Absquatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It also seems to me that, at the end of the day,
> it is simply an act of cowardice to make
> allegations and attacks against dead persons who
> have no opportunity to defend themselves, and an
> act of stupidity to judge past individuals by
> present-day values.


It depends of one's definition of "attack." If one worships a writer, of course a critical reading of that author will be interpreted as an "attack." But if one realizes that Lovecraft was an intelligent writer, whose works were invested with meaning, then illuminating that meaning would be rightly interpreted as a service to the author.

For that matter, if what "Absquatch" writes were true, nobody would ever write anything about any older authors (let alone read them)! But the shelves are full of newer, critical works written about older authors, and probably always will be (until digital media finally wipes out the printed page, of course).

Perhaps the reason this has been resisted so much with Lovecraft, is because he’s a horror/weird-fiction writer- so some people naturally assume that, because he’s writing about a “fantasy-land”, his works have no larger meaning. But as anyone who’s read HPL’s satirical poetry, letters, and political essays can attest, Lovecraft did have a point of view, and his works are invested with pointed meaning.

Take Lovecraft’s 1932-1936 letters to Lee McBride White, (reprinted in Lovecraft Annual #1). Here, we find Lovecraft entering into a discussion, several pages long (in handwritten form), explaining why he dislikes John Donne. And why does he do this? Because, as HPL himself explains in the letter, “I am a most emphatic opponent of the critical attitude” embodied by White’s love for Donne’s poetry. Lovecraft then goes on to humbly offer some of his own revisions to White’s verse-tribute to Donne, explaining that while they may be “the biased doddering of fossilized & unreceptive old age”, they still “at least illustrate a point of view-”

And that is what analyzing HPL is all about- unearthing his point of view. H. P. Lovecraft was not neutral. He didn’t have an “I’m okay, you’re okay” type attitude (although his later equanimity, attained late in life, did enable him to entertain all opposing points of view with grace.) Lovecraft had strong beliefs, and when he wanted to, he went for the jugular.

The problem as I see it, is that for too long, Lovecraft’s own point of view has been obscured, possibly by well-meaning writers, who have somehow allowed their own more normal, optimistic, and benevolent sensibilities to obscure Lovecraft’s truer (and often completely opposite) meaning. Consider Fritz Leiber, for instance, who in “A Literary Copernicus”, observes how in “At the Mountains of Madness”, Lovecraft “shows us horrors and then pulls back the curtain a little farther, letting us glimpse the horrors of which even the horrors are afraid!” When in truth the most horrific thing about the Shoggoths, for Lovecraft, is simply the fact that they were no longer slaves.

In this, Lovecraft’s point of view in “At the Mountains of Madness”, is little different from his point of view in his youthful poem, “De Triumpho Naturae” (1905), in which HPL complains that “Against God’s will the Yankee freed the slave/ And in the act consign’d him to the grave.” In the case of such a consistent point of view, I hardly think it is a matter, as "Absquatch" says, of judging "past individuals by present-day values." Rather, it is a case of comparing Lovecraft to himself, and unearthing his point of view on his own terms.

Dexterward Wrote:
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> Besides, which of us is all of a piece in that
> respect? Good grief, if you sifted through a
> lifetime's worth of my e-mails, [etc.]

Believe me, D's point here is well-taken. Again, if it were simply a matter of going through HPL's letters, and finding off-color jokes or observations, I would agree. But with Lovecraft, we are talking about a highly-consistent, lifelong, and tenaciously-held point of view.

Nor is it merely a matter of changing cultural values. For instance, only a liberal, NPR-type nitwit would actually complain about the comical crows in Disney's Dumbo, (as I actually heard a commentator doing on NPR's Weekend Edition a few weeks ago.) But now, if Disney had transformed minorities or social enemies into Shoggoths-
And then had Shoggoths recurring in several movies-
And then nobody ever talked about or mentioned it-
Well then, there might be a term-paper there....

