I usurp this thread instead of creating a new one, which in this case seems more apt.
Jean Ray, 1887-1964, pseudonym of Raymundus Joannes de Kremer. Belgian writer and translator, who has left one classic novel –
Malpertuis – and a lot of short stories. The adventures of Harry Dickson, a Holmes clone, were at first translated by Ray in 1933, later he wrote the stories himself. They were especially successful in France, are still done as comics.
But I guess it is fair to say he is mostly forgotten. Some European collections were done in the 70s and 80s. Aside from the Berkley edition John Pelan's Midnight House did a collection in 1999
My own private Spectre, 2019 there are two books by Wakefield Press.
Here is a German paperback collection of 1986, long OOP, done by Suhrkamp. At the time the publisher dabbled in the field of SF and the Weird Tale, as the tasteful cover maybe already suggests, its writers all were from the upper range. Ballard, Aldiss, Dick, Lem, Lovecraft, Blackwood, CAS.
The content:
Storchhaus ou La maison des cigognes 1961 (House of the Storks)*
Le Grand Nocturne 1942 (The Great Nocturnal One)*
La nuit de Camberwell 1925 (A night in Camberwell)
Les étranges études du Dr. Paukenschlage 1925 (The strange studies of Dr.Paukenschlag)
L'histoire du Wûlkh (1943) (The story of Wulkh)
Le miroir noir (1943) (The Black Mirror)
Le dernier voyageur (1932) (Last Traveler)
Têtes-de-Lune (1964) (Moonheads)
Le banc et la porte (1964) (Bank and Door)
Smith... comme tout le monde... (1964) (Smith, like most people)
Le « Tessaract » (1964) (The Tessaract)
La rue de la Tête-Perdue (1938) (Street of the lost Head). A Harry Dickson adventure.
* are included in the Midnight House edition.
Here are two samples:
House of the Stork – The captain, a retired seaman and narrator, who had some run-ins with the supernatural, lives in Germany. He gets a visit from his former officer Bill, who has fallen on hard times. He tells a weird story. While on the run for petty thieveries he met a strange man on a cemetary who paid him for a burglary into the house of the title. But he is warned of a guardian. He kills the guardian and discovers that the house is alive, one room is a kind of stomach. Bill feeds it with a murdered vagrant and gets money in return, which is literally falling out of the wall. Greedy Bill employs the help of the captain for finding the treasure, but they fail. At the end Bill kills a girl for the house for more money, much to the captains fury. The captain wounds him and feeds him to the house, afterwards he burns the house down. But Bill's enigmatic employer returns and gives the captain a clue about the origin of the house, something about a painter banned by the church for his pictures. The story has no definite ending, though.
Plotwise this is a straighter story. Ray's work sometimes has a unique fascination if one is open for weird tales which don't follow traditional narrative elements. Sometimes it is hackwork, though; poor characterisation and plots which don't make sense. Like those Poe fables. Often the locale is unconvincing, especially if the locale is England. But when he is on the game, he succeeds with strange settings and uncomfortable plots, which do conjure strange worlds. If one wants to do a comparison, it reminds one of later work of Jean Rollin in terms of pictures and atmosphere. Which is no surprise; I think I remember that Rollin once upon a time wanted to do a Harry Dickson movie.
Harry Dickson now seems to be an acquired taste. I don't know if
La rue de la Tête-Perdue is a good or a bad example for the series. The plot doesn't make a lot of sense, the hero and his sidekick are a cipher, the setting of England is indeed often unconvincing. But the tale is quite bizarre.
Harcester, a little village in Middle England, is a quiet town full of gossips. The only unsavoury street is the Street of the Lost head, so called because of a statuette which is missing its head. Here is a hotel which allegedly is a haven for affairs. Two gossiping (and cheap) biddies, Arabella Slowby and her cousin Betsy Wood get a visit from an unknown guest after dark, an unheard-of event. The maid has to buy expensive food for the caller, which to her chagrin remains invisible. The next day, both women are gone.
Some time later, both are found strangled in London, discovered in a raid by the police on some occult alchemistical society, which ends with two murders and two suicides. Entrance of Harry Dickson and his pal Tom Wills in Harcester, who informs the clearly out of his depth policeman of the town Brewster of a cult who worships the god Baal and has succeeded in making gold. What have the nice elder ladies to do with that? Dickson discovers that the proprietor of the aforementioned hotel is a man named Pascrew. But thirty years ago, a man named Pascrew allegedly founded the occult society in the city of Bamchester, 300 miles away. There he had a hotel in a street named Street of the Lost Head. And went insane and killed most of his brethren. But after he was caught it was discovered that he was possessed by Baal, transforming on occasion into a brute. Arabella and Betsy were part of the group which escaped to Harcester, which streets have an uncanny resemblance with Bamchester, including the same street. As is revealed, Betsy's father Professor Wood was the original founder who summoned Baal in the first place, not Pascrew. The Harcester-Pascrew is another man, seemingly possessed by the spirit of the original.
As Dickson deduces that the women left Harcester voluntary, again on the run for Pascrew, some monster kills a lot of residents in the same night, Pascrew among the victims; when the Detective and his friends approaches it in some underground tunnels – which are the same as tunnels earlier found in Bamchester, right up to the statuette -, the monster blows up the whole town, killing hundreds. Sometime later Dickson discovers which of survivors of Harcester is now possessed by Baal. It is a woman, one of the many protagonists I omitted in my summary, which is complicated enough. The woman dies transforming before his eyes. Case closed.
Some parts are a lot more complicated; the story is 53 pages in fine prints, I omitted a lot of characters which today appear like rejects from
Midsomer Murders, back when it was good. Even with its length it is told in broad strokes, the violence happens off-stage, and I am not sure I understood everything. Most of the facts are delivered Dickson rather matter-of-factly, who remains an all-knowing character without any characterisation. But for all its implausibility and over-complicatedness there remain some crazy ideas which stay in mind. Ray must have written 100 or so of the stories published in France, and a collection would be appreciated.
