Probably a key Fortean.
Henri-René Guieu was born 19 March 1926 in Aix en Provence, France, another of the late generation of Forteans. I do not know much about his early life, but there is some evidence he developed an interest in reading and the esoteric at a young age. According to Bradford Lyau’s essential “The Anticipation Novelists of 1950s French Science Fiction,” he joined the French Resistance during World War II. Shortly thereafter, with the outbreak of interest in flying saucer’s sparked by the Kenneth Arnold sighting in 1947, Guieu became a UFOlogist, dedicating “practically all of his adult life to the proof of UFOs . . . and to the education of the public about them” in Lyau’s words.
Over the course of his career, Guieu wrote a number of books under many pseudonyms—Claude Vauzière, Jimmy G. Quint, Claude Rostaing, Dominique Verseau—and most famously Jimmy Guieu. His first was the science fiction novel “Le Pionnier de l’Atome" in 1952. There followed well over 100 novels, most of them science fiction, but also detective novels and erotic stories. In 1954, he published his first non-fiction book on flying saucers, “Les Soucoupes Volantes Viennent d’un Autre Monde.” He started a UFO journal, “Ouranos” and reported a series for “Radio Monte Carlo” called “As-Tu Vu Les Soucoupes?” as well as a working on a television program. According to Lyau, Guieu was the most recognized of France’s science fiction writers, earning an imprint under his own name in 1979, which published revised versions of his early stories.
Henri-René Guieu was born 19 March 1926 in Aix en Provence, France, another of the late generation of Forteans. I do not know much about his early life, but there is some evidence he developed an interest in reading and the esoteric at a young age. According to Bradford Lyau’s essential “The Anticipation Novelists of 1950s French Science Fiction,” he joined the French Resistance during World War II. Shortly thereafter, with the outbreak of interest in flying saucer’s sparked by the Kenneth Arnold sighting in 1947, Guieu became a UFOlogist, dedicating “practically all of his adult life to the proof of UFOs . . . and to the education of the public about them” in Lyau’s words.
Over the course of his career, Guieu wrote a number of books under many pseudonyms—Claude Vauzière, Jimmy G. Quint, Claude Rostaing, Dominique Verseau—and most famously Jimmy Guieu. His first was the science fiction novel “Le Pionnier de l’Atome" in 1952. There followed well over 100 novels, most of them science fiction, but also detective novels and erotic stories. In 1954, he published his first non-fiction book on flying saucers, “Les Soucoupes Volantes Viennent d’un Autre Monde.” He started a UFO journal, “Ouranos” and reported a series for “Radio Monte Carlo” called “As-Tu Vu Les Soucoupes?” as well as a working on a television program. According to Lyau, Guieu was the most recognized of France’s science fiction writers, earning an imprint under his own name in 1979, which published revised versions of his early stories.
Lyau has it that Guieu started out writing in an optimistic vein, but this positivity lasted only through his first two novels. Afterwards, he became pessimistic about the state of humanity, depicting it as incompetent, and needing saving by superior beings—this was especially true in the work he did until 1960. Like American writers in this tradition, Guieu seems to have mixed UFOlogy with Theosophical concepts—and perhaps a dash of Fort—with some of his novels showing aliens to have inhabited the earth for a long time, Atlanteans or lost races. Other novels, still rooted in pessimism about the state of humanity, eschewed aliens, showing humanity as bumbling and without hope. The fictional solutions he did offer were radical, insisting on the need to fundamentally change human nature.
Guieu’s views, like those of his peers writing French science fiction, were rooted in the problems of post-War France, according to Lyau. The nation was riven by question’s of identity and concerns over slipping behind the rest of the world. These were reflected in the science fiction of the time, which obsessed “over modernization.” Lyau argues that they were able to focus on these concerns by wedding American science fiction, as written since the 1920s, with an older French literary form the “conte philosophique," most closely associated with Voltaire. (Of course American science fiction itself had been shaped by earlier French writers, Jules Verne, certainly, but also the likes of Maurice Renard, who may have been an influence on Fort.) The “conte philosophique" style allowed for open philosophizing, while American science fiction was both associated with modernity and progress—which the French hoped to emulate, in their own way—and also came packaged with ready-made conventions. By the late 1950s or early 1960s, though, the situation was changing: France itself was steadier, its society on a firmer basis, and science fiction underwent a change, focusing more on integrating with mainstream literature, though I am not sure how that is reflected in Guieu’s work.
Jimmy Guieu died 2 January 2000. He was 73.