Dexterward Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> What then is one to make of his lifelong devotion
> to his mother, aunts, women friends, etc.?-- Not
> to mention his never failing courtesy and
> solicitude with regard to a whole array of female
> correspondents?

I think HPL's life with his mother and maiden aunts (along with his father's fall at the hands of a "scarlet woman") had ALOT to do with his later ideas....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 8 Feb 10 | 06:02PM by Gavin Callaghan.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
> Consider Fritz Leiber, for instance, who in “A
> Literary Copernicus”, observes how in “At the
> Mountains of Madness”, Lovecraft “shows us
> horrors and then pulls back the curtain a little
> farther, letting us glimpse the horrors of which
> even the horrors are afraid!” When in truth the
> most horrific thing about the Shoggoths, for
> Lovecraft, is simply the fact that they were no
> longer slaves.

While I would agree that this is certainly a part of it -- and perhaps a more important part than has been realized -- I have always seen it more as the shoggoths being, like so many other "horrors" in HPL's work, so much closer to the amoebal in nature... representing the retrogression from the evolutionary development he so touted. And, perhaps, if one considers that the shoggoths have developed a genuine, stable brain/mind, then this may even make the horror greater: something which should, by all our conceptions, be little more than a primitive, nebulous lifeform nonetheless registering considerable intelligence and cognitive ability would seem (to me) to be very close to the ultimate horror to Lovecraft, biologically speaking....

>
> In this, Lovecraft’s point of view in “At the
> Mountains of Madness”, is little different from
> his point of view in his youthful poem, “De
> Triumpho Naturae” (1905), in which HPL complains
> that “Against God’s will the Yankee freed the
> slave/ And in the act consign’d him to the
> grave.” In the case of such a consistent point
> of view, I hardly think it is a matter, as
> "Absquatch" says, of judging "past individuals by
> present-day values." Rather, it is a case of
> comparing Lovecraft to himself, and unearthing his
> point of view on his own terms.

I would agree that he consistently held this point of view, and I'm glad to see such links being made, as I still find that few people realize how very consistent Lovecraft's views were throughout his life. Not that they didn't evolve and change, but there were many aspects which either remained the same or were simply subtilized (often in very fascinating ways) in later life, rather than, as is so often claimed, abandoned. This, frankly, is an aspect of Lovecraft's work which, to my thinking, has not received the attention it deserves, as a closer examination of these earlier works can often be tremendously useful in illuminating various aspects of his more mature, even his greatest, works. To achieve this, of course, might well require a very careful reading of Lovecraft's published writings (including letters as well as the essays, poems, and stories) in as close to their proper chronological order as is possible, thus allowing one to see how these ideas and themes developed over time.

To compare youthful poetry to fiction, both of which are interpretable on many levels, and then to assert that they represent the author's perspectives, is simply ridiculous. In tenth grade I was taught to distinguish between a narrator and the author. It seems that this crucial but rudimentary lesson is either no longer taught, or it is ignored by those who have some strange emotional need to denigrate their betters and to advocate a particular political agenda.

Quote:

I hardly think it is a matter, as
> "Absquatch" says, of judging "past individuals by
> present-day values." Rather, it is a case of
> comparing Lovecraft to himself, and unearthing his
> point of view on his own terms.

It is exactly a matter of sitting back and judging the past by the values of the present. A truly impartial commentator on Lovecraft and his views would not resort to self-righteous assumptions, and would not sit in judgment from the perspective of a later time.

That's all for me, on this one. There is no dialogue possible with fanatics who are afflicted with the disease of certainty, and, sad to say, resentment as a critical method hasn't yet exhausted itself.

I would add that Freudian-style criticism such as Gavin's, in addition to being grossly outdated and completely discredited, tends invariably to reveal far more about its author and his preoccupations than about the subject. So, if you are interested in Gavin, rather than in Lovecraft, then by all means continue to encourage him.

