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His own letters also acknowledge his racism, and he talks about it at times as a problem and a struggle that he fails to deal with.

The fun thing about early 19th century authors is the wrote a lot of letters to each other and shared a lot. Lovecraft isn't a mystery man we know nothing about. His life and views are very well documented by his friends, family and himself.

Even if someone wants to pull a Death of the Author card, the Letters of the Author are full of self-examination.

Voss wrote:
His own letters also acknowledge his racism, and he talks about it at times as a problem and a struggle that he fails to deal with.

The fun thing about early 19th century authors is the wrote a lot of letters to each other and shared a lot. Lovecraft isn't a mystery man we know nothing about. His life and views are very well documented by his friends, family and himself.

Even if someone wants to pull a Death of the Author card, the Letters of the Author are full of self-examination.

To add (and reiterate), I feel like we in our modern times can hold up Lovecraft's cultural legacy as an example of how we should do things. We done a swell job of filtering his contributions to literature of his most unsavory elements while keeping it's great contributions. Lovecraft did a lot of firsts. Charles Dexter Ward can be called the first piece of modern zombie fiction. Color Out Space the first piece of nuclear disaster fiction. The Cthulu Mythos has become its own genre almost, with distinct motifs and styles that we still imitate today. You'd be hard pressed to find a horror author today who hasn't been strongly influenced by the man.

Stephen King, easily the most prolific horror writer of our time, openly acknowledges the profound influence of Lovecraft on his writing. And is much like Lovecraft himself in the way he openly engages with others to talk and develop his craft, and encouraging other younger authors to write and improve. Habits I can't help but think he picked up from HPL.

 LordofHats wrote:

Voss wrote:
His own letters also acknowledge his racism, and he talks about it at times as a problem and a struggle that he fails to deal with.

The fun thing about early 19th century authors is the wrote a lot of letters to each other and shared a lot. Lovecraft isn't a mystery man we know nothing about. His life and views are very well documented by his friends, family and himself.

Even if someone wants to pull a Death of the Author card, the Letters of the Author are full of self-examination.

To add (and reiterate), I feel like we in our modern times can hold up Lovecraft's cultural legacy as an example of how we should do things. We done a swell job of filtering his contributions to literature of his most unsavory elements while keeping it's great contributions. Lovecraft did a lot of firsts. Charles Dexter Ward can be called the first piece of modern zombie fiction. Color Out Space the first piece of nuclear disaster fiction. The Cthulu Mythos has become its own genre almost, with distinct motifs and styles that we still imitate today. You'd be hard pressed to find a horror author today who hasn't been strongly influenced by the man.

Sort of? On the one hand, sure, there's tons of modern media in the same vein stripped of the horrid baggage that Lovecraft brings to the table. On the other hand, despite the horribly virulent racism not only in his letters but his actual commercial writing, we still get plenty of people saying "I don't see what's wrong with Lovecraft, he wasn't that bad and we should just ignore all of it."

 LordofHats wrote:

Voss wrote:
His own letters also acknowledge his racism, and he talks about it at times as a problem and a struggle that he fails to deal with.

The fun thing about early 19th century authors is the wrote a lot of letters to each other and shared a lot. Lovecraft isn't a mystery man we know nothing about. His life and views are very well documented by his friends, family and himself.

Even if someone wants to pull a Death of the Author card, the Letters of the Author are full of self-examination.

To add (and reiterate), I feel like we in our modern times can hold up Lovecraft's cultural legacy as an example of how we should do things. We done a swell job of filtering his contributions to literature of his most unsavory elements while keeping it's great contributions. Lovecraft did a lot of firsts. Charles Dexter Ward can be called the first piece of modern zombie fiction. Color Out Space the first piece of nuclear disaster fiction. The Cthulu Mythos has become its own genre almost, with distinct motifs and styles that we still imitate today. You'd be hard pressed to find a horror author today who hasn't been strongly influenced by the man.

