It’s fun to reopen today HP Lovecraft: against the world, against lifethe essay that Houellebecq published in 1991, when he was still an unknown 35-year-old. We glean sentences like these: “When we love life, we don’t read. We hardly go to the cinema either, in fact. Whatever we say, access to the artistic world is more or less reserved for those who have a little fed up.” Or like these: “Howard Phillips Lovecraft is an example for all those who wish to learn how to fail in life, and, eventually, succeed in their work. Although, on this last point, the result is not guaranteed.”
Above all, we find this paragraph, which seems premonitory on rereading: “The 20th century will perhaps remain as a golden age of epic and fantastic literature, once the morbid mists of the soft avant-gardes have dissipated. It has already enabled the emergence of Howard, Lovecraft and Tolkien. Three radically different universes. dream literatureas scorned by critics as it is acclaimed by the public. It doesn’t do anything. Criticism always ends up recognizing its wrongs; or, more precisely, the critics eventually die, and are replaced by others.”
While awaiting our death and our inevitable replacement, let us say a word from Lovecraft (1890-1937). The volume devoted to him by La Pléiade, where his short stories are magnified by revised translations, is the ideal pretext to rediscover “a gigantic dreaming machine, of incredible scale and efficiency” (Houellebecq). Of course there is Call of Cthulhuto read as a priority when you are a novice. We can then delve into longer texts, such as The Charles Dexter Ward Affaira masterpiece where Lovecraft comes close to the Wilde of Portrait of Dorian Gray and the Stevenson of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
During his lifetime, Lovecraft published in pulps as Weird Tales. Unhappy in love, dragging the devil by the tail, sucked into an “obsessive racism” (Houellebecq again) after discovering the working-class neighborhoods of New York, he always stuck to an elitist ethic, snubbing professionals in the literature as much as the readers, as he noted in 1925: “I am almost resolved not to write any more stories, but simply to dream when that is on my mind, without stopping to do a thing as vulgar as transcribing my dream for an audience of pigs I concluded that literature was not a fit pursuit for a gentleman, and that writing should never be regarded as anything other than an elegant art, to which one owes it; indulge without regularity and with discernment.” A quote that Houellebecq comments on as follows: “He will maintain throughout his life a typically aristocratic attitude of contempt for humanity in general, combined with extreme kindness for individuals in particular.”
“In the lineage of Edgar Poe”
To discuss the case of HP Lovecraft, we will meet Hugues Pradier, the editorial director of La Pléiade, at his office. So far, in terms of science fiction and fantasy before its time, one could only read in the collection two great old ones: Jules Verne and Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac. Does Lovecraft’s induction usher in a wave of genre literature? Are Bradbury, Asimov and others likely to succeed the creator of Cthulhu? Hugues Pradier explains the genesis of this project: “I got into Lovecraft quite late, and I was surprised by the quality of his works. I am not a big reader of fantasybut I make a few exceptions: Tolkien is one, Lovecraft another. Here we have an authors policy. In 2003, Simenon’s entry into the Pléiade did not mark an opening to the detective novel, rather to a somewhat underestimated current of the novel from the interwar period. The same with Lovecraft: it is the choice of a particular author. We can include him in the lineage of Edgar Poe. In my eyes, he is a Poe who did not have the chance to have his Baudelaire, and who was imported and distributed here mainly among readers of genre literature. Thanks to this publication, he will find a place in our catalog alongside Poe, Baudelaire and Huysmans, who share some of his questions.”
Hugues Pradier is aware that it is the general public who have ensured Lovecraft’s posterity, but explains to us that the Pléiade can now give him his place in the pantheon of letters: “If Lovecraft found so many readers, it is above all thanks to to fans of genre literature then to those of derivative products and today of video games It is striking to see the extent to which these games can have an influence on the sale of books. success of Black Myth: Wukongvideo game freely adapted from The Journey to the Westreflects the demand for this novel among us. Originally, Lovecraft therefore owed his success to fans of genre literature, but it is probable that this did not favor his confirmation or his consecration as a great writer – which he is, in our opinion. There fantasy mixes texts which do not all have the same literary ambitions, it is sometimes more about subjects than forms. But it is above all the shapes that interest us. In Lovecraft, there is an extraordinary force of novelistic construction. There are not many events in his texts, they are atmospheric books. And what conveys the mood better than a style? Take the beginning of Call of Cthulhu : we think of In the heart of darkness by Conrad. A publication in Pléiade offers the opportunity to retranslate an author’s texts, which updates them in a spectacular way, when the job is well done. For Lovecraft, we needed French versions that met the stylistic challenges. This is why I entrusted this project to a team led by Philippe Jaworski, Melville’s translator.”
Hugues Pradier is asked if Houellebecq’s cult essay has influenced his credibility in France: “It is in any case an important book for him, Michel Houellebecq – in 1991, he had not yet published any novel. He will end up believing that we will seek our ideas in his work! Submissionhe was talking about a project by Pléiade Huysmans, which saw the light of day four years after his book. And next fall we should publish another of his bedside authors…”
Let us recall that, among his three pillars of “dream literature”, Houellebecq cited Lovecraft but also Howard and Tolkien. The latter was also mentioned by Hugues Pradier at the start of our conversation. We know that the entrance to Lord of the Rings in the Pléiade is an old sea serpent. Could the recent takeover of Christian Bourgois editions by the Madrigall group accelerate the editorial process? Hugues Pradier does not deny it: “Yes, certainly, we can imagine it…”
In the meantime, let’s dive into this fascinating Lovecraft volume where you can also read or reread The Silver Key, The color beyond the sky, the one who whispered in the darkness Or The Shadow that hovered over Innsmouth. Lovecraft’s life was a failure. It would have been very funny to see himself printed on Bible paper. Let us remember what this discreet man said: “A gentleman does not try to make himself known, he leaves that to the little upstart egoists.”
Storiesby HP Lovecraft, La Pléiade/Gallimard, 1,349 p., €69.
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