Sorry, but there really is a considerable amount in his letters, essays, and the like, to make such an interpretation quite reasonable. The theme I raised, of the fear-repulsion of the amoebal, etc., is one which runs throughout a great deal of his work, from early poetry through "The Rats in the Walls" through At the Mountains of Madness, and beyond. It is closely related to the theme of "reverse evolution" or "devolution" which so fascinated him; and he made quite clear his aversion to anything he saw approaching this. His emphasis time and again in letters to separating those traits which we inherited from our bestial (or pre-bestial) ancestors from those which he saw as uniquely human, or unique to a truly evolved human being, is also reflected time and again in his fiction, essays, and poetry. The fact that he did sometimes describe various ethnic groups in such terms in his letters makes the linkage between that and his description of such horrors rather plain.

Please note: I do not feel this is something to censure Lovecraft about; whether we agree with these views or not, whether we see them as good or bad, the point (to me, at any rate) is that they often fueled some of his greatest work. Maurice Lévy argued that he used his art to sublimate such feelings; I am not so certain of that, but that the two are often connected seems to be almost certain. But in writing about such things, he did take them to a transcendent level, giving them a broader scope without losing that layer of original emotional and intellectual fear or discomfort. As I said above, I find much of what he did with such themes quite fascinating, and still relevant to the human condition today. If anything, he was a bit more honest about such themes than many writers tend to be now, when a straightforward addressing of these as genuine human emotions without any value judgments placed upon such is often condemned as supporting such views (which, frankly, is sheer nonsense; acknowleding the existence and power of a thing as a motivating factor in human interaction is by no means the same as giving it approval).

As for the discussion in general -- I've been away from it for quite some time, but I happened to spot the comment about slavery above, and wished to respond to that specifically. As I noted, I do think it is a factor -- again, supported by various comments in his letters and essays (sometimes joking, sometimes simply delivered as historical fact or opinion) -- but it is not the only factor to be considered. I see the shoggoths as a rather complex symbol of many of Lovecraft's repulsions, anxieties, and fears (consciously acknowledged or not), but to deny such a connection as existing at all seems to me rather flying in the face of the evidence of his own writings, nonfiction as well as fiction....

As for such "Freudian" interpretation (a description I think is rather off-the mark)... I see a great deal of such still being done by literary critics both academic and otherwise; hence I think the description of it being either outdated or discredited is a bit broad....

J.D.:

I completely disagree with you, but at least you are sane and civil in your presentation, so I'll go one more round with you--although someone who is predisposed to see any literary character or creation, such as the Shoggoths, as "a symbol of Lovecraft's anxieties", does not appear to be amenable to persuasion, or even to the introduction of doubt, or the possibility of a more nuanced or complex view. For that reason, among others, I'll try not to waste too much time or space here.

Freudian criticism may still be rife among amateur critics, such as Gavin, but in academia it is passe'. I have a Master's degree in English from a top ten school in the U.S., so I have a pretty direct understanding of what the "pros" are up to. Literary criticism remains as theory driven as ever (a most unfortunate development, in my view), but the prevailing theories are not Freudian.

Gavin's criticism, by contrast, is obviously Freudian: It is an attempt to tease out "unconscious" or deep-rooted personal feelings, views, and anxieties, which are then un- or semi-consciously expressed through literature. This is so obvious that I refuse to argue the point further.

As for Lovecraft, you still can at best draw a tenuous inferential link between Lovecraft's personal views and the way that these views ostensibly manifest in Lovecraft's fiction. Here's the acid test: Let someone who has never read Lovecraft's letters read and interpret Lovecraft's fiction, purely as a text. I would be astonished if that person were to arrive at the interpretations of what I will, for lack of a better term, call the "Gavin school" (although, thank the Dark Gods, there is no such school). Would you? Be honest: How were your own interpretations of Lovecraft formed? Did you make inferences about his inner mind and self purely from the text, or did you start to draw connections after reading Lovecraft's letters, secondary literature, and the like? Has it occurred to you that, in choosing to analyze a work by looking, say, for evidence of an author's fears and foibles, you have already expressed a preference and made the choice of a particular perspective from which to view the work? By what right do you privilege that, or any, interpretation over others?