Well, that's worth a debate. The primary reason for influence is a lot of his stuff has been public domain prior to the typical date for a variety of different reasons (not least because some he encouraged his fellow authors to use, and/or was never registered or renewed). So authors, movie and game companies could use recognizable material without any fear or need to worry about the dreaded copyright issues or actually being creative themselves.

Lovecraft and Robert Howard we're big friends and shared settings liberally. Lovecraft mentions hyperborea and stygia and Conan has dagon I think and mentions other things man was not meant to know.

 LordofHats wrote:
H Lovecraft definitely mellowed out in his later years after his divorce (which his wife blamed on his extremely racist treatment of her, which could not be something a Jew in the 20s was unaccustomed too)

That's a misconception. They actually divorced due to financial issues.
He was certainly an anti-semite though, and his wife did have to remind him constantly that she was Jewish when he went off on one of his tangents.
What's interesting is that Lovecraft never signed his part of the document, iirc, so technically they weren't divorced. Much to the shock of Mrs Greene when she remarried and discovered that she was technically in a bigamous marriage between Lovecraft and her new husband.

One of his closest friends was also a homosexual Jew, oddly enough.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
H Lovecraft definitely mellowed out in his later years after his divorce (which his wife blamed on his extremely racist treatment of her, which could not be something a Jew in the 20s was unaccustomed too)

That's a misconception. They actually divorced due to financial issues.
He was certainly an anti-semite though, and his wife did have to remind him constantly that she was Jewish when he went off on one of his tangents.
What's interesting is that Lovecraft never signed his part of the document, iirc, so technically they weren't divorced. Much to the shock of Mrs Greene when she remarried and discovered that she was technically in a bigamous marriage between Lovecraft and her new husband.

One of his closest friends was also a homosexual Jew, oddly enough.

Can be a case of "he's one of the good ones" syndrome that happens here and there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

Voss wrote:
His own letters also acknowledge his racism, and he talks about it at times as a problem and a struggle that he fails to deal with.

The fun thing about early 19th century authors is the wrote a lot of letters to each other and shared a lot. Lovecraft isn't a mystery man we know nothing about. His life and views are very well documented by his friends, family and himself.

Even if someone wants to pull a Death of the Author card, the Letters of the Author are full of self-examination.

To add (and reiterate), I feel like we in our modern times can hold up Lovecraft's cultural legacy as an example of how we should do things. We done a swell job of filtering his contributions to literature of his most unsavory elements while keeping it's great contributions. Lovecraft did a lot of firsts. Charles Dexter Ward can be called the first piece of modern zombie fiction. Color Out Space the first piece of nuclear disaster fiction. The Cthulu Mythos has become its own genre almost, with distinct motifs and styles that we still imitate today. You'd be hard pressed to find a horror author today who hasn't been strongly influenced by the man.

Well, that's worth a debate. The primary reason for influence is a lot of his stuff has been public domain prior to the typical date for a variety of different reasons (not least because some he encouraged his fellow authors to use, and/or was never registered or renewed). So authors, movie and game companies could use recognizable material without any fear or need to worry about the dreaded copyright issues or actually being creative themselves.

Wanting to USE that material though is sign of influence alone though, as you want to tell more of the story you love. Saying it's worth a debate is not correct.

The further back you go, the more you have to cherry pick from a person's life. Lovecraft is a great descriptive writer, and found horror in a lot of very interesting and cool places, and the man wrote about everything. A dude lost in a dream and saved by a herd of dimension hopping cats? Yep. A submarine running aground on an underwater island? Someone getting romanced by a herd of rattlesnakes and giving birth to a freaky snake baby?

He just has some absolutely bonkers ideas, and expanded the field of what can be imagined and written about.

You can, of course, find reasons to hate him- and I've never heard anyone hold up his lifestyle as desirable. Much like Poe, he was one of those tortured artists who really went through a lot, and came away with some serious hang ups.

