10. The role of will in Gothic fiction has been discussed especially well by Judith Wilt in her Ghosts of the Gothic: Austen, Eliot, and Lawrence (cf. esp. her discussion of Gothic fathers in chapter one).
11. See Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (1989).
12. The resonance of the Harlequin allusion extends beyond the abbreviated treatment of it I have given here, and a more detailed consideration of it is in order.
13. For these insights, I am grateful to Professor Robert Waugh of SUNY–New Paltz, who first suggested to me the importance of the writing on the mirror.
14. I have in mind principally Peter Straub (especially in Ghost Story [1979] and The Hellfire Club [1996]) and Jonathan Carroll (especially The Land of Laughs [1980] and A Child across the Sky [1989]; although all Carroll’s work is metafictional). I might add here that, from a critical standpoint, the implications of such metafictional moves by horror writers remain in need of further study. As well, we need to consider the cultural context against which such moves have been made. Much work is to be done.
Reviews
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MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ. H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life. Translated by Dorna Khazeni. Introduction by Stephen King. San Francisco: Believer Books, 2005. 247 pp. $18.00 tpb. Reviewed by Kevin Dole.
Is it possible that H. P. Lovecraft has not only been finally accepted by the mainstream literary establishment, but is for the moment actually hip?
There has been something of a buzz about Lovecraft as of late. In 2004 we saw the publication of The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories, the last in a well-received series of Penguin editions annotated by S. T. Joshi, as well as the re-release of Joshi’s definitive biography H. P. Lovecraft: A Life by Necronomicon Press. The February 2005 issue of a Lovecraft volume by the Library of America, edited by Peter Straub and called simply Tales, apparently only further cements Lovecraft’s place in the canon of American literature, and now in May 2005 we have H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life by Michel Houellebecq, perhaps the most controversial contemporary novelist in France if not all Europe. The English translation by Dorna Khazeni of Houellebecq’s critique-cumtribute has been released by Believer Books, a division of McSweeney’s, one of the trendiest publishers around.
This may be as hip as Lovecraft will ever become, however, for he is, in his way, still unknown. At least other reviewers seem to think so, seeing as they feel the constant need to reintroduce him. As with Joyce Carol Oates’s initial 1996 review of A Life in the New York Review of Books (a piece that later served as the foreword to Tales of H. P. Lovecraft, edited by Oates herself), reviews of the Library of America edition have invariably served as introductions to Lovecraft, in which the reviewer trots out familiar anecdotes and repeats the occasional myth. I shall not continue this trend here, since anyone reading this periodical is presumably familiar with the Providence author whose name graces its cover and because Houellebecq’s piece is something of an introduction to Lovecraft in itself.
Although it at times treads familiar ground, Against the World, Against Life is a pleasure to read. In addition to being exceptionally well-written, it is as passionate and creative a piece of criticism as you are likely to find, offering original insight and fierce partisanship. Houellebecq’s titular essay is padded with an enjoyable, if inconsequential, foreword by Stephen King, a pro forma chronology of Lovecraft’s life and work, a bibliography of Lovecraft’s writing available in French, and two of Lovecraft's stories (“The Call of Cthulhu” and “The Whisperer in Darkness”), but the treatise is substantial enough to stand on its own, regardless of length.
In “Another Universe,” the first of three sections, Houellebecq makes the flattering and provocative claim that Lovecraft is unique among virtually all other authors because we find in his fiction a muchneeded “supreme antidote against all forms of realism.” Testament to Lovecraft’s impact can be found in the cultlike devotion his work inspires in other authors, who slavishly work to “continue” to his literature, something unheard of in literature, Houellebecq notes, since Homer. He finds this especially impressive considering that “[t]here is something not really all that literary about Lovecraft's work.”
According to Houellebecq:
Lovecraft’s body of work can be compared to a gigantic dream machine, of astounding breadth and efficacy. There is nothing tranquil or discreet in his literature. Its impact on the reader’s mind is savage, frighteningly brutal, and dangerously slow to dissipate. Rereading produces no noticeable modification other than that, eventually, one ends up wondering: how does he do it?
