Kipling Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You don't know that HSW was gay. [...] Randy
> Everts' early research on W. makes no mention of
> it.

No, John, but his recent researches do. A couple of years ago Randy visited Dunedin and claims to have interviewed a number of men with whom Whitehead had relations when they were younger. This is what he told me at the time. Maybe some day he'll write it up, but I'm not holding my breath. He occasionally drops statements about this in his EOD contributions.
Are you serious about Petaja? I hate to break this to you, but he lived on Castro Street in San Francisco. He was well known in Bay Area fan circles for being Gay.
Frankly I don't care if Whitehead were homosexual or not, like you it doesn't affect my enjoyment of his stories. The question was asked, and I answered it to the best of my knowledge. That's all.
The reference to Griswold was most unkind, since I do not care for attempts to psychoanalyze a writer from his work. On the other hand, there is a thriving literary school devoted to Gender and Ethnic Studies, and discussions of HSW's orientation might well fit therein.
Regarding the relative merits of Machen and Leiber: let's just say that I have a larger first rank than you. I dislike comparisons of which writer is greater, since each writer has different strengths and weaknesses. Which is better: Machen's "The Lost Club" or Leiber's "Smoke Ghost?" See how comparisons can rapidly become less than useful? I think of them more as belonging to the same cohort. Certainly if I were to edit an anthology of the best writers in the field, I'd have Bradbury next to Blackwood, Benson besides Wellman, etc. You get the idea.
Best,
Scott

Calonlan wrote:

> B. - Homophobia and Homoerotic - invented in the
> pseudo-shrink arena and capitalizing upon the
> public use of "homo" as a pejorative, these words
> bear no reasonable relation to the usage. "Homo",
> the Greek prefix found in Homogenous, and
> Homogenized means "things that are the same all
> the time" -
> Homophobia (and in this my colleague and fellow
> philologist in Germany, Dr. John Robertson first
> proposed the analysis) means "fear of boredom" --

Certainly something that invariably threatens when members of the Gay community settle down to their favourite subject: themselves.

> a teenage ailment no doubt?

Well, self-obsession is characteristic of teens.

> - Homoerotic ---
> boring sex?

Erm.

> The term that would mean what is intended is
> "Arsenkoitaphobia" - fear of men who emulate
> koitus -- Homoerotic would have to be something
> like "Arsenkoitic".

That wouldn't cover lesbians. Arsenokoit- is better translated as something like "man-bedder". I don't mind homoerotic so much, but homophobia is very tendentious.

> "Arsen" is a Koine term that goes beyond Anthropos
> (generic) and Andros (male in the sense of
> "manliness").
>
> It is unfortunate that there are those who think
> that creating a pseudo technical term for an
> imagined psychological attitude is a useful thing
> to do and provides authority and ownership,

You're obviously a homophobe then: into re-education camp with you!

> when
> it merely produces a convenient term as filled
> with scalding animosity as may be projected by its
> opposite number. I have no illusions that simple
> good sense will get rid of bad usage, nor that
> members of the same species will come to their
> collective senses and stop ill-using each other.
> These comments are generic and in no way are they
> a reflection of this generally interesting set of
> discussions, merely an observation on the state of
> English - and the long term effects of the loss of
> Latin and Greek from the schools -- "behold, even
> the very elect are deceived" --
> much affection to all

Actually Phil, I can't be a homophobe since I've never been bored long enough to develop a pathological fear of boredom.

To cover the Lesbian community (an excellent idea in itself), one might get away with anthropo-- the point however is moot.

The verbal root "koitai" in it's most ancient root infers in this kind of combination (plural also) the sense of "emulation" - so, while man-bedder would be a pretty good translation, it doesn't quite do it full justice, though, thinking in the terms of the tribe of the importance of re-populating the group, it is an unproductive activity -- you might know that Onan's sin was not just failing to produce offspring for his dead brother, put wasting "seed" -- In the ancient mind whether wheat, barley, corn or human, seed was both sacred, and not to be idly cast aside -- remember the king's fertility affected the whole land, cattle, crops, and people.