But I wouldn't deny his work because of his extreme racism. Laughingman, our country is built on the principle of enjoying the good people have done, while ignoring their racist flaws. You know the Declaration of Independence was written primarily by a racist slave owner. It doesn't make it a bad document at all- of course it doesn't make Thomas Jefferson a role model either! As long as you can accept Lovecraft's racism (reject it in your personal life), admit it as a strong influence of his work, and move on, it is excellent reading.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
But I wouldn't deny his work because of his extreme racism.

We'd also have basically zero culture if we went about things that way. I don't know why some people want to treat it as all or nothing.

Michael Jackson probably diddled kids. Thriller is still the greatest music video ever made.

 Lance845 wrote:
Michael Jackson probably diddled kids. Thriller is still the greatest music video ever made.

Allegedly to be fair.

 LordofHats wrote:
As said earlier, Lovecraft seemed to be mellowing out a lot in his later years, possibly because of his divorce because I think it's worth being fair and noting that the dude was a lot less intense later in life.

People also tend to forget that Lovecraft was extremely sheltered as a kid growing up. It wasn't like he was going on 4Chan to post edgy memes and never bothering to Google search factual information about other races. The guy was a school dropout that got his 'education' from a bunch of books that were probably outdated by a century and a half by the time he started reading them (and his writing style and ambitions reflected that).

It didn't help that when he married, he was living in a pretty crowded and uncomfortable part of New York with his wife. To put it bluntly, if your opinion of Southerners is taken entirely from television tropes- and when you venture into the South and end up at one of the trailer parks on the other end of my town... your opinion isn't going to change, it's going to dramatically accelerate.

Yeah. Lovecraft was racist. A lot. More so than most people. Had you been in his circumstances, you probably would be, too.

I find it baffling how in this era we can take the time to do the mental gymnastics and remove the fault from every possible negative behavior, but somehow we never bother to wonder what makes people racists. Usually, it's just like any other bad mindset- it's something in the environment.

Also, the fact that Lovecraft's work is pretty much Open-Source means you're going to have no shortage of hack creatives dragging their slimy little scrotes all over it to make a point or make a quick buck.


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 Lance845 wrote:
Michael Jackson probably diddled kids. Thriller is still the greatest music video ever made.

You might wanna look into that a bit more. Because as it stands, there's absolutely zero evidence this took place. In fact, there's quite a bit of evidence that the entire thing was fabricated to extort the man out of money (the first time was because Sony wanted to have him merge his music catalogue with theirs and he wasn't letting them lowball him, so the theory is they were eager to diminish his image right before one of his world tours).

The truth of it is irrelevant. The point is The Author is Dead and the work stands on it's own to be judged on it's own.

The quality and influence of Jackson and Lovecrafts work can stand on it's own regardless of their personal actions or flaws.

Now granted, a lot of Lovecrafts work has blatant and not subtle in any way racism. But it's also written in it's time, taking place in it's time, and is a representation of it's time. Lovecraft's characters might sometimes be Lovecraft's talking heads. Reanimator's description of a black man is down right terrible. But it is accurate to a 1920s view of Africa and a fear of the alien world of the "Darkest Depths of the Congo". Views reflected in other works of that era. He still told compelling stories that influence peoples work now 100 years later.

 Lance845 wrote:
The truth of it is irrelevant. The point is The Author is Dead and the work stands on it's own to be judged on it's own.

The quality and influence of Jackson and Lovecrafts work can stand on it's own regardless of their personal actions or flaws.

Now granted, a lot of Lovecrafts work has blatant and not subtle in any way racism. But it's also written in it's time, taking place in it's time, and is a representation of it's time. Lovecraft's characters might sometimes be Lovecraft's talking heads. Reanimator's description of a black man is down right terrible. But it is accurate to a 1920s view of Africa and a fear of the alien world of the "Darkest Depths of the Congo". Views reflected in other works of that era. He still told compelling stories that influence peoples work now 100 years later.

Absolutely. I think there's a kind of false dichotomy held up by some that if you acknowledge any kind of flaw with a work, or an author of a work, you're advocating throwing that work out whole cloth rather than just...doing what should be kind of normal when considering that society advances and that's a good thing.

