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H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
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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. Houellebecqs insights into the craft of writing illuminate both Lovecraft and Houellebecqs own work. The two are kindred spirits, sharing a uniquely dark worldview. But even as he outlines Lovecrafts
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Paperback, 247 pages
Published
May 2nd 2005
by McSweeney's, Believer Books
(first published 1991)
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Start your review of H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
The value of a human being today is measured in terms of his economic efficiency and his erotic potential--that is to say, in terms of the two things that Lovecraft most despised.
My chief surprise in this exploration was the effectiveness of the Introduction by Stephen King, equally erudite and folksy -- just as we'd expect him. Moving on to Houellebecq's love letter, I was disappointed that there simply isn't much there in terms of girth or ideas. The cataloguing of Lovecraft's extreme bigotry ...more
My chief surprise in this exploration was the effectiveness of the Introduction by Stephen King, equally erudite and folksy -- just as we'd expect him. Moving on to Houellebecq's love letter, I was disappointed that there simply isn't much there in terms of girth or ideas. The cataloguing of Lovecraft's extreme bigotry ...more
(Full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)
For Americans who don't know -- there's this French dude named Michel Houellebecq who a lot of Europeans are super pissed at. And that's because he's a writer, see, a brilliant one, who also happens to be a misanthrope, and who sincerely despises just about 98 percent of all humanity, and takes great care to detail all the ways they deserve his hatred in his provocative novels, which have all been ...more
For Americans who don't know -- there's this French dude named Michel Houellebecq who a lot of Europeans are super pissed at. And that's because he's a writer, see, a brilliant one, who also happens to be a misanthrope, and who sincerely despises just about 98 percent of all humanity, and takes great care to detail all the ways they deserve his hatred in his provocative novels, which have all been ...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 ...more
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 ...more
It was interesting. Nothing new, but all very laconic and on point. Especially that Houellebecq, unlike some other fanboys, is not in denial about Lovecraft's racism, he's specifically naming it and analyzing it.
I read this book at the library about a week ago. What follows are my notes as I was reading this book:
A brilliant study....first published in France in 1991 and translated into English a few years ago...evocatively written, like a novel.
Lovecraft created a great popular myth, which is rare in literature...of the Great Old Ones Houellebecq writes "they have heard the roars of the very first mammals and will know the howls of agony of the very last."
Contrasts the approach of H.P. Lovecraft with ...more
A brilliant study....first published in France in 1991 and translated into English a few years ago...evocatively written, like a novel.
Lovecraft created a great popular myth, which is rare in literature...of the Great Old Ones Houellebecq writes "they have heard the roars of the very first mammals and will know the howls of agony of the very last."
Contrasts the approach of H.P. Lovecraft with ...more
I read this years ago and bought it when I saw it on the shelf of a local bookshop, mainly because I was intrigued by the title and also because I had heard of Lovecraft, but didn't know anything about him. It turns out he was pretty strange indeed and was racist, a strong misanthropist generally and not too keen on society full stop. I think he had a wife for a while, so he must have cut her some slack, even though she was a part of the lousy human race he so hated. He got terminally ill at ...more
Come for Houellebecq's essay about Lovecraft (wherein, in 1991, Michel essentially drafts the thematic and stylistic blueprint for his future novels), but stay for the suprisingly awesome Lovecraft tales. (I rarely have nightmares but have since reading these -- seriously!)
Houellebecq - pronounced, I was disappointed to learn recently, "wheel-back," not "hollaback" - is probably most famous as a relusive, misanthropic reactionary, and incidentally a really excellent prose stylist. A singularly well-placed author, then, to write a longish Lovecraft biography/critical essay/literary manifesto - how to classify it, precisely, is neither clear nor at all important.
Like certain kinds of good literature, Houellebecq renders his subject sympathetic precisely by ...more
Like certain kinds of good literature, Houellebecq renders his subject sympathetic precisely by ...more
"H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life" is an excellent(albeit brief)analysis and survey of Lovecraft's life and its central influence on his work. The reason this is such an excellent and bold work is because Houellebecq pays tribute (in a most personal way) to a fellow writer. Some will find this book to be offensive, but few will have enough ammo to argue against Houellebecq uncompromising conclusions and lucid insights. I also found Houellebecq's writing to be more interesting and
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I have wasted a good amount of money buying theories of Lovecraft by some of his most well-known American biographers. None of them really seemed to get a holistic picture of the man, but now that I have this book I feel altogether satisfied. It is not by any means a perfect book, tied up as it is with Houellebecq's own obsessions. But it is a brilliant and altogether spiritual book, extracting deep meaning from Lovecraft's meek character and from his intense and profound racism, and
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Read this a year or two ago. While I disagree with Houellebecq on some, main, points, I still value that he takes the issue of HPL & his stories serious and has true respect for it.
