One wonders if those “defending” HPL’s atavistic political viewpoint actually realize just how racist Lovecraft’s viewpoint actually is, since “defending Lovecraft” would also mean that one is also implicitly defending such things as Lovecraft’s views on the KKK, the banning of interracial marriage, the enforcing of strict segregation between the races, etc., etc., etc. -as well Lovecraft’s implicitly positive view of punishments like lynching or branding as just penalties for violations of the latter two “offenses.”

This gives HPL’s “defenders” one of two choices: they can either defend Lovecraft because of his racism -which nobody in their right mind would ever do. Or they could defend him IN SPITE OF his racism- which raises problems of its own, since so many of Lovecraft’s polemical views are interrelated, all of them thus partaking of Lovecraft‘s essentially irrational bias. Eventually, if one delves down far enough into any one of HPL’s beliefs, one eventually hits the stone wall of HPL’s belief in such things as the “innate superiority of the ‘Teuton’”, etc. -thereby shattering any pretext to logic or objectivity on HPL’s part.

Citing the current situation in Western Europe is misleading in relation to Lovecraft, too, since the situation there is very different from the one which the nativist/xenophobic Lovecraft faced in the American northeast. HPL’s rhetoric about “decay” was concerned solely with those forces which he saw as threatening Western (mainly Anglo-American) civilization, and those forces were: Black emancipation; colonial self-determination; the immigration of Jews, Italians, Irish, and Poles into the industrial northeast; interracial sex; women and sex generally; alcohol and Bacchanalian libertinism; rootless, chaotic and formless Modernism; and political movements such as Pacifism, Socialism, Anarchism, Bolshevism, and Labor agitation. I don’t know that HPL had any particular concerns about Europe, in this connection, since for HPL countries like France (land of racial intermixing and female lasciviousness), Germany (land of “the Hun”), and Italy (land of “base Italians” who “enjoy’d what [they] could not have builded” [from HPL‘s poem, “On the Ruin of Rome“]) were all beyond salvation anyway.

Of Arabs, Moslems, or Islam generally HPL had very little to say, as far as I know. Most of HPL’s references to Islam, such as Abdul Alhazred and Al Azif, as well as such things as the “saracenic cipher” used by Wilbur Whately in “The Dunwich Horror“, have more to do with HPL’s childhood reading of such things as the Arabian Nights and his later reading of Vathek than any anti-Moslem impetus. Thus they have more to do with atmosphere and color than active animus.

The closest thing in this connection, perhaps, would be HPL’s figure of “Nyarlathotep”, who is often associated by HPL with such things as Egypt and the “nighted merchants of Khem” (HPL’s anti-mercantile critique, again). But even Nyarlathotep’s symbolism is more Pharaonic and even pre-Pharaonic than specifically Muslim, and more in keeping with Lovecraft’s overriding anti-Levantine/Oriental/Jewish animus than any grand vision of a “clash of civilizations”, such as is seen in Europe today.

Any similarities between Lovecraft’s 1920’s anti-immigrant diatribe and modern concerns are thus merely ones of analogy. One could just as easily make the case, based upon the evidence, that Lovecraft himself was an orthodox Muslim or Moslem polemicist -given the fact that so many of Lovecraft’s crochets -alcohol, women, sex, Jews, and “blasphemy”- are also in the list of fundamentalist Moslem crochets, as well. Indeed, reading Lovecraft’s “blasphemy” and “blasphemous” rhetoric for too long eventually begins to feel somewhat akin to hearing a speech by the Ayatollah. And, as Christopher Hitchens wrote just last month, “Almost every historical battle for free expression, from Socrates to Galileo, has begun as a struggle over what is and is not ‘blasphemy’.” Something to keep in mind, perhaps, when reading Lovecraft’s recurrent rhetoric about the supposed “danger” of knowledge.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One wonders....

I did reply to this post when you wrote the same thoughts last time, but disappointingly my very lengthy text was removed from the site. I spent so much time with that, and have no energy, or joy, for trying to recollect it again. If I had saved it, I would have posted it here.

Furthermore, I now figure it is probably pretty meaningless trying to have a political discourse here on this site. It boils widely elsewhere. And it is only mental cockfight anyway; the opposing side can never be persuaded. History will have its course regardless, and time will tell what was right. Wisdom (temporary) only comes to people after the pain.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 21 Apr 09 | 04:10AM by Knygatin.

I basically agree with Knygatin, and I would add only that defending Lovecraft in spite of his racist views is not so difficult when one takes the following positions, as I do:

1. Lovecraft's racism is not nearly so central to Lovecraft's work as Gavin suggests;

2. Lovecraft's views are largely typical of his time. Lovecraft simply has had the misfortune to be highly outspoken and articulate on the subject in his non-fictional and personal writings, which, unlike most individuals' personal essays and correspondence, have survived him. He left the proverbial "paper trail";

3. While it is valid to speculate regarding the matter, it is simplistic to reduce Lovecraft's work to being primarily a coded expression of neurotic fears of "otherness", and then simply add, "Q.E.D." Such a view completely overlooks, among other things, Lovecraft's sense of wonder and awe at the extra-terrestrial and the extra-human, which is the root of the cosmic dimension of his horror. See, for instance, his letter of October 17, 1930 to Clark Ashton Smith, which well articulates this side of Lovecraft; and,

4. It seems to me that the aim of literary criticism such as Gavin's is not to illuminate, but to belittle, to reduce, both literally and figuratively. This is because, for some reason, Lovecraft's views and status seem to make critics such as Gavin feel insecure, and therefore these critics feel the need to "cut Lovecraft down to size". It is better, perhaps, to interrogate oneself and one's motives for obsessively attacking Lovecraft under the pretext of literary criticism, than to scan every comma in Lovecraft's tales for instances of encoded racism and xenophobia, as if Lovecraft's tales were nothing but badly concealed fictionalizations of his letters.