I suggest that, if Lovecraft's letters and other papers had not been so readily available, then little of the critico-babble that tries to find a direct correlation between Lovecraft's inner fears and foibles and his fiction would exist. It all occurs post facto: Someone reads Lovecraft's tales and develops an interest. Later, that person reads the letters, notes Lovecraft's strong views, and then re-reads the tales through the lens of the letters or other materials, as well as though the filter of one's own values, and of the values of the present day. These facts hardly suggest that the themes that you and Gavin detect (or rather, manufacture) are self-evident and obviously true, based merely upon a reading of the fiction.

To be clear: I am not stating that the approach to Lovecraft you defend is an invalid or entirely incorrect approach, or one entirely without foundation. It is merely a simplistic, incomplete, and potentially misleading interpretation, or even a potentially false one, an interpretation that carries a wealth of unexamined assumptions. My objection is to that last aspect, as well as to the reductionism, the self-righteousness, and the arrogant certainty (or the clumsy, blustery attempt to convey certainty, which actually has the opposite effect on me) of Gavin's criticism. I do not find inherent fault with the attempt to explore the themes that Gavin does--although, as you can tell, I do not find it to be a very valuable or interesting approach to Lovecraft.

Again, all this is very basic: It's not a matter of denying the possibility of the connections you mention, but of denying that they are self-evidently or unambiguously true. It is also a question of denying that the living can analyze and understand the deepest emotions, fears, anxieties, and closely held values of the dead, and that such an interpretation can find definitive expression in a work of alleged literary criticism. As Guerin, et al. state in A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, "To see a great work of fiction or a great poem primarily as a psychological case study is often to miss its wider significance and perhaps even the essential aesthetic experience it should provide." Gavin's puerile, tendentious, and superficial attempts at criticism do nothing but treat Lovecraft as a case study, although, as I mentioned, it tells us far more about the "case" that is Gavin then it does about Lovecraft.

In sum: Posthumous psychoanalysis of an author is simply absurd, and if you cannot see that basic fact, then there's really not much more I can, or should, say on this subject. I am also tired of dignifying Gavin's drivel with even this much attention, which is far more than it merits. My hope is that if I and others stop supplying oxygen, then that particular bag of wind will run out of air.

I have no comment upon this thread itself and its contents other than to observe that "windiness" is by no means reserved to one individual within. As to having a Master's in English? In my experience, studying literature in the University is one of the last places to gain expertise, and certainly no place to gain the skills necessary to write anything other than academic treatises - My dear friends, the academic world changes the fashion of its critical criteria as often as one might change one's underwear - Each academic generation has some "catchword" you will find in common use - In the 50's works were "gemane", in the 60's they were "seminal", in the 70's they were "provocative", in the 80's they became "insightful" - I find the whole business tiresome in the extreme - but for those who enjoy belittling others - I recommend reading Ortega Y Gasset's works - particularly in differentiating the healing properties of "satire" as opposed to the hurtful and demeaning characteristics of "sarcasm" - cruelty only reveals the character of the person exercising it, and says nothing about the object of derision.

I'm glad to see you think I'm "sane and civil" in my presentation -- I shudder to think what your comments would have been otherwise.... All right, I exaggerate. But the point remains the same: it does seem there is a personal animus against this approach, disclaimers notwithstanding. That, in itself, is a perfectly vallid view, but (to me) seems a little limiting as well. For one thing, what I put into the posts above is only one part of my approach to Lovecraft. Admittedly, it is one I find fascinating, but less because of the "foibles" it presents in his character than as an attempt to understand how the creative process made use of various materials in his particular case -- I make the last qualification because I happen to greatly admire Lovecraft as a writer and a person (overall), and simply find both his work and the man himself endlessly fascinating.