In “Technical Assault” Houellebecq seeks to answer that question. This second chapter is divided into six subsections, each honing in on a specific element of Lovecraft’s technique. His narrative innovation, rejection of the mundane, use of architectural description, achievement in sensory imagery, scientific precision, and cosmic scope are all analyzed with admirable precision and insight. And as a sort of a peculiar bonus, the subsection titles form a poem:
Attack the story like a radiant suicide
Utter the great no to life without weakness
Then you will see a magnificent cathedral
And your senses, vectors of utter derangement, will map out an integrated delirium
That will be lost in the unnameable architecture of time
Houellebecq compares Lovecraft’s vision of a scientifically objective horror to Kant’s attempts at formulating a system of universal ethics. Much like Kant, Lovecraft rejected the worldly in the pursuit of the transcendent. But unlike Kant, Lovecraft was an atheistic materialist who expected nothing of the universe. Here the question long laid implicit becomes explicit: why would one so firmly grounded in reality as Lovecraft feel the need to escape it? For one of Houellebecq’s disposition (Against the World, Against Life begins with the statement “life is painful and disappointing”) the answer is self-evident, but for Lovecraft the explanation is a bit more complex. Houellebecq lays out his most provocative (perhaps unfortunately so) theory in the books final chapter, “Holocaust.”
In Against the World, Against Life Houellebecq identifies two phenomena that induced in Lovecraft an almost hallucinatory “trancelike” state. The first of these is architecture, Lovecraft’s passion for which is well known. The second phenomenon is race, specifically the non Anglo-Saxon variety, Lovecraft’s passionate disdain for which is equally well known. Lovecraft’s relation to both these phenomena hit a sort of boiling point in New York, Houellebecq theorizes, and from these deranged fascinations comes his greatest work: “It could be posited that a fundamental figure in [Lovecraft's] body of work—the idea of a giant, titanic city, in whose foundations crawl repugnant nightmare beings— sprang directly from his New York experience.”
The impact of New York on Lovecraft’s life and work is undoubtedly significant, but never before have I seen it put quite this way. Still, it is hard to argue with Houellebecq here. The stories that he correctly identifies as “The Great Texts” began directly after the New York period, the massive city Lovecraft once thought beautiful he now calls monstrous, and in a letter to Frank Belknap Long we find descriptions of New York’s immigrant population match those of his most hyperbolic horrors.
Consider the following, which is only a brief excerpt of a much longer tirade:
They were monstrous and nebulous adumbrations . . . amoebal, vaguely moulded from some stinking viscous slime of earth's corruption. . . . I thought of some avenue of Cyclopean and unwholesome vats . . . about to burst and inundate the world in one leprous cataclysm of semi-fluid rottenness.
Despite this display, Houellebecq shows great sympathy for Lovecraft during this period, especially when relating his marriage to Sonia Greene and his crushing inability to make ends meet, for it is here that he finds the source of Lovecraft’s rejection of life. Lovecraft was already likely predisposed, but after trying to embrace a normal existence and failing his apathy was transfo
rmed into antipathy. The steady march of society toward pluralism and modernism that had once merely been an annoyance became intolerable, and Lovecraft had to retreat to maintain his sanity. His protagonists are not just autobiographical in their interests and background, Houellebecq says, but also in their total victimization by forces they hardly understand and that are wholly beyond their control.
It is ironic, and portentous, Houellebecq believes, that Lovecraft’s popularity continues to increase in what seems to be direct proportion to the spread of that which he loathed. Houellebecq also believes that Lovecraft’s genius and dedication allowed him to achieve a sort of late transcendence, not just in the success of his writing after his death, but in the way he lived. In its totality, Houellebecq views Lovecraft’s rejection of life as a sort of philosophical victory: “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.”
