H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life

published	May 1st 2005 by McSweeney's Books
binding	Paperback
isbn	1932416188 (isbn13: 9781932416183)
pages	150
description	In this prescient work, Michel Houellebecq focuses his considerable analytical skills on H. P. Lovecraft, the seminal, enigmatic horror writer of the ...more [close] In this prescient work, Michel Houellebecq focuses his considerable analytical skills on H. P. Lovecraft, the seminal, enigmatic horror writer of the early 20th century. Houellebecq’s insights into the craft of writing illuminate both Lovecraft and Houellebecq’s own work. The two are kindred spirits, sharing a uniquely dark worldview. But even as he outlines Lovecraft’s rejection of this loathsome world, it is Houellebecq’s adulation for the author that drives this work and makes it a love song, infusing the writing with an energy and passion not seen in Houellebecq’s novels to date. This book is indispensable reading for anyone interested in Lovecraft, Houellebecq, or the past and future of horror. [close]
date added	02-03-07 edit book

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Josh rated it:

05/09/08

Read in May, 2008

Reading a book by one of your current favorite authors about your all-time favorite author is possibly one of the best literary experiences I can imagine.

In H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life Michel Houellebecq, the bitterly cynical, oft-misunderstood French misanthrope and champion of 21st-century nihilism, attempts to demystify exactly what it is about Lovecraft's fiction that has allowed it to remain fresh and relevant after nearly a century.

And he succeeds in ways...more Reading a book by one of your current favorite authors about your all-time favorite author is possibly one of the best literary experiences I can imagine.

In H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life Michel Houellebecq, the bitterly cynical, oft-misunderstood French misanthrope and champion of 21st-century nihilism, attempts to demystify exactly what it is about Lovecraft's fiction that has allowed it to remain fresh and relevant after nearly a century.

And he succeeds in ways I never thought possible.

I was introduced to Lovecraft's work at the age of 11. With childhood disappearing further and further behind me, I found a deep fascination with the horrid, unnameable monsters populating the bizarre Providence gentleman's tales. As with the suddenly-burgeoning mysteries of adulthood manifesting in my life, Lovecraft's unspeakable shamblers from the stars also defied logic and struck me with a profound, nearly paralyzing fear. As I grew older, my focus expanded to include not just the eldritch beings barely contained in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, but Lovecraft's clinical view of the universe as a near-entity of its own, pitilessly indifferent to the plight of humanity, an unremarkable and insignificant accident lost amidst the ceaseless, timeless and immutable drone of the music of the spheres. Not surprisingly, this new understanding of Lovecraft's work neatly coincided with my freshly-developed interest in human evolution, a passion which stripped away my self-righteous and inflated notion that we stand above all life in the world. And now, at a time when I've determined there are questions which shall forever remain unanswerable, Lovecraft's work resonates just as soundly as it did then, for "Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath?"

Houellebecq, whose own work is focused almost entirely on the banal, realistic horrors of modern life, has adapted Lovecraft's world view so soundly into his own work (without sight of nary one rugose, tentacled horror)it belies a truly deep-seated love and understanding of the master's craft, and, indeed, his life. And, like any other of Houellbecq's fictional works, this book is full of sharp, terse insights that are pure crystallizations of every ineffable feeling and unfocused thought I've ever had about Lovecraft's life and creations. His argument--that the manner in which Lovecraft lived as he did, wrote what he did, and wrote the way he did, as a rejection of life itself--is the most profound thing I've ever heard said of the man or his work.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I've already read it multiple times and will continue to do so as (and if) the years go on. The addition of two of Lovecraft's finest stories ("The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Whisperer in Darkness") as a postscript only add to the value of this slim tone. If you, after reading Lovecraft's work, ever looked to the black seas of infinity above and wondered if the piecing together of disassociated knowledge shall either drive us mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age, then please, I implore you--read this book.

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H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life

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