition.

  Par-delà le mur du sommeil and Je suis d’ailleurs (Denoël, « Présence du Futur » or J’ai lu).

  A selection of fine stories.

  II. BOOKS ABOUT H. P. LOVECRAFT

  Le Necronomicon, a collective work (J’ai lu or Belfond). This small book aims to sow trouble in the mind… and succeeds. Was HPL really among the initiated? A work apart, really.

  H.P. Lovecraft, Lettres 1 (Christian Bourgois).

  A selection of letters from the first part of Lovecraft’s life (up until 1926). Interesting and moving, with a fine preface by Francis Lacassin.

  H.P. Lovecraft, le roman d’une vie, Lyon Sprague de Camp (Néo, out of print).

  The author lacks true affection for Lovecraft but does his work very well. All the qualities of American biography.

  Translator’s Notes

  Michel Houellebecq cites several French editions of Lovecraft’s stories and letters. These citations are interspersed throughout the text. Some are long, while others consist of only two or three words in quotation marks in the middle of one of Houellebecq’s sentences. No references indicate the exact source of each citation.

  Wishing to use Lovecraft’s original English for these quotations, I looked for them in the available editions of Lovecraft’s correspondence and stories. I also consulted S. T. Joshi, the renowned Lovecraft scholar. He in turn referred some of my questions to David Schultz, another Lovecraft specialist. Although they helped me find several additional citations, in the final translation several instances remain where it wasn’t possible to identify the original English source. Houellebecq was also unable to assist in locating or identifying these citations. In most instances, I have resorted to dropping the quotation marks from the original citation and settling for a translation of the French words into English. The following notes indicate where these instances occur.

  Houellebecq’s French sources, included in the French edition of this book, begin on page 239. The sources that were used to identify the citations in English are on page 245.

  This page:

  …a seeker, one who “thirsts for knowledge.”

  I am unable to find Lovecraft’s original phrase corresponding with Houellebecq’s “avide de savoir.”

  This page:

  …must not overuse adjectives such as monstrous, unnameable, and unmentionable.

  I am unable to find Lovecraft’s original phrase corresponding with Houellebecq’s “ne pas abuser des adjectives tel que monstrueux, innommable, indicible…”

  This page:

  …the small thirty-page manuscript entitled The Commonplace Book.

  Houellebecq is referring to Le Livre de Raison, a translation of the Commonplace Book, along with “Notes on Weird Fiction” (1933), “Weird Story Plots” (1933), and “Notes on Writing Weird Fiction” (1934) that appear in Lovecraft (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1991), Vol. 1, pp. 1051-73. “Livre de raison” is commonly translated as “ledger.”

  This page:

  “In a word, Child, I look upon this sort of writing as a mere prying survey of the lowest part of life, and a slavish transcript of simple events made with the crude feelings of a porter or bargeman [and without any native genius or colour of the creative imagination whatever…]”

  Houellebecq omits a segment of this letter without acknowledging the omission. The omission is indicated in brackets.

  This page:

  “Why worry so much about the future of a doomed world?”

  We are unable to confirm Oppenheimer’s original quotation. The quotation here is translated from Houellebecq’s French citation.

  This page:

  “Describing his first impressions of New York to his aunt, he claims he almost fainted with “aesthetic exaltation.”

  In the French edition, Houellebecq quotes at length from a first-person account by Lovecraft of his delight on seeing the New York skyline for the first time. However, neither Joshi nor I were able to find any evidence of this quotation in Lovecraft’s writings. As a result, I have decided not to translate the passage, but have instead shortened it, reproducing the sentiment in the short sentence (“aesthetic exaltation”) above. The French passage follows:

  “J’ai failli m’évanouir d’exaltation esthéthique en admirant ce point de vue—ce décor vespéral avec les innombrables lumières des gratte-ciel; les reflets miroitants et les feux des bateaux bondissant sur l’eau, à l’extrémité gauche l’étincellante statue de la Liberté, et à droite l’arche scintillante du pont de Brooklyn: C’était quelque chose de plus puissant que les rêves de la légende de l’Ancien monde—une constellation d’une majesté infernale—un poème dans le feu de Babylone!