Is Houellebecq right? Aside from one niggling factual error (Houellebecq repeatedly cites as evidence of Lovecraft’s complete asceticism “not one reference” to money in Lovecraft’s entire oeuvre, which is technically not true), he is never incorrect. His argument, however provocative, is never slanderous or mendacious, and is sufficiently supported. And whether provable or not, there is certainly room for this type of hypothesis. However modest or stoic his selfportrayal, H. P. Lovecraft was an exceedingly complex figure whose body of work is open to broad interpretation: if the man or his writing were at all facile I would probably not be writing for a publication called Lovecraft Annual.
So with Lovecraft now readily accessible to the public, we can safely assume that Against the World, Against Life, a well-written treatise by a leading contemporary novelist, published by a fashionable press, will serve to introduce to Lovecraft to a whole new readership. But given this conclusion of this introduction, that the cornerstone of modern horror is the therapeutic spleen of a pathological racist, perhaps a sort of phantasmagoric The Turner Diaries, I suspect that any period of hipness enjoyed may be over.
BEN J. S. SZUMSKYJ and S. T. JOSHI, ed. Fritz Leiber and H. P. Lovecraft: Writers of the Dark. Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2003. $19.95 tpb. Reviewed by Phillip A. Ellis.
H. P. Lovecraft has become instrumental in the development of modern speculative fiction. Not only did he directly influence such authors as Frank Belknap Long, who played a now-neglected role in fantasy, horror, and science fiction, and August Derleth, whose most lasting contribution to the field must surely be Arkham House itself, he influenced at second hand many others, such as Ramsey Campbell. Yet none of these influences was to have quite the effect of that between Lovecraft and his young acolyte, Fritz Leiber, Jr.
Like Lovecraft, Leiber was to prove among the more talented in the field of weird and speculative fiction. He was instrumental in the fields of heroic fantasy, urban horror, and comic science fiction, and this instrumentality is the result of the fortuitous combination of his native talents and the influence of his brief yet productive relationship with Lovecraft.
This book presents both that relationship and its results. It exhibits the relationship by gathering together what remains of the correspondence between Lovecraft and Leiber. Although, unfortunately, it is incomplete—the letters between the two are limited to partial transcripts of Lovecraft’s correspondence, with none of Leiber’s surviving—it still reveals the importance of the relationship thereby conveyed, to both Lovecraft and Leiber. The Lovecraft that we see, or read, is open, generous, intimately interested in the life and work of his correspondents, and this is a counterweight to any misguided notions of him as a recluse.
This warmth and openness is reflected in turn in the remainder of this book. The central portion consists of Leiber’s fiction, written as a result of his friendship with Lovecraft, and in commemoration of it. The version of “Adept’s Gambit” herein is illustrative of the initial outpourings of his creativity, and it alone displays the promise evident in the young Leiber. That he would felicitously fulfill this promise is evident in the entire body of his work. This is not the “Mythos” version, although that has been recently found and will be published by Midnight House. “The Demons of the Upper Air” was another early work seen by Lovecraft. It shows promise, too, but here the promise is of a shift in weird verse away from an unchallenging formalism. It displays, that is, the technical and imaginative possibilities that Leiber was to offer to the field, and this challenge has been met, and taken up, by such later poets as Ann K. Schwader, among others.
The later “To Arkham and the Stars,” in itself a poignant elegy for Lovecraft, and the wonderful “The Terror from the Depths” are both testaments to the later, and more mature, fondness with which Lovecraft was remembered. They are, as with most of the other stories, evidence of the profound influence that Lovecraft was to play for Leiber, imaginatively and creatively. Although “The Dead Man” has affinities with some of Lovecraft’s earlier, less cosmic fiction, its emphasis upon the relation of the central characters is most un Lovecraftian, and diminishes its relevance, despite Stefan Dziemianowicz’s work on highlighting its affinities with “The Thing on the Doorstep.” One final note: there is one piece missing, The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich. This was omitted mainly because of its size and recent publication, hence it is readily available elsewhere. Such an omission does not diminish this book’s achievements: the stories serve to illustrate the relationship between the two writers, and the effect of both this and Lovecraft’s creativity upon Leiber. Their inclusion more than compensates for the paucity of the correspondence, and it is proof enough of the strength and importance of this relationship for Leiber.