Also, it is fascinating to read something which is on one hand scholarly-like and on the other fiction (he claims that this is really his first novel); only a French author could get away with that, I think;-)
Contrary to many I quite like Stephen King's foreword to this edition--even if he makes the blunder of ...more
Also, it is fascinating to read something which is on one hand scholarly-like and on the other fiction (he claims that this is really his first novel); only a French author could get away with that, I think;-)
Contrary to many I quite like Stephen King's foreword to this edition--even if he makes the blunder of ...more
Houellebecq presents Lovecraft's reactionism and truly absurd racism as an adequate and logical reaction to the development of modern liberalism. A postion that time has made even stranger than it might have seemed to be in the 90s. You can almost feel how a similar hagiography might be written a hundred years from now about some reddit poster who self published some strange sci fi on amazon or something, which actually sort of cheapens both this book and Lovecraft's fiction in my eyes.
This is both a work of literary criticism and eulogy. Houellebecq simply adores the gentle, hard working, misanthropic and racist H.P.Lovecraft.
I had given up on reading a collection of Lovecraft stories a few years ago. But the fact that one of my favorite writers - Houellebecq was a huge fan of Lovecraft, revived my interest in him. I read this work of literary criticism/eulogy simultaneously with The Best of H.P.Lovecraft. I won't go into all the contents of Houellebecq's essay. I will ...more
I had given up on reading a collection of Lovecraft stories a few years ago. But the fact that one of my favorite writers - Houellebecq was a huge fan of Lovecraft, revived my interest in him. I read this work of literary criticism/eulogy simultaneously with The Best of H.P.Lovecraft. I won't go into all the contents of Houellebecq's essay. I will ...more
I am a great fan of Lovecraft. I confess to finding his work curiously profound, finding in the great Cthonic deities and the cosmic scope of evil some basic truth about reality. There is a great dearth of secondary literature on Lovecraft, so mostly I've looked elsewhere for the satisfaction of my curiosity (a curiosity Lovecraft's protagonists always fail to resist to their misfortune.) This book was tremendously helpful to recognizing what is it about Lovecraft with his florid tones and
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Astonishingly astute, insightful and empathetic look into the mind and heart of a profoundly troubled and unique man. Dispels a great many widely held unsubstantiated hypotheses and focuses on what we really know. A brief and succinct piece of work but an indispensible one for those who wish to gain a better understanding of the mind which changed the face of the universe of weird fiction. Although Houellebecq's own fiction ostensibly bears no resemblance to that Lovecraft, this essay combines
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A surprisingly breezy, quick read, I found much to ponder in Houellebecq's analysis of Lovecraft's work. Houellebecq's argument that Lovecraft's genius sprung from his hatred of the world, indeed, that all art originates from a distaste for the "real," is an interesting one but I am not sure that I can truly agree with it. It is definitely some food for thought. It also contains my two favorite stories written by HPL as well.
French novelist Michel Houllebecqs H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (1991) is a credible, often brilliant work of criticism that predates his first novel, Extension du domaine de la lutte (Whatever in English) by three years. A combination of Franco-academic musings and personal conviction, it stands as one of the most lucid and original writings on Lovecraft.
Like Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft enjoys a major academic following in France, where his dark, wildly imaginative ...more
Like Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft enjoys a major academic following in France, where his dark, wildly imaginative ...more
If I had paid for this book rather than borrowed it I would be feeling really cheated: Houellebacq's text is no more than one-third of the volume. 100 pages or so. Padding it out are two of Lovecraft's novellas, which fall into what Houellebecq terms Lovecraft's "great texts". Much of the text is fairly general waffle which would be a B+ grade university dissertation. This is merged with an "antibiography" (which was quite interesting, to be fair) and the sum of these parts really just isn't
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More readable than most of Lovecraft's stories (perhaps because Houllebecq uses quotes that could not be sourced) this essay interprets Creepy Howie's reactionary racism as a principled rejection of all life. Houllebecq is an author with the heart of a fanboy, and he explains and demonstrates Lovecraft's lasting power and his impression on his growing cult. A great intro by Stephen King and a few of Lovecraft's more famous stories round out the collection.
Essentially it's just a pamphlet with Houellebecq saying nothing overly interesting (or new) sandwiched between 2 HPL stories to make the page count an actual book, and an unfortunate Introduction by the loathsome Stephen King, to supposedly give the books some credence (odd publishers still haven't yet learned that the diseased mass of King Fans don't read anything but King).