In my opinion, any kind of pioneer in the genre of horror is a person who figures out how to successfully take a particular flavor of fear, and create a narrative that engenders that fear.

Lovecraft had two major ones: the fear that comes from worrying that you've inherited something terrible simply by being born and may not be able to escape it, and the fear that something that terrifies you is only a tiny tiny fraction of an impossibly vast, immeasurably more awful whole.

And since his time, many other authors have used his narrative styles to create really awesome, wonderful art. I think my biggest qualm with the modern phenomena of the "Lovecraft fandom" is how they twist that second fear into something cathartic and comforting. The opposite of the fear of the unknown is the categorization of that unknown into neat, comforting, limited boxes. The instant you can read, or watch, or play something and categorize events using a narrative hint so that you can predict what will happen, that fear of the unknown evaporates immediately.

so much of modern "geek culture' consists of patting the viewer on the head and saying what a clever boy they are for successfully knowing what will happen next based on a dropped reference to things that are familiar if you're a True Fan.

That said, I definitely think there are a lot of works especially recently that have really beautifully played up that "horrible inheritance" theme. And I'm not just talking about modern "identitarians" re-enacting "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" with Ancestry.com and 23andme Hereditary could have been written by an HP Lovecraft born in the modern era.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
As said earlier, Lovecraft seemed to be mellowing out a lot in his later years, possibly because of his divorce because I think it's worth being fair and noting that the dude was a lot less intense later in life.

People also tend to forget that Lovecraft was extremely sheltered as a kid growing up. It wasn't like he was going on 4Chan to post edgy memes and never bothering to Google search factual information about other races. The guy was a school dropout that got his 'education' from a bunch of books that were probably outdated by a century and a half by the time he started reading them (and his writing style and ambitions reflected that).

It didn't help that when he married, he was living in a pretty crowded and uncomfortable part of New York with his wife. To put it bluntly, if your opinion of Southerners is taken entirely from television tropes- and when you venture into the South and end up at one of the trailer parks on the other end of my town... your opinion isn't going to change, it's going to dramatically accelerate.

Yeah. Lovecraft was racist. A lot. More so than most people. Had you been in his circumstances, you probably would be, too.

I find it baffling how in this era we can take the time to do the mental gymnastics and remove the fault from every possible negative behavior, but somehow we never bother to wonder what makes people racists. Usually, it's just like any other bad mindset- it's something in the environment.

Also, the fact that Lovecraft's work is pretty much Open-Source means you're going to have no shortage of hack creatives dragging their slimy little scrotes all over it to make a point or make a quick buck.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:
Michael Jackson probably diddled kids. Thriller is still the greatest music video ever made.

You might wanna look into that a bit more. Because as it stands, there's absolutely zero evidence this took place. In fact, there's quite a bit of evidence that the entire thing was fabricated to extort the man out of money (the first time was because Sony wanted to have him merge his music catalogue with theirs and he wasn't letting them lowball him, so the theory is they were eager to diminish his image right before one of his world tours).

He wasn't any more of a racist then anyone else in the 20's. Its fun to watch the hand wringing, though.

https://worldhistory.us/american-history/racism-in-the-1920s-the-rise-of-the-kkk-and-anti-immigration.php

https://prezi.com/r_9bdywhpjg0/1920s-racism-and-discrimination/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-racism-flourished-under-prohibition-180967406/

https://theroaringtwentiesjstokes.weebly.com/racism--prohibition.html

https://www.thoughtco.com/african-american-history-timeline-1920-1929-45440


And yeah.. No. Jackson was accused, but Razorfist as thoroughly and masterfully destroyed that claim and called that kiddie diddling nonsense out.

"You know, the letters to and from the author himself indicate that he was considered a particularly vehement racist by himself and his friends."

"NUH UH, here are articles that prove conclusively that racism existed at that time!

Case closed!"

Like...calm down my dude, you can still enjoy your favorite stories. That doesn't make a thing the guy himself said about himself not true, lol.