Finally, the third section, the essays by Leiber, gathers together key documents in our contemporary view of Lovecraft as a man and artist. Although for the most part the arguments contained therein seem self-evident, this is due to the essays’ importance and influence since initial publication. Their age and circumstances of creation are such that the Derlethian Mythos is countered, and they serve to remind us that Lovecraft’s memory owes so much to the friendship and insight of such figures as Leiber himself. Being able to read them here reminds us of the basics of Lovecraftian thought and fiction, and it is a refreshing reminder that should be welcome to most. Like the letters and the stories, these essays are worth the price of purchase alone; that all three sections are presented here, together, makes this book indispensable for a fuller evaluation of Lovecraft, and of Leiber.
In summation, this book is well worth purchase. It illustrates the depth, warmth, and humanity of Lovecraft’s and Leiber’s relationship directly through the correspondence, indirectly through the stories and poetry, and, again indirectly, through the essays. It preserves and presents key texts in our understanding, so that we may in future trace and ascertain for ourselves the ramifications of their relationship for ourselves. We should not neglect this book, and the delights within it, for it is an indispensable volume, a sheer joy to read, and an important reminder that the friendships we make may have lasting consequences, both personally and creatively.
PETER CANNON. The Lovecraft Chronicles. With illustrations by Jason C. Eckhardt. Poplar Bluffs, MO: Mythos Books, 2004. 179 pp. Reviewed by S. T. Joshi.
It is a testament to H. P. Lovecraft’s enduring and ever-growing celebrity that he is not merely the subject of innumerable critical and biographical studies but that his own life has become the stuff of legend. As a cultural icon, the gaunt, prognathous-jawed dreamer from Providence has served as the focus of any number of tales and novels, from the provocative (Richard A. Lupoff’s Lovecraft’s Book, 1985) to the inconceivably awful (David Barbour and Richard Raleigh’s Shadows Bend, 2000). To some degree, the portrayal of Lovecraft in these variegated works can at times descend to a caricature: Lovecraft the “eccentric recluse,” the unworldly bookworm, the sexless misfit—all of which have some elements of truth,
but which are so engulfed in misleading falsehoods that they end up being parodies of the real Lovecraft. It takes the analytical talents of the critic and scholar conjoined with the creative talents of the novelist for any such portrayal to ring true, and such a fusion of skills, rare enough in the mainstream literary community, is particularly scarce in the realm of weird fiction. Thankfully for us, however, there is Peter Cannon.
Cannon has established his bona fides as a scholar with H. P. Lovecraft (1989), a volume in Twayne’s United States Authors series, and the culmination of nearly two decades of his work on the Providence scribe. With the exception of Donald R. Burleson, he is the only Lovecraft scholar to excel in the writing of fiction, and Burleson has not sought to feature Lovecraft as a character in his various novels and tales. Cannon, meanwhile, has to his credit the pungent if lighthearted novella Pulptime (1984), in which Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes are put on stage, along with the gorgeous Lovecraft/Wodehouse parodies in Scream for Jeeves (1994). With The Lovecraft Chronicles, he has set a high, perhaps unassailable mark in the curious subgenre of “Lovecraft-as-a-character-in-fiction”—a mark that only he himself may be able to eclipse in future.
The Lovecraft Chronicles is not merely a fictionalised biography. It is what I believe is termed “alternate history”: that what-if brand of science fantasy that conjectures the state of the world if, say, Hitler had won World War II, or the telephone had never been invented, or George W. Bush had not stolen the election of 2000. In this case, Cannon wonders: what if, in 1933, the prestigious New York firm of Alfred A. Knopf had actually accepted, instead of rejecting, a collection of tales by Lovecraft? Would Lovecraft’s life have changed? Would subsequent history—literary, political, social—have changed? Cannon provides an emphatic yes to the first query, but is a bit more reserved as to the second. Nevertheless, his conclusion that Lovecraft would have gone far beyond his forty-six and a half years and lived to a normal life span of seventy years, dying only in 1960, is unexceptionable.
Lovecraft Annual, No. 1 Page 19