Of course, all this is just my opinion, just as Gavin's opinions are his own. As I have stated before, Gavin certainly makes an articulate case for his views. None of that helps, however, when the premise is faulty.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 21 Apr 09 | 06:30AM by Kyberean.

While I can certainly see a tendency to deride Lovecraft for his views in Gavin's posts, I also find them thought-provoking and worth examination. Whether or not his position is "right" I won't even get into; that interests me much less than how Lovecraft used his various views (positive and negative), fears, repulsions, admirations, fascinations, etc., in his work, both fiction and nonfiction, as even in his letters he often made creative use of such. When it comes to the views discussed above, I find it notable that Lovecraft's use of them creates an often quite powerful blending of repulsion/attraction or fear/awe/wonder, leading me to question whether Lovecraft's own views on such matters were quite as monolithic as all that. I am more of the opinion that his was a very complex and fascinating personality that only becomes more so the more I learn about him or read his work.

As for defending Lovecraft's views... personally, I find that something of a pointless endeavor, just as I do castigating him for them. The man has been dead for over 70 years now, there doesn't seem much point in either stance, save in a very limited set of instances. Understanding them, though, and the way he used all these views, I think, is a much more fruitful task, and I would argue it proves informative not only about Lovecraft and his views and times, but about us and ours as well.

Quote:

a tendency to deride Lovecraft for his views in Gavin's posts

Not just in his posts: In every excerpt from every article that he plans to publish that he posts on this Web site.

Quote:

I also find them thought-provoking and worth examination.

So do I, as I have explicitly mentioned. Having examined them, I find them wanting. Others, of course, may disagree.

Quote:

As for defending Lovecraft's views... personally, I find that something of a pointless endeavor

Agreed. I am not really "defending" Lovecraft, as he requires no defense. I was just tracking the language in Gavin's prior post, to which I was replying.

Quote:

his [Lovecraft's] was a very complex and fascinating personality that only becomes more so the more I learn about him or read his work.

That is precisely my point, as well, which is why I strenuously resist any attempts to reduce his work to a mere racist coded framework, as Gavin does.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Not just in his posts: In every excerpt from every
> article that he plans to publish that he posts on
> this Web site.

I'm afraid I'm only able to comment on those which I have seen here, which are relatively few, I gather....


> So do I, as I have explicitly mentioned. Having
> examined them, I find them wanting. Others, of
> course, may disagree.

As I indicated above (or at least, such was my intent) I do not agree with various points, but I find them interesting, and something to keep in mind when reading Lovecraft. There are times when I feel certain portions do apply while others do not, and so on....

> Agreed. I am not really "defending" Lovecraft, as
> he requires no defense. I was just tracking the
> language in Gavin's prior post, to which I was
> replying.

In my case, I was replying more to the general sentiment brought up, something I've encountered frequently over the years, that Lovecraft needed either defenders or detractors for these views. As I said, I find that much less fruitful than attempts to understand these views, their origins (where discernible), and the way in which they may have influenced his work.

> That is precisely my point, as well, which is why
> I strenuously resist any attempts to reduce his
> work to a mere racist coded framework, as Gavin
> does.

I think in this, we simply take different approaches. I would agree that no single view or complex of views is applicable to all such symbols; I have a strong distrust of "simplification" when it comes to something as complicated as the psychology lying behind any art. There may be cases when it applies quite well, but I think they are very few; in general such things are much richer and more diverse than that. However, as I mention above, I do find he makes some valid points as well; hence my previous post.

Thanks for the clarification. It was difficult to tell--for me, anyway--whether your previous post specifically had my remarks in mind, or was more general. In case of the former, I wanted to clarify, as well.

I tend to think my researches/analysis into HPL -especially HPL's use of favorite Lovecraftian key words (howl, moon, odor, hideous, etc., etc.) is correct, because, over and over again, it has had predictive value. Sometimes, reading through HPL's works, I almost feel as if I've entered into the mind of the author himself at the moment he was writing. It's a truly satisfying feeling, as if I were a detective who has stumbled onto some secret path.

For example- Lovecraft will hint that his character hears a "sound"- and knowing HPL, I will expect him shortly to mention a rhythm or a chant- and sure enough he does. And knowing the way in which HPL regards Bacchanalian chants, I will shortly expect him to mention hypnotism- which, again he does. And so on and so on. This has happened hundreds of times, so that sometimes I almost feel like I'm privy to HPL's working methods, or looking over his shoulder while writing.