As for the question you pose: the current formulation of my thoughts (or the partial expression of such given above) is, of course, by no means identical with that I had when I first encountered his work at the age of 12 or 13. It has indeed been influenced by my reading (and study) of the secondary material -- though I have more than a little dislike of that term in such a case; especially given Lovecraft's own creative use of his correspondence, which makes them very entertaining and absorbing literary documents in themselves) -- but not quite as much as you seem to presuppose. For one thing, the theme of "devolution" struck me early on, when I was first reading his work heavily. It stood out as a recurring motif in a considerable number of his tales, from "The Beast in the Cave" on. It wasn't until many years later, almost a decade, that I first began to delve into his letters and essays, and by then several rereadings of his texts -- even in the corrupt Ballantine/Beagle paperbacks which (along with the Arkham House At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels pre-Joshi) was how I first discovered him -- various themes, motifs, and ideas had long stood out for me. At the time, I simply found them to be themes he seemed to return to time and again, though whether because he found them full of imaginative potential or because they also had a more personal source, I didn't know. Reading the letters and, later, the essays, I found that the latter was also true.

But... this does not detract from the fact that he found in them a source of great imaginative stimulus, nor the fact that he quite often played those same "keys" with remarkable skill. The fact that Lovecraft still resonates with so many people on so many levels would seem to strongly support the undeniability of this. (And, of course, I happen to remain one of those for whom he resonates, on an increasing number of levels even today, some 40 years after I first encountered his work.)

In turn, neither does that fact detract from the interest for so many of us of some of the sources on which he called for his art. And yes, I do think the shoggoths are symbols of his anxieties, fears, repulsions, etc., and this seems to be backed up (again) by his own statements. However, this is only one level on which to read them, and there are many others as well -- some more closely related to this than others -- but I also believe (again, based on his own statements and that of others who knew him) that he consciously chose such symbols because of their complexity and ability to resonate on numerous levels with various people. They are a conscious artistic construct, yes; at least insofar as his deciding to retain them in the final work. But the very fact that they did have such a resonance for him indicates a deep emotional responses to some aspects (whatever those may e) of what they symbolized... nor was he at all blind to this aspect of literature, mentioning it several times in his "Supernatural Horror in Literature" alone, never mind his correspondence. And, to be frank, Lovecraft is one of those writers the totality of whose work is so closely interlinked that anything more than a very limited appreciation of it requires at least some familiarity with those "secondary" materials. His work was intensely personal, and if one is to gain better insights into the many levels of that work, ignoring those sources is very much "shooting oneself in the foot".

And, frankly, to me, the insights gained by reading these materials only increases my enjoyment and appreciation of his craft, and it not infrequently depeens my own aesthetic response, allowing me to gain new levels of pleasure in reading his work that I might have otherwise missed. As indicated, part of that is witnessing how he takes such personal traits -- whether fears and anxieties, or his own particular appreciation of beauty, including the rustic and pastoral -- and uses them to create works which contiue to speak to people some 70+ years after his death -- apparently on an ever stronger level.

If such an approach is not to your taste, well and good (though I would argue that I still see such coming from not only amateur critics but academics as well), but I can scarcely agree with you that it is as worthless as you seem to feel.

If I may add a note on something else here: As I said earlier, I have been out of touch with most of these discussions for quite some time now -- the majority of the past year, at least; but it does seem to me that personal acrimonny appears more often than seems suited to such a discussion. Perhaps this, too, is me being outmoded in my approach; but I can't help but feel that a less acidulous exchange than some I've seen would be more productive of an honest interchange of ideas and views, and something which may prove of both interest and benefit to many sides in these discussions....

Absquatch, you could have stated all this much less aggressively. Anyone here is pretty convinced that one's own opinion is right. There is no point in throwing at each other words like "puerile" or "drivel".