************************
The connection between Forteanism and French popular culture, especially science fiction, is an understudied area, and one that is potentially quite fruitful. There’s the connection between Renard and Fort, which was suggested by Sam Moskowitz (in a mis-guided attempt to discredit Fort). And it’s an open question how and when Fort entered French culture. “What Guieu knew of Fort’s work is unclear,” Lyau wrote. The first French edition of Fort’s work (of which I am aware) was “Le Livre des Damnés,” put out by Editions des Deux Rives in 1955. But I do not know how that publication came to be. It would have appeared, though, right when Guieu was beginning his career, and its interest to him would have been obvious. None of Fort’s other books come out in French editions until much later, but if Guieu read back issues of “Astounding,” he might have come across the serialization of “Lo!” there. I do not know if there were French editions of the magazine or if Guieu read English.
Whatever the mode of passage, there does seem to have been a Fortean influence on Guieu’s early work, at least. Lyau thought that Eric Frank Russell’s version of Forteanism, from his “Sinister Barrier,” probably informed Guieu’s stories about aliens having already been on earth for a long time. He notes that “Sinister Barrier” was translated in French in 1952 (but “Dreadful Sanctuary” not until 1978), a couple of years before Guieu write his stories about ancient alien visitors. I am not familiar enough with Gueiu’s body of work to identify other Fortean elements, but given his interest in the occult, the esoteric, and flying saucers, it is likely that they are there.
Coming as this story does from the American side, rather than the French side with Lyau’s study, there is more information about his connection Fort. He was a member of the Fortean Society no later than the end of 1953, according to letters from Tiffany Thayer to Russell. Guieu apparently paid his dues in November of that year, a month or so after Thayer noted that he was a member. Thayer credited Guieu with sending in dues (again, presumably) in April 1955. I see no other references to Guieu in Thayer’s correspondence, so I do not know if Guieu’s membership lapsed, or if he just paid so regularly there was no need to mention him. (It’s worth noting that Thayer used the pseudonym, though he did get it wrong once, spelling it Quien. It is clear he was referring to Guieu because he called him a “French radio man,” which is how he also referred to him in another letter.)
Guieu also received a call-out in Doubt, a few months earlier. Issue 47, dated January 1955, had a run-down on publications concerned with flying saucers (the article was titled “Saucerzines”), which mentioned the enthusiasm for the subject in France—and Guieu’s role there, as well as the importance of another member Larry Wilson—otherwise unknown to me—while at the same time continuing to denigrate the entire phenomenon, associating it with media spectacle and the ignorant:
“If you think the USA newswriters and cartoonists had fun with the ‘flying saucers’ you should have a gander at the current press of La Belle France. WOW! Once they took it up, they took it up.
“No issue of any daily home journal in France is complete these days without its photo of the latest peasant to interview a spaceman, so it’s no wonder Mendes-France agreed to push rearmament. The mayor of Chateau Neuf de Pape—where some grand wine comes from—has decreed that no ‘flying saucer’ or ‘flying cigar’ shall land or take off in his bailiwick.
“The Society is particularly fortunate in its French coverage, since Jimmy Guieu of Radio Monte Carlo, author of “Les Soucoupes Volantes viennent d’un autre Monde,” is a member, and our own roving correspondent Larry Wilson is in the midst of it in Paris.
“Speaking domestically, the subject has found its sea-level in that group of pulp readers who write letters to the editors. One wonders if the membership is familiar with these phenomena.”
A few months after Thayer mentioned Guieu in “Doubt,” on 10 November 1955, “Le Livre des Damnés” was published in Paris. Translated by the French surrealist filmmaker Robert Benayoun, with a foreword by Jacques Bergier, a special message by Thayer, and collected by [?] Louis Pauwels, the book formally brought Fort to France. Guieu seems also to have been a link in spreading Forteanism through France—his connection to the Fortean Society, tight or not, belying his importance. I have not seen the article, but in a 1970 article for “Horizons du Fantastique,” Jean Giraud (better known as Moebius) wrote an appreciation of Guieu that called him an heir to Fort. From my (admittedly limited) vantage, he seems to have helped put Fort into French science fiction, while at the same time Fort was also being adopted—along with Lovecraft—by French surrealists.
In 1960, just after the end of the Fortean Society, Pauwels and Bergier wrote “Le Matin des Magiciens.” It would be translated into English in 1963 as "Morning of the Magicians," giving America a Fort refracted through French culture—and helping to launch a very different kind of Forteanism. It wasn’t just French science fiction that mutated during the 1960s, Forteanism did, too.
Guieu’s views, like those of his peers writing French science fiction, were rooted in the problems of post-War France, according to Lyau. The nation was riven by question’s of identity and concerns over slipping behind the rest of the world. These were reflected in the science fiction of the time, which obsessed “over modernization.” Lyau argues that they were able to focus on these concerns by wedding American science fiction, as written since the 1920s, with an older French literary form the “conte philosophique," most closely associated with Voltaire. (Of course American science fiction itself had been shaped by earlier French writers, Jules Verne, certainly, but also the likes of Maurice Renard, who may have been an influence on Fort.) The “conte philosophique" style allowed for open philosophizing, while American science fiction was both associated with modernity and progress—which the French hoped to emulate, in their own way—and also came packaged with ready-made conventions. By the late 1950s or early 1960s, though, the situation was changing: France itself was steadier, its society on a firmer basis, and science fiction underwent a change, focusing more on integrating with mainstream literature, though I am not sure how that is reflected in Guieu’s work.