  “Tout cela s’ajoutant au
x lumières étranges, aux bruits étranges du port, où le traffic du monde entier atteint son apogée. Trompes de brume, cloches de vaisseaux, au loin le grincement des treuils… visions des ravages lointains de l’Inde, où des oiseaux au plumage étincelant sont incités à chanter par l’encens d’étranges pagodas entourées de jardins, où des chameliers aux robes criardes pratiquent le troc devant des tavernes en bois de santal avec des matelots à la voix grave dont les yeux reflètent tout le mystère de la mer. Soieries et épices, ornaments curieusement ciselés en or du Bengale, dieux et éléphants étrangement taillés dans le jade et la cornaline. Ah, mon Dieu! Qu’il fasse que je puisse exprimer la magie de la scène.”

  This page:

  “and all to the abhorrent discords of those mocking instruments. And then…”

  In French, Houellebecq includes here the phrase “c’est alors que je me suis mis à trembler,” which doesn’t appear in any known English-language version of the story.

  This page:

  “…consonants that brought to mind certain proto-Akkadian dialects.” Archeology and folklore play an equal part in the project from its inception. “We must review all our knowledge, Wilmarth!”

  Niether S.T. Joshi, David Schultz, nor I are able to identify the exact text in these two paragraphs. The text in quotation marks is a translation of Houellebecq’s French citation. Joshi writes: “We cannot locate any of these passages in Lovecraft’s fiction. HPL never mentions ‘proto-Akkadian’ or ‘North Carolina’ in any of his fiction. The quotation about Wilmarth must come from ‘The Whisperer in Darkness,’ but that story makes no mention of Sumerian—nor does any other story.” I have left these words, then, in quotations, indicating that they represent a quotation from a story:

  It is not just the clinical vocabulary of animal physiology and the more mysterious lexicon of paleontology (Archaean strata that have survived since middle Comanchian times…) that Lovecraft annexed to his universe. He was quick to understand the appeal of linguistic terminology: “The individual, dark-skinned with somewhat reptilian features expressed himself with hooting emissions and rapid succession of consonants that brought to mind certain proto-Akkadian dialects.” Archeology and folklore play an equal part in the project from its inception. “We must review all our knowledge, Wilmarth! These frescoes are seven thousand years older than the most ancient Sumerian necropolis!” And HPL, ever impressive, slips in an allusion to “certain ritual and particularly repugnant customs of the indigenous inhabitants of North Carolina.” But what’s more astonishing is that he doesn’t limit himself to the human sciences: He tackles the “hard” sciences as well; the most theoretical, those that are, a priori, the furthest from a literary universe.

  This page:

  …a mythology that “would mean something to those intelligent beings that consist only of nebulous spiraling gases.”

  We are unable to find the original phrase by Lovecraft to correspond to Houellebecq’s French: “aurait encore un sens pour les intelligences composées de gaz des nébuleuses spirales.”

  This page:

  “…individuals of their background must not stand out by their speech or by any inconsiderate actions.”

  We are unable to find the original phrase by Lovecraft to correspond to Houellebecq’s French: “il n’appartient pas aux individus de notre classe de se singulariser par des paroles ou des actes inconsidérés.”

  This page:

  “…Where once he’d seen him as an elemental force called to regenerate European culture, he came to see him as “a clown,” and then, to concede that although his objectives were fundamentally sane, the absurd extremism of his then-current policy risked leading to disastrous results that directly contradicted his original principles.”

  We are unable to find the original text by Lovecraft corresponding to Houellebecq’s French: “force élémentaire appelée à régénérer la culture européenne… honnête clown… bien que ses objectifs soient fondamentalement sains, l’extrémisme absurde de sa politique actuelle risque de conduire à des résultats désastreux, et en contradiction avec les principes de départ.”

  This page:

  “…great blond beasts of prey.”

  We are unable to find the original phrase in the correspondence between Lovecraft and Long to correspond to Houellebecq’s French: “les grands bêtes blonds de proies.”

  This page:

  “…among the basest of species.”

  We are unable to find the original phrase by Lovecraft to correspond to Houellebecq’s French: “de la plus basse espèce.”

  This page:

  “What we detest is simply change itself.”

  We are unable to find the original phrase by Lovecraft to correspond to Houellebecq’s French: “Ce que nous détestons, c’est simplement le changement en tant que tel.”

  This page:

  “…hadn’t fared too badly.”