Scott: I was serious about textual evidence not being conclusive, in Petaja's case or anyone else's.
It suggests a deviant condition, but not "strongly," as I repeat.
You seem to go along with the statements and suggstions of Everts and Callaghan in this regard; I remain sceptical. Sorry if the reference to Griswold struck you as unkind, but like the "Science vrs. Religion" mythologies concocted by post-Darwin opportunists, Griswold knew he couldn't fabricate everything, so he used the words of other liars, too. Why do you credit Everts's supposed recent sources, who, you presume, have lived to tell the tale 75 years later? Who, in 21st century Dunedin, would remember or care to disparage the memory of Dr. Whitehead in this way? And for that matter, who said you were gay? The source you are crediting, right? I merely point out that no convincing evidence has been presented. At least we agree that it doesn't detract from his work-- unless words like "homo-social" don't make you gag, choke, and heave.

jkh

Scott: By coincidence I was just about to get to Leiber's "Smoke Ghost" again in the anthology of Fantasy & Science Fiction I'm using for a course next Fall on
fantasy in American fiction. You may have seen it- it includes CAS's "City of the Singing Flame" and HPL's "Colour Out of Space"? Anyway, as much as I love Leiber's best, such as Our Lady of Darkness, to me most of his work is on the level
of The Second Book of Fritz Leiber: versatile, excellent style, often brilliant in conception, but not stamped with the genius I ascribe to Machen and Blackwood. Sure, they wrote tediously like all authors great and small do, but their best
stands out more than anything the second-tier artists did.

jkh

Doug Anderson has just reminded me that while Barlow had planned a Florida visit in 1932, he did not actually set foot in that state until 1933, after HSW's death. Therefore they never met. Oops. Sorry....

Scott

Gavin:

I'd be very interested to see a transcription of the Whitehead obit from the Dunedin newspaper. I've done a lot of digging on Whitehead, the results of which will be in the biographical Intro to the second of the three Ash Tree volumes of The Collected Stories of Henry S. Whitehead. (The first volume is due out in August.)

I can add a bunch of little things to your comments, and point you to things like Sean Donnelly's article "Whitehead in Florida" in Fantasy Commentator, no. 49 (Fall 1996),which gives a brief account of some twenty-one pieces from the Dundedin Times that mention Whitehead, and the article reproduces photographs of Whitehead's last home (1871 Pasadena Ave) and The Church of the Good Shepherd.

Doug

Disregard.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 14 Apr 08 | 08:29AM by Scott Connors.

Dear friends,
Your friendly neighborhood philologist writing: off the subject but relevant to good usage --

I have consulted with a number of colleagues worldwide, who, like myself were students of
Robert Graves, JRR Tolkien, and a good friend and collegue of John Ciardi (author of browser's dictionary et al):

The words "homophobia" and "Homoerotic" have been foisted on the public by the ignorance (nearly universal) of the psychology community who imagine that if they invent a term, it means they "own" the diagnosis and (worse) understand it.

As many of you would recognize, though the general public does not, the prefix "homo" is not the latin for "man" but the greek which we use in "Homogenized", "homogenous" etc. Obviously one does not use a Latin prefix with a Greek root. The correct translation I and all my colleagues agree is
"Fear of boredom" -- that is the fear of things being the same all the time. Homoerotic therefore must mean "boring sex", in my experience a near impossibility. Now those who think "singularity of nature" is an appropriate definition to tie the words to homosexuality are in error, because fear in that sense would incompass all things that are the same - all black ants, all yellow flowers - whatever - Let's start a small movement to correct the matter - if you must have a greek term, it would be "arsenkoitaphobia" or "arsenkoiterotic" -- In the Greek of the Koine' "arsen" is the term specifically for men (and unfortunately has a slightly pejorative edge to it in the ancient writings implying 'lower class') emulating coitus. The term, without the phobia, is common in the writing of the ancient Greeks - no one either "feared" or "hated" such folk - attitudes ranged from endorsement to condemnation depending on the writer.

An artist friend of mine recently wrote to me that "Life is what happens when you are planning other things". In the same way, I think, language is what happens while the academics are compiling their dictionaries! I think historically it can be shown that definitions are based on usage, and not the other way around. True, slang produces some horrible mutations- but it can also produce great beauty. I for one am glad we are now speaking English, for instance, and not Old English, and that Shakespeare had the opporunity to write in a hybrid, impure tongue.

