I’m still picking up on news of items I missed during the summer 2015 – summer 2018 hiatus. One such is a 2016 paperback, D’Arkham a Malpertuis: Jean Ray & Lovecraft, Patrice Allart makes the case that Lovecraft’s influence can be found throughout the works of the Belgian writer Jean Ray. The author also surveys other writers of France and Belgium who were also subject to influence from Lovecraft. I’m uncertain if this includes the wealth of comics writers and artists to be found in France and Belgium, but Ray was also a comics writer (a far more culturally-valued role in France and Belgium, note) and the book’s blurb suggests the survey is very comprehensive…
“No one can doubt it now: the Great Old Ones haunt the writings of the author of Malpertuis. And that’s not all: Patrice Allart takes the opportunity to draw up a list of the French-speaking heirs of the two Masters of Fantasy. Some names are sure to surprise. The extensive bibliographies that complete this essay will be the source of many discoveries, even for the experienced reader.”
That latter part might be something that a Francophile Lovecraftian could consider using to write a comprehensive survey of the pre-1985 material in French, perhaps for The Lovecraft Annual?
Who was Jean Ray? I can’t say he’s a name on the tip of my tongue, and it appears he’s a writer who is little known in the Anglosphere. The basics are…
Jean Ray (1887-1964), pseudonym of Jean Raymond Marie De Kremer, Belgian novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. Known for his prolific output of pre-war crime fiction, and his later more considered narratives of horror and the fantastic in both French and Flemish. He also published comics under the pseudonym John Flanders. His Malpertuis (1943) was filmed with Orson Welles in the leading role.
Cool French Comics called him… “The most famous author of Belgian fantastique”. Other informed comment suggests he occupies “a literary meeting ground between H.P. Lovecraft and Charles Dickens” and was “a cross between Lovecraft and Seabury Quinn, with a touch of Robert Bloch”. He’s still highly regarded in France, if this 2017 issue of Bifrost is anything to go by…
Also, alongside Jean Ray & Lovecraft in the same book series, ‘La Bibliotheque d’Abdul Alhazred’ [The Library of Alhazred], I note L’enigme du livre qui rend fou: Histoire d’Abdul al-Hazred & du Necronomicon [The enigma of the forbidden book of madness: the story of Abdul al-Hazred and The Necronomicon].
I think any connection between the two is coincidence. Ray’s novel Malpertuis with its themes of alchemy and Greek myth is closer to Machen and “the Great God Pan”, But two of Ray’s short tales, “The Shadowy Street” and “The Mainx Psalter” are very Lovecraftian. Both involve the narrator passing into a parallel world.
There’s a new translation of Ray’s Contes du Whisky just come out. It has acquired an extra ‘e’, for some reason. Malpertuis is pretty much my favourite weird film, and the book’s not bad too.