I came across an interesting review in The Guardian last weekend, of a novella entitled The Necrophiliac by a writer I wasn’t aware of, Gabrielle Wittkop. The review mentioned Nabokov, likening Wittkopp’s Lucien to VN’s Humbert Humbert. My attention was caught immediately and I bought the book the same day. It’s a beautiful edition. Published by ECW Press of Montreal, with the first UK import consignment already sold out, the grey-brown mottled covers and the parchment-coloured paper within give the sense that
the book itself might have been stolen from a tomb. It’s the kind of book that’s nice to hold because it feels singular.
To say that I’ve enjoyed this book hugely might sound a bit strange. To say that it’s frequently made me laugh out loud sounds even stranger. Both statements, however, are true. I have enjoyed the concise excellence of the writing, which is tactile as poetry whilst maintaining the taut lines and nervous energy of the best Patricia Highsmith. I have laughed aloud with pleasure at the writer’s audacity, which goes beyond audacity into the realms of pure individualism, that European sang-froid that simply declares itself, that doesn’t give a damn about what the reader thinks or even if the reader exists. I read three books by Emmanuel Carrere towards the end of last year (I Am Alive and You Are Dead, The Adversary and the truly brilliant My Life as a Russian Novel) and reading Wittkop brings a similar exhilaration. If anything Wittkop goes further. I don’t believe she wrote this book to shock people – she wouldn’t have cared. She wrote it because she wanted to.
Something that did shock me about The Necrophiliac was that I found it filed in the Horror section. At first glance perhaps it might seem strangely appropriate to find a work so explicit in its graveyard humour shelved next to The Mammoth Book of Vampires and Zombie Apocalypse, but I fear that it found its way there more by accident than design. As with so much of the finest and most challenging fiction, the people charged with selling it weren’t entirely sure of what it was.
Shocking also is the fact that although The Necrophiliac was written in 1972 this is its first appearance in English. From what I have been able to glean from the internet, Gabrielle Wittkop lived a life as singular and full of risks as her writing. I feel lucky to have discovered her, and proud to share a birthday with her. She died in 2002, with the words: ‘I intend to die as I have lived, as a free man.’ Gabrielle Wittkop’s obituary in The Independent is here.