Translated by Scott Nicolay. Carmichael, CA: Dim Shores (2017). Reviewed by The joey Zone.
Despite having been reprinted several times and available in translation online, this Dim Shores edition of J. H. Rosny’s novelette of man’s conflict with an inexplicable life force is the one to own.
The first apparent reason for that is the cover (with additional interior ‘anatomical’ drawings) depicting the title ‘Shapes’ by Michael Bukowski. Online views do not do this work justice—one must hold the printed book to see the subtle gradations in colour of sky, the aforementioned Xipehuz and surrounding landscape. Perhaps a larger version should grace the exhibition of some upcoming survey of The Visual Weird as an example of this illustrator’s best work.
A second reason is the inclusion of Scott Nicolay’s essay that first appeared in a slightly different form as an installment of his online blog Stories from The Borderland (on December 13, 2016). The revival of this work could be explained by his belief that “…all texts exist as part of larger assembles that include not only other texts and their authors, but readers and editors, publishers, artists, critics, agents and other agents.” [my italics]
That agency was given by Lila Garrott in her own blog Strange Horizons as a raison d’etre of a Rosny Revival. She mentions “…eager editors [who] are interested in the chase…liable to claim pressing importance.” (August 20th, 2012). This includes earlier translators Daniele Chatelaine and George Stosser who maintain Rosny tried “as hard as any writer who uses words and addresses a human audience to decenter humankind.” Man’s ‘cosmic insignificance’ appears as a leitmotif in later works by the author, La Morte de la Terre (1910) and Le Grande enigma (1920). While parallels to the work of, say, H. P. Lovecraft might be made, Scott maintains that an “excessive emphasis on Lovecraft in so much Weird Fiction scholarship has led us to associate The Weird with ugliness and grotesquerie” (one would ironically note Nicolay and other such writers as China Mieville’s emphasis on HPL in other Weird criticism sometimes when there is no need). The Xipehuz and Rosny are their own ultramundane genus.
A counter action to that ugliness is this new translation’s third and most important reason for acquisition—it’s sheer prose poetry: “The song of the sunset swelled and hovered, its harmonies swirling in eddies.” Nicolay’s version is also interesting in comparison to Jason Colavito’s recent online translation (jasoncolavito.com/the-xipeacutehuz1.html). “The death knell of the world’s end or perhaps the resignation of the red man of the Indian jungles” in the earlier becomes the Indian prairies in this printed edition. Which (continent/nationality) is it? This writer will now have to acquire the other translations of this. If the main purpose then of this publication is a thorough reread this author’s work, well, then mission accomplished!
All of Scott Nicolay’s Stories from The Borderland series does similar important work. It’s range is analogous to Lin Carter’s selections for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in the early 1970s. Another hinted at revival could be that of the oeuvre of Jean Ray (an accompanying depiction of ‘The Schoolmaster’ from Ray’s “The Mainz Psalter” by Michael Bukowski would no doubt be perfection….). “O Translators,” exhorts Lila Garrott, “given the pleasures and strengths of the excavations you’ve performed for us…may we have more of these marvelous stories?” To which we can only implore the translator of this Xipehuz with a Francophilic affectation: Oui, si’l vous plait!