  We are unable to find the original phrase by Lovecraft to correspond to Houellebecq’s French: “pas trop mal tiré.”

  TRANSLATOR’S BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Arkham Collector No. 8, “Lovecraft on Love” (Winter 1971).

  de Camp, L. Sprague, H.P. Lovecraft, A Biography (Doubleday, 1975).

  Lovecraft, H.P., The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (Penguin, 1999).

  Lovecraft, H.P., Lord of a Visible World, an Autobiography in Letters (Ohio University Press, 2000).

  Lovecraft, H.P., The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (Penguin, 2001).

  H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters 1911-1924 (Arkham House, 1965).

  H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters, Vol. 2, 1925-1929 (Arkham House, 1968).

  H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters, Vol. 3, 1929-1931 (Arkham House, 1971).

  Matheson, Richard, The Incredible Shrinking Man (Tom Doherty Associates, 1994).

  http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/theshadowoutoftime.htm

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It is thanks to Tom Luddy that I came to translate this book, and that it came to be published by Believer Books. In October 2003, Tom wrote an email to the editors of the Believer suggesting they acquire the rights and publish the first English-language edition. He had been turned on to it by the film director Barbet Schroeder, who had given it to him in Paris, telling him that it was the most brilliant of Michel Houellebecq’s books. At the end of his email, Tom wrote, “Stephen King should do the introduction.” Unbelievably, it has all come to pass!

  In working on this translation, I was fortunate to be able to consult the erudite S. T. Joshi, the foremost H. P. Lovecraft scholar, who was generous with his time as he helped me uncover some of the more obscure references in Houellebecq’s text. I am grateful to him.

  —Dorna Khazeni

  MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ was born on February 26, 1958, on the French island of Réunion. In 1985, he met Michel Bulteau, the editor of the Nouvelle Revue de Paris, who suggested that he write a book for the “Infrequentables” series, which had been launched at the publishing house Le Rocher. This led to the French publication, in 1991, of this volume, H. P. Lovecraft, Contre le monde, contre la vie. That same year saw the publication of Rester vivant, méthode (To Stay Alive: A Method), by La Différence. In 1992, his first collection of poems, La Poursuite du bonheur (The Pursuit of Happiness) appeared. Maurice Nadeau published Extension du domaine de la lutte (Whatever), Houellebecq’s first novel in 1994.

  In 1998, a collection of chronicles and critical texts called Interventions, along with Les Particules élémentaires (Atomised), his second novel, were published simultaneously. The latter has since been translated into more than twenty-five languages. In 1999, he collaborated on the screen adaptation of Extension du domaine de la lutte with Philippe Harel, who directed the film. That year he also published a new collection of poems, Renaissance. A book of photographs and text about Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, was published in 2000.

  In 2000, he moved to Ireland, then to Andalusia in 2002. During his exile years, h
e published Plateforme (Platform) in 2001, La Tentation d’une île (The Possibility of an Island) in 2005, and La Carte et le Territoire (The Map and the Territory) in 2010, which won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in France.

  He moved back to France in 2012 and published Soumission (Submission) in 2015. On January 4, 2019, his novel Serotonin was published. Later that year, Houellebecq was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur.

  He currently resides in Paris, France, and he has been described as “France’s biggest literary export and, some say, greatest living writer.”

  BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ IN ENGLISH

  Whatever (Extension du domaine de la lutte, 1994), translated by Paul Hammond, Serpent’s Tail, London, 1998

  Atomised (Les Particules élémentaires, 1998), translated by Frank Wynne, Vintage, New York, 2001

  Lanzarote (Lanzarote, 2000), translated by Frank Wynne, Vintage, New York, 2009

  Platform (Plateforme, 2001), translated by Frank Wynne, Vintage, New York, 2004

  The Possibility of an Island (La Tentation d’une île, 2005), translated by Gavin Bowd, Vintage, New York, 2007

  Public Enemies: Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World (Ennemis publics, 2008), translated by Miriam Rachel Frendo and Frank Wynne, Random House, New York, 2011

  Submission (Soumission, 2015), translated by Lorin Stein, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2015

  The Map and the Territory (La Carte et le Territoire, 2010), translated by Gavin Bowd, Vintage, New York, 2012

  Serotonim (Sérotonime, 2019), translated by Shaun Whiteside, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2019