If the publication of Lovecraft's stories in a Library Of America edition indicates that North American academia has finally caught up with the Old Gent's literature, the recent English translation of French novelist and general enfant terrible Michel Houellebecq's essay H.P. Lovecraft: Against The World, Against Life might indicate that the acceptance of analysis of that literature by mainstream readerships isn't far behind. The essay is published by McSweeny's San Francisco hipster division, Believer, whose only other title in print as of yet is a breezy take on literature by none other than Nick Hornby.
Stephen King introduces the essay as the first "literary mash note." I think "fan letter" might be a better term. Houellebecq often does seem to be writing directly to HPL as King's description suggests, but the tone isn't so much one of infatuation or admiration as it is literal obsession. Houellebecq believes Lovecraft's view of the universe not only to be unmatched in its nihilistic clarity, he believes it to be unmatched in veracity (see the blunt chapter-opener: "The world stinks."). The essay's scattergun approach and violently polemic tone is somewhat reminiscent of Timo Airaksinen's The Philosophy of H.P. Lovecraft, but Houellebecq makes it quite clear to the reader in the early pages of Against The World that he's not attempting to make an academically sound analysis of literature, but that he's recording a reckoning with a literary force he feels to be unparalleled in scope and power. The obsession becomes personal when Houellebecq intimates that few, if any, share the nihilism necessary to gain a true depth of understanding of HPL and his work; presumably, since Houellebecq is attempting to convey that depth, he himself shares this rare nihilism (note the mirroring of Houellebecq and Lovecraft's likenesses on the cover art). Because of this tendency, it is tempting to write Houellebecq off as a posturing elitist, scribbling letters to his long-dead idol, alternately infuriated with the literary world for its wilful ignorance of his hero, but also gloating over the fact that he and he alone can plumb the depths of the misanthropic wisdom that HPL's writings contain. It is this latter characteristic, that of viewing Lovecraft as a keeper of an almost gnostic understanding of the realities of the universe that does the most disservice to Houellebecq's credibility, almost casting him in with the various occultists who attempt to claim Lovecraft as one of their own and anachronistically and idiotically claim that creations like Cthulhu and the Necronomicon predate Lovecraft and have their roots in actual ancient rites and daemonism.
It is welcome, however, to hear this sort of impassioned argument from Lovecraft writers. Far too often I encounter articles written for mainstream readerships that spend an inordinate amount of time apologising for Lovecraft's style, paying backhanded compliments before muttering the same old saws about his influence on weird fiction without examining that influence in any depth (see Daniel Handler's recent piece in the New York Times to coincide with the Library of America edition). Conversely, we Lovecraftians can be a myopic bunch, obsessing over minutiae and unintentionally preserving the image of Lovecraft as some sort of cult or niche author. Houellebecq, refreshingly, takes neither path and addresses Lovecraft's central themes and concerns with a zeal that should impress if not downright alarm those unfamiliar with HPL (oddly enough, Houellebecq claims in the preface to this English edition to have met people at readings who enjoy Against The World and yet have no interest in or intention to read HPL's writing itself), and in a style that should encourage new avenues of engagement with the writing for experienced Lovecraftians.
One of the essay's highlights is Houellebecq's repeated and spirited arguments for the transcendent power of Lovecraft's diction and style, characteristics which have earned him some of the most scathing criticism. Houellebecq rejects such an "idiotic point of view" as being far more destructive and nihilistic than Lovecraft could ever hope to have been: "if Lovecraft's style is deplorable, one might as well conclude style is inconsequential in literature; [sic] and then move on to some other subject." Houellebecq makes no attempt to explicate away the heavy-handed nature of Lovecraft's style as an antiquarian affectation, or make any other tepid excuses for it as others have: he confronts and embraces it on its own terms. Citing a particularly evocative and florid passage from "The Whisperer In The Darkness," Houellebecq notes that "here we are at a point where the extreme acuity of sensory perception is about to propel us into a philosophical perception of the world; in other words, here we are inside poetry."
If there is one way in which Houellebecq does a disservice to his subject, it is that he conflates Lovecraft's nihilism and misanthropy with misery. Sentences like "Howard Phillips Lovecraft serves as an example to all who wish to learn to fail in life and eventually succeed in the work" typify this error. Again, Houellebecq's personal life is blurred with Lovecraft's (a New York Times profile on Houellebecq garnered the following gem from the enfant terrible's wife: "Michel's not depressed, it's the world that's depressing"). Lovecraft's biographers and admirers have all at times wondered if his life would have been bettered had he spent more time writing his own fiction and less correcting and revising other people's, or if he'd bucked his aunts' wishes and allowed Sonia to move back to Providence with him. It's impossible not to play the "what if" game with any life history one has studied intently, but it's another thing entirely to write off that entire life as failure based on nearly fifty years of hindsight and the perspective of someone who never met the person in question. While ably arguing against the old cliche that Lovecraft's writing is stylistically poor, Houellebecq falls for the equally old saw of casting Lovecraft as the eccentric New England loner who led a desolate and sad life. One would hope that anyone with a passing knowledge of HPL's life would know enough about the innumerable friendships he maintained via travel and correspondence to avoid such a cliche, but it seems to have proven too tempting for Houellebecq in his efforts to cast Lovecraft as the ultimate literary nihilist. The entire crux of Houellebecq's argument hinges upon Lovecraft's creation of a complete and beautiful poetic "permanent opposition, a permanent recourse to life," "a great No to life." It's a fantastic and romantic vision and he argues for it in his sections on Lovecraft's diction and his reverence for great architecture. However, such an argument comes at the cost of great swaths of Lovecraft's life and personality, which is problematic considering the extent to which Houellebecq includes biographical and psychological support for his argument. Similarly to the case of Kafka, there are few hints in Lovecraft's fiction that its author was anything other than a misanthropic recluse, and thus the cliche of both men as completely neurotic introverts persists. Houellebecq cannot imagine that the same man who wrote of "that divine hatred of life" could excitedly take walking companions on tours of New York City until their feet were sore, or keep large rooms of people at amateur journalism gatherings entertained with anecdotes and readings, and so he simply does not allow these aspects of HPL's life into his account. Again at this point we see Houellebecq's enthusiasm for his subject crossing into the realm of genuine obsession, and it becomes difficult to tell which of Houellebecq's arguments represent genuine personal observances, and which are sheer projection.
In spite of all this, it is impossible to deem Against The World, Against Life a failure, or even not to recommend it to anyone with a more than passing interest in Lovecraft. As I mentioned earlier, the book doesn't attempt to hold itself up as academic scholarship, it's a personal reaction to utterly astonishing literature, and by that criteria it's a complete and riveting success. A comparable volume might be The Time Of The Assassins, Henry Miller's study of Arthur Rimbaud. In both books we get a sense that the author's purpose is not so much to praise the subjects' writings as it is to give homage to the work, the mental capacity of its authors, and most importantly the spiritual and philosophical shadows cast forward by both men. Both Miller and Houellebecq are convinced that their respective subjects have not only changed them as people, but also the very fabric of the worlds they live in after reading them; the books become focussed on adapting to a Lovecraftian or Rimbaudian world. In this sense, Against The World, Against Life is not so much a book about Lovecraft as it is a book about inhabiting his shadow.
Copyright 2005, Bruce Lord.
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