H.P. Lovecraft's French Alter Ego?

Desencyclopedie contains a bizarre entry (that I can barely make sense of, being ignorant of French) about H.P. Lovecraft. It seems the article envisions an alternate life for HPL after he's born in France, rather than Providence, Rhode Island. Like his real world self, the French Lovecraft becomes a writer. Unlike the historical Lovecraft, this man enjoys a lasting marriage, has a family, and then seemingly befalls a fate blurring fiction with alternate reality.

Lovecraft is one of the few great authors, and perhaps the only weird horror writer so far, to be subjected to alternate selves. For a lengthy account of what might have happened if HPL had lived much longer, see Peter Cannon's thought provoking novel, The Lovecraft Chronicles. This book may soon be joined by new alternate Lovecrafts if this French piece is any indication of foreign interest in re-imagining Lovecraft's life.

French wise readers will have a better time understanding the sourced article. For the rest of us, there's this exceedingly crude translation from Google Translate:

HP Lovecraft is a writer Ariege, author of comedies and new burlesque. Born in Barjac (Ariege) in 1890, he died at the Mas d'Azil in 1937 under conditions not well understood.

His literary work, unknown in his lifetime, was unanimously acclaimed as it was plagiarized by American author HP Lovecraft namesake.

A silly misunderstanding

Early in the existence of HP Lovecraft were struck with an amazing misunderstanding that would mark the seal of all the absurdity of its creation. The child was born to an Irish father and Congolese mother, is his uncle who said his African name in the register of births: Aubrey Dale Fitzpatrick. But the employee, abused by a foreign accent of the sponsor, consigned to a pen applied what he had understood: Psychiatric Hospital.

What was written was written, no turning back. In an absurd, discouraged by the obstinate refusal of all attempts to rectify this lamentable error.
A revealing letter

We calculate, but much later, that this resistance incomprehensible from the French administration was from a single person: the registrar in charge of claims. This hypothesis was established once and for all when the proponent of the work of the writer ariégois Jean-Seyblagat Aymar de Bales, published an unpublished letter of public officer to his wife:

"My dear friend,

You can not imagine how the pettiness of the world can spread! For six months I am assailed petty jokes of a certain Mr. Lovecraft. He claims by administrative request the rectification of her male child whose name would be in his muffled: Psychiatric Hospital.

There is no doubt that the only reasons for harassment are cursed stupidity and wickedness of the most futile. What can I do if my dear father wished to give me his love of learning the names of Daniel Haziel Aeneas? What if I do stutter and that his dearest wish was so misunderstood?

With my affection, your always loving

Insane Asylum "

Because of this misunderstanding fatal, the name of the child could not be changed. His parents were now easier to call HP.

A quiet life

Nevertheless, this mistake was helpful to the writer once in his life during the First World War, HP was reformed ex.

After a CAP plumber, HP went to Barjac a small business selling cold showers. He met in 1919 at the Mas d'Azil one who would become his wife, the sultry Camille Ysolde Forse was a lingerie shop renowned for the strength of its tissues. In their happy union were born two sons, Bart and Joe Earl Hubert Lu

From my years in this small town of Ariege, cashed in his valley from a remarkable cave system and a hill with a dolmen, HP drew much of his inspiration.
The village, whose buildings left decaying remains likely reflected a certain standing rural past century, its narrow cavities where the cement revealed the timbered medieval his prehistoric archeology museum with tools of bone and Flint plaster
HP Lovecraft in the company of his neighbors, Avenue de la Grotte Mas d'Azil.
he served as a backdrop for The Abomination of Mas-Carla (1929) as well as other news such as in the deep hole (1931), hallucinogens Hills (1932) or The Big Hairy Beast in the Cave (1934 ).

HP Lovecraft drew on his experience to describe rural life scenes earthy, where a population with strange customs, half of which is called Massat, one of Rouch, lives in lands unknown to civilization and seeks to heard despite an accent you could cut with a knife.

Published at the author in a publishing house Lavelanet, these naturalistic studies worthy of Zola had no success. They brought him in return for enduring resentment on the part of its close neighbors who thought himself in the characters described. It remains to determine whether it is for this reason that his body was found crushed beneath a cliff, a rainy day in October when he was looking for mushrooms.

His work
HP showing his girlfriend hairy beast in the depths of the cave.

From 1924 until his mysterious death in 1937, HP Lovecraft wrote thirty short stories written in a tone that is both sincere and burlesque. The most famous are The Abomination of Mas-Carla, The Nightmare of Vernet-sur-Arize, The Curse of Art'yggath, The No-Name-screaming on the mat, fungi from Quer'hygguth, The Cure of Death Kill, Who trembled in the cupboard, The Eater of men Biroth, Quest dreamlike Tourneggath the unknown Horror Villeneuve-de-Bousignac, The Case of Charles Hector Trémoulet and certainly the most famous of all, The Call of Saint-Quentin-de-Gras-Capou.

Without attempting to summarize the entirety of his work, we present here an outline of the most notable of his writings:
The Abomination of Mas-Carla

In the small town of Mas-Carla Crampagnous family, lineal descendant of the Cro-magnon by the mother, has discovered the secret of his mysterious ancestors who lived in the depths of the cave: they now resort to the abominable sacrifices chickens at night on the dolmen, to the chagrin of their neighbors genetically debilitated by inbreeding.
The Nightmare of Vernet-sur-Arize

A naive student Toulouse realizes that the strange inhabitants of Vernet-sur-Arize have found a natural fertilizer to increase miraculously thrust fungi. The Vernétois then seek to frighten by disguising himself as a bear.
The Case of Charles Hector Trémoulet

The first part of the story takes place during medieval times-and-Barrineix Fougasse where an ageless man, escaped the pyre at Montsegur Cathar heresy, is passionate about fly fishing. Lovecraft describes perfectly this universe where the miscreant is finicky frowned he prefers to tease the stud as getting to Mass on Sunday. Generations later, Charles Hector Trémoulet, too passionate fly fishing, ends up discovering a terrible secret in seeking hooks in his attic. Gradually, his physical turns: why Charles Hector as he finally looks like a trout?
The Call of Saint-Quentin de Gras Capou

This new, arguably the most famous, became emblematic of the literary universe of HP Lovecraft.

After eating a fat capon at Christmas Eve, three people from very different conditions, from different places of the Ariege - a traveling salesman, a farmer in his fifties and a school teacher of Mirepoix - are the same nightmare Recurrent which leads to the village of Saint-Quentin-de-Gras-Capou. The investigation reveals the existence of an ancient legend that crowns the numinous is the patron saint of the parish. Led by a strange coincidence to travel simultaneously on the church square, they assist with the Parish Priest to the spectacular appearance of St. Quentin.
A final misunderstanding

Just as his birth had given rise to a cruel mistake, it is ultimately a misunderstanding that will be due the celebrity of the work of HP Lovecraft. Discovering at a friend's bookstore, near the fireplace and used as fuel, the integral of the writer Ariege, a passage curiously American namesake, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, decides to translate it into English.

Its approximate French, his deliberate intention to put the work in the United States to please the American public, his rejection of any reference to ailing local religions, for him vaguely related to satanic cults, allied in numerous translation errors : a work is distorted or mutilated, which reaches a huge success posthumously.

As the author himself, the understandable confusion between his name and the translator did the rest: HP Lovecraft, the greatest writer that ever wore the Ariege, remained in oblivion where it was never released.

Check out the original version in French at Desencyclopedie.

-Grim Blogger