>>"boring sex", in my experience a near impossibility

I think there are some "women of the night" out there who might have a different view of this.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 1 Sep 08 | 05:17PM by Gavin Callaghan.

"I think historically it can be shown that definitions are based on usage, and not the other way around."

You are mistaken. Prescriptive dictionaries have existed since at least the time of Dr. Johnson (who was hardly an "academic" in the sense you mean, by the way). You are obviously a descriptivist, though, and therefore would like to ignore that inconvenient fact. Merely because prescription is in disfavor now is no excuse for doing so, though, in my view.

By the way, enlisting Shakespeare on the side of the vulgum pecus is an interesting forensic maneuver, but an unconvincing one. Shakespeare had a classical education in rhetoric, meaning that he knew the tropes from aporia to zeugma, and which obviously was of help in manipulating his "hybrid, impure language" to best advantage.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2 Sep 08 | 05:28PM by Kyberean.

deleted and moved; sorry



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 4 Sep 08 | 08:25AM by Kyberean.

I am shocked to read this thread. I have no recollection of anyone suggesting that Whitehead was queer. There is no whisper of such a thing in Ruber's awful book, ARKHAM'S MASTERs OF HORROR, where one wou'd expect to find it. I used to own the first of two British pb reprintings of JUMBEE AND OTHER UNCANNY TALES, and it was one of my all-time favourite collections. Jessica Salmonson had a copy of the Arkham House edition for sale, but always refus'd to sell it to me because she found it such a racist book. I finally found a copy at a convention, with a xerox dj, but wasn't certain that I wanted to spend $150 on it--then my good pal came up to me later in the convention and placed the purchas'd book in my hand. I was struck by the fact that my beloved brother Barlow had written the introduction. JUMBEE remains one of my favourite collections of weird fiction, the stories are strange and superbly written. I do not find traces of the racism that so appall'd Jessica. I am now inspir'd to read it once more and see if I can detect any queerness. I wonder if I can find an affordable edition of WEST INDIA LIGHTS -- although I must be cautious with me purse, as just yesterday I order'd Centipede's amazing CONVERSATIONS WITH THE WEIRD TALES CIRCLE, whut hath haunted me since I thumb'd through it at WFC.....

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

Wilum: While I would agree that there are certainly racist elements -- sometimes quite strong ones -- in several of Whitehead's tales, I also find that there is a strong streak of sympathy for the same people in many instances (albeit it is usually of a rather paternalistic sort). At any rate, I find it much less offensive than other "popular" writings of the period often tended to be. I also find Whitehead's work quite interesting, if occasionally a bit too cool to realize the full potential of its scenarios or incidents. Nonetheless, it is generally quite erudite, written in a style which adds to the air of verisimilitude, and remains, I think, some of the best short work which has been done on such subjects; and several of the tale do tend to linger in my mind many years after I first read them.

I bought the first volume of the three proposed by Ash-Tree; I can only hope that the others see print in the not-too-distant future, as I really would like to have all the man's fiction at my disposal.

I will only add that some of the items in West India Lights I found to be rather disappointing -- not nearly as memorable or well-developed as those in Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales; though you may find "Williamson" to be of interest, especially in connection with HPL's "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family"....

Yes -- I just reread "Cassius," and I see the strong racialism of the story. I suppose that by "racist" I always think of foaming-at-the-mouth hatred, which I have witnessed too many times and been subjected to because of my modicum of Jewish heritage. With Whitehead it feels more -- these blacks are a separate race, a singular people with alien ways. There are echoes, too, of white man mental/emotional superiority that I never noticed before, being swept away, I guess, by the weird power of the fiction. I love the idea that Whitehead was a sister -- another of Lovecraft's buddies who was queer. That's fabulous! Makes me want to edit a new Arkham House anthology -- ARKHAM'S QUEER MASTERS OF HORROR, or some such thing. I could include all the people who have been hinted of being tainted by this superb perversion, Wandrei, HPL, Loveman, Barlow, and that Queen Supreme, my wondrous soul-sister Augie D!

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.