Jean Ray
Malpertuis

Jean Ray should be considered, alongside Lovecraft, the greatest modern literary author of the fantastic: his figure represents a sort of "gargoyle" of gothic literature that gazes down from the heights of an ominous cathedral at the horrors lurking within the human soul. His work is the last modern incarnation of a certain type of "weird" and "outré" fantastic fiction that has unfortunately been lost in favor of more comforting horror scenarios that dominate the current horror landscape.

Born in Ghent, Belgium in 1887, his biography is not short of "imaginary" and fanciful episodes in line with his character: what matters in any case is the literary legacy he left us, including some memorable stories and the masterpiece novel Malpertuis, which was also adapted into a film with Orson Welles. One of the main themes on which his work is founded is that of "mythology," but it is a reversed mythology where the Gods of ancient Greece transform into petty human puppets as in the famous and often cited Malpertuis, a delirious nightmare novel set in a dark Flemish mansion where the Eumenides and other mythical characters are imprisoned, taking on pitiful human forms: one can rightly speak of the "Death of the Gods" as one of the "keys" to interpreting his work. Mythology is thus upended by the Flemish author in a deliberately "heretical" way.

These themes are explored by many of his contemporaries, like the American Lovecraft, although Jean Ray's approach to the fantastic is apparently more traditional compared to the master of Providence and makes greater use of the consolidated archetypes of fantastic literature, albeit treated in an incredibly original and modern way. It's impossible, in any case, not to notice some thematic similarities between the two authors when reading an exemplary story like "The Great Nocturnal," which tells of a cursed and forbidden book and describes a creature that strongly resembles Lovecraft's Night Gaunts.

Jean Ray admired Dickens and was in epistolary contact with Gustav Meyrink and probably influenced by W.H. Hodgson, as can be inferred from the numerous nautical-themed stories of which he is the author, among which it is impossible to forget "The Psalter of Mayence," where delirium reaches unattainable heights in the incubus vision of a phantasmagorical underwater city reminiscent of the famous R'Lyeh of Lovecraftian memory.

The Flemish writer is deeply rooted and immersed in European culture, particularly that of Northern Europe: the settings of his writings are indeed in Ghent (his birthplace) but also in Hamburg, as in the masterpiece story "The Dark Alley," one of his most effective works where he explores the theme of the multidimensionality of reality in an exemplary manner, while always anchored to traditional figures of the fantastic like the Striges (ancient vampire birds according to ancient Roman legend) and using a typical Gothic device like the found manuscript.

He is thus a genuine fantastic writer, and like all writers of the genre, he is instinctive, writing on impulse, according to the inspiration of the moment, with a technique that brings him close to automatic writing, and in doing so, one cannot help but think again of Lovecraft, a writer who often composed his stories after waking from "nightmares" in a half-awake state, as in "Nyarlathotep." Jean Ray himself admitted to having written most of the stories dedicated to the famous "detective of the occult" Harry Dickson at night and without pause when inspiration struck him. Harry Dickson is yet another example of the over-utilized figure of the "detective," although it is not incorrect to liken him to Hodgson's Carnacki rather than other famous similar figures like Sherlock Holmes: indeed, Harry Dickson often encounters the supernatural and the deformed mythology that so fascinated the Belgian writer.

Is Jean Ray then the last authentically gothic writer? He is certainly the last authentically "weird" writer in the broadest sense of the term, while the evolution of modern gothic has taken more reassuring and conservative directions, losing the pleasure for a certain type of fantastic that no longer finds an outlet in the superficial world we live in. It is no coincidence, then, that in our country Jean Ray has almost been removed alongside other writers like the aforementioned Hodgson and various Machen, M.R. James, M.P. Shiel, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, and others. Only Lovecraft has had relative success, but it is an almost isolated case. The fantastic of Jean Ray has less appeal to the general public; it does not intersect with science fiction and does not nourish a powerful and more engaging imaginary for the reader, like the "Lovecraftian" one: his writing is more subtle and often explores the twisted and petty psychology lurking in the human soul. So, unfortunately, his stories are destined for a select few, also due to an increasingly trendy editorial market, as demonstrated by the success of sub-genres like "noir" and the more canon thriller.

In the end, the ancient mansion of Malpertuis still casts its sinister shadow in some dark forgotten street of some imaginary Belgian town and lives in the corrupted soul of some ancient forgotten God!

Essential Italian Bibliography:

25 Racconti neri e fantastici (1963 – Baldini & Castoldi)

Malpertuis (1966 – Sugar)

Malpertuis (1990 – Horror 7, Mondadori)

La casa stregata di Fulhalm Road e altri orrori (2007 – La biblioteca di Profondo Rosso n. 12)

Il Gran notturno (Edizioni Hypnos - 2011)

I racconti dei Whisky (Edizioni Hypnos - 2013)