Believing that a text can be read without some knowledge of who wrote it, and when, and why, and to whom in mind, may well be seen as "simplistic, incomplete,and potentially misleading" (to quote yourself) as, say, a purely and radical Freudian approach. When one reads a text there is no way one can prevent oneself from imagining how, why, by whom and to whom it was written. Gaining some knowledge about who this person was, simply helps one becoming "better prejudiced".

Chipougne,

Read Gavin's replies and other posts in this forum before you accuse me of being the inflammatory one, here. Both your perception and your indignation are highly selective. If you don't like my re-paying Gavin in his own coin, then speak to him, first.

And speaking of perception, you might want to re-read more carefully my remarks about reading Lovecraft's texts by themselves, without aid. The comments were simply in refutation of Gavin's and others' apparent belief that Lovecraft's prejudices leap off the page of the text, plainly. The observation I made was simply to demonstrate the falsity of that view, and not to propose exclusion of context as a literary method.

Anyway, I am glad to see you speak out in favor of context. You've obviously come a long way since the time you defended Derrida and other "death of the author" Post-Structuralist obscurantists in the Lovecraft Yahoo eGroup, some time ago. Remember that? I do! ;-)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10 Feb 10 | 07:57AM by Absquatch.

Absquatch Wrote:
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> Read Gavin's replies and other posts in this forum
> before you accuse me of being the inflammatory
> one, here.
This is not the point. Considering someone "inflammatory", whether it is the case or not, should lead you to adopt an even more levelheaded attitude. This is the only way such a discussion can make sense.


> Anyway, I am glad to see you speak out in favor of
> context. You've obviously come a long way since
> the time you defended Derrida and other "death of
> the author" Post-Structuralist obscurantists in
> the Lovecraft Yahoo eGroup, some time ago.
> Remember that? I do! ;-)
See, you did it again: "obscurantists".
I was, back then, just as I am now, defending not so much Derrida, as the possibility of evoking Derrida's theory, along many others, without being overwhelmed with such subjective comments. I can see it was to no avail.

Kyberian wrote: "One aspect, in particular, that such a reductive view overlooks is perhaps an even stronger motivational force in Lovecraft: his sense of wonder at the extra-terrestrial... the root of the cosmic dimension of his horror..."

I think this can't be overstated. Uncritical feeling toward Lovecraft's work is a commonplace and impedes critical judgement, of course. You astutely cite De Camp, who for all his shortcomings correctly describes Lovecraft as a curiously uneven author.The fear of "the ravening infinite," to quote from Smith's poetry, is omnipresent in HPL's mature works, including those relegated to the second tier for various reasons-- "The Thing on the Doorstep," "The Whisperer in Darkness," "The Dunwich Horror," "The Mound," and "The Dreams in the Witch-House." The strong element of physical horror and decay in these is not a weakness, as Algernon Blackwood suggested it might be, but an expressiion of the frustration of a sensitive artist.

jkh

Kipling,

Thanks for your comment. It's good to see that at least one person here "gets it".

The one-dimensional view of Lovecraft as a professional xenophobe who does nothing in his tales but repetitively encode his impotent rage and horror over the usurpation of Anglo-Saxon privilege by "inferior" races is simply insupportable. As I have mentioned in both this and my other "incarnation" here, I agree that Lovecraft's racism is fair game for comment and analysis. Any attempt, however, to analyze Lovecraft which focuses solely upon this aspect of his work at the expense of others, including his sense of cosmic wonder, is far too simplistic to take seriously, and it raises questions of the critic's true motivations. After all, two can play at the Freudian analysis game. ;-)

Calonlan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> - I recommend reading Ortega Y
> Gasset's works -

This is a bit off-topic, but I'll keep it brief-

I've recently begun to read about Ortega y Gassett myself, via my recent readings of Ayn Rand's essays (Virtue of Selishness, For the new Intellectual, etc.). Have you noticed the various similarities between Rand's Objectivism, and the earlier works of Gassett? It's fascinating-