 Grot 6 wrote:

He wasn't any more of a racist then anyone else in the 20's. Its fun to watch the hand wringing, though.

I mean who hasn't given their black cat the same name, right?

But nah, he was... weird racist. Not like "Rawr, I hate me them folks there, let's chase 'em outta town!", but more like "If they are not of Anglo descent they are genetically impaired".

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:

He wasn't any more of a racist then anyone else in the 20's. Its fun to watch the hand wringing, though.

I mean who hasn't given their black cat the same name, right?

But nah, he was... weird racist. Not like "Rawr, I hate me them folks there, let's chase 'em outta town!", but more like "If they are not of Anglo descent they are genetically impaired".

That's another misconception. Whilst he did have a cat named that, it is unknown if he was the one who named him. I would say its unlikely that he did, as he was a childhood pet that disappeared when Lovecraft was 14. Its more probable that his grandfather or parents gave the cat that name as some sort of joke based on his black fur. What's curious is that he disappeared shortly after Lovecraft's grandfather died, so it was probably more granddad's cat than Lovecraft's.
Lovecraft did love that cat though. In his letters he lamented that he ran from home, and immortalized him in his short story, The Rats in the Walls.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
That's another misconception. Whilst he did have a cat named that, it is unlikely that he was the one who named it, as it was a childhood pet that disappeared when Lovecraft was 14. Its more probable that his Grandfather or parents gave it that name as some sort of joke based on its black fur.
Lovecraft did love that cat though. In his letters he lamented that it ran from home, and immortalized in his short story, The Rats in the Walls.

I wasn't sure he did or not, I was more just making the joke. But I remember the reference in Rats.

Yeah, and then he name dropped that cat in The Rats in the Walls sometimes 5-6 times a page. It's such a good story and SO ridiculous the terrible naming of that cat.

I’ve been reading some of these stories to my son, carefully dropping or changing some of the words. I think I’ll call that cat “Ginger Nam “.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I’ve been reading some of these stories to my son, carefully dropping or changing some of the words. I think I’ll call that cat “Ginger Nam “.

I can just imagine getting towards the end of one at bedtime

"Rugosely the florper in darkness came, lo as I write this diary it advances upon me from across he room. I can smell its foetid malglations, I can hear its flobbering tendrils. Dear reader, as I write this it walks to me, it comes, IT COMES AAAAAAARGH"

Closes book

"And that's the end. Good night, little one!"

"Good night, dad!"

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I’ve been reading some of these stories to my son, carefully dropping or changing some of the words. I think I’ll call that cat “Ginger Nam “.

The cat was described as having black fur, iirc, so that's not going to be consistent.
Some later publications rename the cat to Black Tom, I believe.
I do like the story, but I admit the cat's name does detract from the horror and atmosphere a little. At least Lovecraft meant well.

We had a talk after the swamp scene in Call of Cthulhu, and even with changing some words we still ended up having a discussion about racism and how times change that made a bigger impression on him than the eponymous monster.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I’ve been reading some of these stories to my son, carefully dropping or changing some of the words. I think I’ll call that cat “Ginger Nam “.

The cat was described as having black fur, iirc, so that's not going to be consistent.
Some later publications rename the cat to Black Tom, I believe.
I do like the story, but I admit the cat's name does detract from the horror and atmosphere a little. At least Lovecraft meant well.

He wrote poetry about how black people were subhuman beasts filled with vice. I'm not sure how that's "meaning well", but you do you.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I’ve been reading some of these stories to my son, carefully dropping or changing some of the words. I think I’ll call that cat “Ginger Nam “.

The cat was described as having black fur, iirc, so that's not going to be consistent.
Some later publications rename the cat to Black Tom, I believe.
I do like the story, but I admit the cat's name does detract from the horror and atmosphere a little. At least Lovecraft meant well.

He wrote poetry about how black people were subhuman beasts filled with vice. I'm not sure how that's "meaning well", but you do you.

I was clearly referring to his cat being in Rats in the Walls.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:

He wasn't any more of a racist then anyone else in the 20's. Its fun to watch the hand wringing, though.