Jimmy Guieu died 2 January 2000. He was 73.
************************
The connection between Forteanism and French popular culture, especially science fiction, is an understudied area, and one that is potentially quite fruitful. There’s the connection between Renard and Fort, which was suggested by Sam Moskowitz (in a mis-guided attempt to discredit Fort). And it’s an open question how and when Fort entered French culture. “What Guieu knew of Fort’s work is unclear,” Lyau wrote. The first French edition of Fort’s work (of which I am aware) was “Le Livre des Damnés,” put out by Editions des Deux Rives in 1955. But I do not know how that publication came to be. It would have appeared, though, right when Guieu was beginning his career, and its interest to him would have been obvious. None of Fort’s other books come out in French editions until much later, but if Guieu read back issues of “Astounding,” he might have come across the serialization of “Lo!” there. I do not know if there were French editions of the magazine or if Guieu read English.
Whatever the mode of passage, there does seem to have been a Fortean influence on Guieu’s early work, at least. Lyau thought that Eric Frank Russell’s version of Forteanism, from his “Sinister Barrier,” probably informed Guieu’s stories about aliens having already been on earth for a long time. He notes that “Sinister Barrier” was translated in French in 1952 (but “Dreadful Sanctuary” not until 1978), a couple of years before Guieu write his stories about ancient alien visitors. I am not familiar enough with Gueiu’s body of work to identify other Fortean elements, but given his interest in the occult, the esoteric, and flying saucers, it is likely that they are there.
Coming as this story does from the American side, rather than the French side with Lyau’s study, there is more information about his connection Fort. He was a member of the Fortean Society no later than the end of 1953, according to letters from Tiffany Thayer to Russell. Guieu apparently paid his dues in November of that year, a month or so after Thayer noted that he was a member. Thayer credited Guieu with sending in dues (again, presumably) in April 1955. I see no other references to Guieu in Thayer’s correspondence, so I do not know if Guieu’s membership lapsed, or if he just paid so regularly there was no need to mention him. (It’s worth noting that Thayer used the pseudonym, though he did get it wrong once, spelling it Quien. It is clear he was referring to Guieu because he called him a “French radio man,” which is how he also referred to him in another letter.)
Guieu also received a call-out in Doubt, a few months earlier. Issue 47, dated January 1955, had a run-down on publications concerned with flying saucers (the article was titled “Saucerzines”), which mentioned the enthusiasm for the subject in France—and Guieu’s role there, as well as the importance of another member Larry Wilson—otherwise unknown to me—while at the same time continuing to denigrate the entire phenomenon, associating it with media spectacle and the ignorant:
“If you think the USA newswriters and cartoonists had fun with the ‘flying saucers’ you should have a gander at the current press of La Belle France. WOW! Once they took it up, they took it up.
“No issue of any daily home journal in France is complete these days without its photo of the latest peasant to interview a spaceman, so it’s no wonder Mendes-France agreed to push rearmament. The mayor of Chateau Neuf de Pape—where some grand wine comes from—has decreed that no ‘flying saucer’ or ‘flying cigar’ shall land or take off in his bailiwick.
“The Society is particularly fortunate in its French coverage, since Jimmy Guieu of Radio Monte Carlo, author of “Les Soucoupes Volantes viennent d’un autre Monde,” is a member, and our own roving correspondent Larry Wilson is in the midst of it in Paris.
“Speaking domestically, the subject has found its sea-level in that group of pulp readers who write letters to the editors. One wonders if the membership is familiar with these phenomena.”
A few months after Thayer mentioned Guieu in “Doubt,” on 10 November 1955, “Le Livre des Damnés” was published in Paris. Translated by the French surrealist filmmaker Robert Benayoun, with a foreword by Jacques Bergier, a special message by Thayer, and collected by [?] Louis Pauwels, the book formally brought Fort to France. Guieu seems also to have been a link in spreading Forteanism through France—his connection to the Fortean Society, tight or not, belying his importance. I have not seen the article, but in a 1970 article for “Horizons du Fantastique,” Jean Giraud (better known as Moebius) wrote an appreciation of Guieu that called him an heir to Fort. From my (admittedly limited) vantage, he seems to have helped put Fort into French science fiction, while at the same time Fort was also being adopted—along with Lovecraft—by French surrealists.
In 1960, just after the end of the Fortean Society, Pauwels and Bergier wrote “Le Matin des Magiciens.” It would be translated into English in 1963 as "Morning of the Magicians," giving America a Fort refracted through French culture—and helping to launch a very different kind of Forteanism. It wasn’t just French science fiction that mutated during the 1960s, Forteanism did, too.