Mar 11, 2008
Ogawa
added it
A wonderful analysis of Lovecraft.
While maybe not as radical in his analysis of Lovecraft's texts as Mark Fisher, Houellebecq is - appropriately - a lot more sweepingly poetic in scale, scope and breadth. He creates a very effective 'anti-biography' of Lovecraft, capturing the ugliness and malignant power of Lovecraft's prose and turning it at Lovecraft's life - which he turns into a history of sheer aesthetic hostility combined with a complete failure at 'living', at being happy: a wholesale and necessarily pathetic rejection
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This is an extended essay, Michel Houellebecq's love letter to his favourite author, H.P. Lovecraft.
That H.P.L. was an extraordinary writer is not in question and Houellebecq's analysis of Lovecraft as a writer and human being was interesting and absorbing. He used direct and simple prose adequate for taking the reader into the Lovecraftian worldview and philosophical bent.
The introduction by Stephen King brought warmth and humanity to the text.
The best part of the book was the inclusion of ...more
That H.P.L. was an extraordinary writer is not in question and Houellebecq's analysis of Lovecraft as a writer and human being was interesting and absorbing. He used direct and simple prose adequate for taking the reader into the Lovecraftian worldview and philosophical bent.
The introduction by Stephen King brought warmth and humanity to the text.
The best part of the book was the inclusion of ...more
3.5 Would probably be a full four if I could read it in French - the translation kept annoying me (I seem to be very sensitive in this respect recently and I fully realise it must have been hell to translate). I don't like Houellebecq and I don't like Lovecraft, but it's an interesting read.
it was really interesting dive into the abnormal talent and genius of HPL
Houellebecqs ecstasies over Lovecrafts prose are exhilarating, intoxicating...right up to the moment you actually read Lovecrafts dreck.
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i read it for class and i've never even read anything by lovecraft but it was surprisingly enjoyable??
(watch me like this essay more than any novel houellebacq has ever written)
(watch me like this essay more than any novel houellebacq has ever written)
2015 Review:
I first read this in 2008, and I just finished reading it through again, but this time reading the included Lovecraft stories first, and then the Houellebecq essays on Lovecraft afterwards. The two included Lovecraft stories are "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926) and "The Whisperer in Darkness (1931), which are regarded as part of the core "Great Texts" from Lovecraft (at least according to Houellebecq). The full list of these "Great Texts", along with the date of their publication, are:
...more
I first read this in 2008, and I just finished reading it through again, but this time reading the included Lovecraft stories first, and then the Houellebecq essays on Lovecraft afterwards. The two included Lovecraft stories are "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926) and "The Whisperer in Darkness (1931), which are regarded as part of the core "Great Texts" from Lovecraft (at least according to Houellebecq). The full list of these "Great Texts", along with the date of their publication, are:
...more
Is HP Lovecraft an awful writer? A brilliant writer? The victim of a dare to use "ichthous" and more often in published work than any sane editor would permit?
What he is is relentlessly obsessive, a compelling racist, a neurasthenic who managed to find mythic horror in the everyday. That's his great gift, an engaging paranoia that each new advance of human civilization, each new item in the newspaper, is the key to some devastating horror just beyond.
Lovecraft lived and died poor, without much ...more
What he is is relentlessly obsessive, a compelling racist, a neurasthenic who managed to find mythic horror in the everyday. That's his great gift, an engaging paranoia that each new advance of human civilization, each new item in the newspaper, is the key to some devastating horror just beyond.
Lovecraft lived and died poor, without much ...more
A great study of Lovecraft.
24:"In general, few authors, even amongst those most entrenched in fantasy literature, have made so few concessions to the real."
41: "And what is startling is that all attempts at [biographical] demystification have failed."
47: Astute observation: 'Supernatural Horror in Literature' doesn't take into consideration Lovecraft's own contributions to the genre.
61: "Obscurely and unpleasantly, there is also the fact that a novelist tackling the subject of life in general ...more
24:"In general, few authors, even amongst those most entrenched in fantasy literature, have made so few concessions to the real."
41: "And what is startling is that all attempts at [biographical] demystification have failed."
47: Astute observation: 'Supernatural Horror in Literature' doesn't take into consideration Lovecraft's own contributions to the genre.
61: "Obscurely and unpleasantly, there is also the fact that a novelist tackling the subject of life in general ...more
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Michel Houellebecq (born Michel Thomas), born 26 February 1958 (birth certificate) or 1956 on the French island of Réunion, is a controversial and award-winning French novelist. To admirers he is a writer in the tradition of literary provocation that reaches back to the Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire; to detractors he is a peddler, who writes vulgar sleazy literature to shock. His works though,
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