Customer Reviews

H.P. Lovecraft: Contre Le Monde, Contre La Vie (Collection Les Infrequentables)

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This short book, reprinted in the USA in its original French language, is an extended essay by author Michel Houellebecq (pronounced "Wellbeck") on the life and work of American author of the fantastic Howard Phelps Lovecraft. There have been other books about Lovecraft; science fiction author L. Sprague de Camp wrote an excellent study of the man, and S.T. Joshi's book is probably his definitive biography. What distinguishes this book is Houellebecq's uncompromising study (and, indeed, praise) for Lovecraft's personal eccentricities and the art they produced.

Lovecraft, in Houellebecq's essay, becomes a sort of secular saint, a man who eschewed money and sex in favor of a purified vision of life and art. A man, in short, whose work was something of an antipode to Houellebecq's own erotically-charged writing. Whereas Houellebecq expresses his almost gnostic disgust with the world and the flesh in lurid terms, Lovecraft demonstrated his disdain for those two motors that run the modern world by ignoring them.

The terrifying thing about Lovecraft was his refusal to find anything intrinsically worthwhile about ordinary human life. The life-denying religions take the same perspective, but usually temper it with a sense of compassion and an appeal to a higher realm. Lovecraft, however, was an atheist and a materialist. It is clear from his work that he believed that if there were any other realm of being in the universe it was doubtless even more evil and degraded than our own.

Houellebecq is admiringly frank about Lovecraft's racism, his masochistic personality, his elitism and misanthropic view of the world. These things, he suggests, were not hindrances to Lovecraft's art, but rather the very thing that drove him forward. Houellebecq disdains any psychologically reductive explanation of Lovecraft's talent; no "fishing in the dark blue sea of the unconscious" for him. Some readers may find the book superficial for this reason, but I consider it a gem. Houellebecq's admiration for Lovecraft gives the book an almost hypnotic appeal.

For those wondering how to get an American translation of this book: The excellent literary magazine The Believer will be publishing this book in its pages in 2004 in serial form. This is according to the magazine's renewal slip. The Believer is not a cheap magazine, but it contains excellent writing about books and is worth the price.

I have been introduced to several authors b/c of their articles; including Michel Houellebecq - also brian Evenson, a redisovery of Nicholson Baker and others. The regular column by Nick Hornby is also excellent. I had briefly contemplated not renewing my subscription to The Believer, but their promise to publish Houellebecq's short book about Lovecraft clinched it for me.

So, I've not read this book yet; thus only four stars, but I look forward to doing so soon when it begins to be published month by month. I hope this helps the English reading fans of Michel Houellebecq and of course of H.P. Lovecraft.

Does anyone know of a way to obtain an English translated version of this? I would try to read it in French, but I know that I would not be doing justice to it at my level. Please post advice here.

Stars will be amended once I can read it.

Thanks!!!