I mean who hasn't given their black cat the same name, right?

But nah, he was... weird racist. Not like "Rawr, I hate me them folks there, let's chase 'em outta town!", but more like "If they are not of Anglo descent they are genetically impaired".

Like I said, he wasn't any more racist then anyone else at the time. Back in the 20's, EVERYONE was racist in one degree or the other, up to and including hanging you from a lamp post in New York City. ( Yeah, I'll spare you posting that image.) and FYI, That was a prevalent thought at the time in "Polite Society". And that went both ways... If you were caught on the wrong side of Fredrick Douglass, or 155th street, YOU were going to get stomped, or robbed and more or less killed. If you were caught on the wrong side of Little Italy, they would have stomped you there as well... the Italians that is... or on the lower east side, the Jews there would give you a funny look, and finished your Brisk.

If the 20's had anything... it had CLASS.

Some of you like to cherry pick, and I guess that's ok too.. But- When I said he wasn't any more racist then anyone else at the time, explain to me how you take that information as that I approve of it? The 20's was a good time, and also a time of national growing pains. Britain wasn't any better... they had it out for the lower class, which is shown in fine detail in "Peaky Blinders", and the Paddy's, such as is shown in "Michal Collins", or "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" or in "Downton Abby"... and over seas, in the Orent, there was a little thing going on called the Boxer Rebellion....

In Jamaica there was Marcus Garvey, In Hawaii, there was the implementation of English in the public schools, In industrial cities-the evolution of established labor unions, and GANGSTERS.... LOTS of gangsters... After WW1, the rise of Bolshevism, the industrialization, and the evolution of mass populations fostered these racisms on all levels.

heck, I'm as much of a Jazz hound as anyone. I can do the Charleston with the best of them while I count my money from my child labor filled factory, and spend it while I chase Flappers at the local Speakeasy...

Haven't any of you watched Boardwalk Empire? Read The Great Gatsby?( or any other of Fitzgerald's work? What about Upton SInclair, or Hemingway? I love the 20's, and all of it's grit, grime, and fortitude. These were the time of Robber barons, adventurers, Artists and musicians, and even an assassination's or two as the world went through it's growing pains of an agricultural based one to an industrialized one...

And Then there was that time I received that telegram from my Uncle Edward... he contacted me because of a queer goings on up in East Egg, where he had come across a strange journal and obelisk with the carving in the house that he had inherited ...

Cue the horns, Chalky! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYNEJITxi2Y

There is something messy about the final act of most horror films as well. Often, it comes down to a mystery story structure, and once the supernatural elements are more predictable, it isn't scary anymore.

I think the biggest part of this is because of "fear of the unkown". The early part of most horror films can play on that. Letting the individual audience members conjure up whatever it is they personally find scary. It's rare that someone else can produce something that scares you MORE than whatever you can conjure up to scare yourself, so the big reveal almost always ends up being anti-climatic - the actual monster/ghost/unkown thing, can't possibly live up to what you were thinking in your head.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I’ve been reading some of these stories to my son, carefully dropping or changing some of the words. I think I’ll call that cat “Ginger Nam “.

The audiobook that I have has him named Mr. Blackman. Not sure if that is tame enough or not, but it flowed well in the story.

Did anyone bring up Agatha Christie's original name for "And Then There Were None"? You know what that one was called, don't you? It's funny because they had to rename it twice. Maybe bring up when Bertie Wooster was hidden as a minstrel in full black face in P.G. Wodehouse's Thank You, Jeeves?

Why does everybody pretend that Lovecraft is somehow alone in being a product of his time? Lovecraft, Christie, and Wodehouse are seriously some of the greatest writers of the twentieth century (I'd argue any century). It's easy to look down on them with the benefit of hindsight, but holy hell, literature would suffer an inconceivable loss without them.

Edit: Christie is the best selling novelist of all time, third in books behind Shakespeare and the Bible. Her racism would make Lovecraft blush.