Résumé : “The call of Cthulhu, iconoclastic translation” began in 1927 in the United States. The narrator discovers the content of the files of his grand-uncle Georges rangell Angell, teacher in Providence. Among many notes, a disturbing clay bas-relief represents a cephalopod creature. After reading these documents, the narrator investigates what seems to him the beginnings of a banal swindle, without knowing that he was engaged in a path leading to absolute horror …
Critique : Jacques Tiberi explains his approach in the introduction: to keep the oppressive atmosphere, but to move away from the heavy turns of the translations that, younger, he had read. It is therefore a new version of this classic that Dandelion editions offer.
We are gradually immersed in mystery and anxiety. The narrator exhibits his regrets from the start from the start of having pushed his investigations so far away and, at the end of the news, we understand why.
The construction of this story plays on several levels. The heavy file of Georges rangell Angell is the binder. After his death, this trunk of documents returns to his grand-nephew, the one who tells the story.
All these notes, seemingly disparate, overlap and reveal a logical scheme. In addition to that, Angell’s grand-nephew, doubtful on the conclusions of his grand-uncle, conducts his own investigation. He will only discover the sinister truth.
Outdoor and foreign witness, the grand-nephew is advancing more and more in the investigation, while staying outside, since he only meets the filthy through other characters. However, he feels horror getting closer and that is what he records in his writings. The identification is then very easy with this almost anonymous narrator, who reads and collects facts and memories.
The translation remains faithful to Lovecraft with the use of many adjectives to describe the indescribable and the horrible. It stands out from the sometimes dense prose of the writer while keeping a level of sustained and precise language. We can only regret the different version of the famous Maxime Cthulhienne:
“That is not dead, which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.”
Indeed, instead of classical transcription: “is not dead what forever sleeps, and over the centuries, even death can die”, Jacques Tiberi proposes: “is not dead what sleeps for eternity, because over time without end, even death can be defeated” that we find less imaginary.
This sentence is also written in a different, more handwritten font and more difficult to read, to recall the mysterious aspect of these words engraved or whispered in a low voice because of the fear they give birth to.
Precisely, the layout highlights this abundance of documents compiled by Angell. The use of this complex police force for mysterious sentences, others more journalistic for articles, contribute even more to immersion.
Black and white illustrations and photos are distributed throughout the collection. If some help us get into the story, others cut us a little from the central intrigue. There, everyone will be able to make their own opinion according to their aesthetic tastes and the expectations that their imagination has created. But the image of the pylon carved with plant interlacing during the passage on the discovery of cyclopean architectures by the lost sailor seemed more offbeat than intriguing.
Only certain representations are credited and a short final list of the authors of these illustrations or photographs would have been welcome.
This small work allows you to discover this Lovecraft classic in another way thanks to the new translation, the dynamic layout, the old and modern illustrations as well as to the photographs.
In addition, to renew the experience, an audio version is provided with the book, via a QR code and an HTML address.
The Call of Cthulhu, iconoclastic translation offers a new French version of this story of anxiety, in a working and neat layout, which will be able to train you in the Lovecraftian imagination.
