In a recent biography of I. F. Stone, there is mention that Stone went to NYC to visit the poet Sam Loveman. It also notes that Stone liked the works of Hart Crane. Can anyone find if HPL ever was in that loop, even if at a distance with Loveman mentioning this lad he knew or if HPL had comments on Stone's politics?

J. B. Post

Joshi's biography of Lovecraft doesn't mention Stone, so far as I can recall, but there are several references to Crane, about whom Lovecraft made some amusing but politically incorrect observations that I won't repeat here.

I wish you would!


Cathexis

Actually, my apologies. I was wrong in my reference. The remarks I am thinking of are ones that Lovecraft made about the composer Gordon Hatfield, and not about Crane. Lovecraft does remark upon Crane frequently in letters that Joshi quotes in the biography, and his opinion of Crane is surprisingly favorable--more so than Crane's about Lovecraft, of course.

J. B. Post Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In a recent biography of I. F. Stone, there is
> mention that Stone went to NYC to visit the poet
> Sam Loveman. It also notes that Stone liked the
> works of Hart Crane. Can anyone find if HPL ever
> was in that loop, even if at a distance with
> Loveman mentioning this lad he knew or if HPL had
> comments on Stone's politics?
>
> J. B. Post

That's interesting about Samuel Loveman and I. F. Stone; Loveman sure got around: Ambrose Bierce, Hart Crane, H. P. Lovecraft, Walker Evans, and now I. F. Stone were all among his friends.

I think Lovecraft’s probable views on I. F. Stone, if he knew him, should be obvious: Jewish, Socialist, an activist for civil rights, (and a possible Soviet agent) ------Lovecraft’s views on Stone would no doubt have been very similar to those which Lovecraft expressed in his short didactic parable, “The Street” -a view which Lovecraft enlarged upon, but never significantly changed, throughout his later writings.

As Lovecraft once observed about Samuel Loveman:

“I’m glad you found pleasure in The Hermaphrodite--which of course must be read wholly for imagery and not for ideas, as must every other work of art. Great Scott-- if Loveman and I judged each other by our ideas, we’d have long ago suffered the fate of the Kilkenny cats. According to my social and political theories he ought to be shot or in gaol, whilst according to his, I ought to be guillotined! But since we deal in art and not in ideas, we get along with the utmost cordiality. Didacticism can never be more, in art, than an inconspicuous excuse for displaying a processional wealth of colour and atmospheric splendour…” (SL II 118-19)

Samuel Loveman, for example, was the author of a lovely nine-stanza poem (unpublished until 2004) about the socialist/union activist and co-founder of the IWW, Eugene V. Debs, entitled “Debs in Prison.“ In this poem, Loveman associates Debs with a list of other revolutionary figures from the past whom Loveman, at least, regards as “heroes”, including:

-“Louis Lingg“ ([1864-1887], a German anarchist-terrorist who died by suicide in an English jail);
-“Jesus“ and “Socrates” (both need no introduction);
-“Bruno” (Giordano Bruno [1548-1600], Italian scientist, murdered by the Roman Catholic Church, and considered the first martyr for science);
-“he from Osawatomie” (i.e. John Brown, fiery Christian Abolitionist and terrorist);
-and “Casement” (Roger D. Casement [1864-1916] executed by the English crown for treason in August 1916 due to his Irish Republican and separatist political opinions).

All of these people, (for Samuel Loveman, at least), were heroes, because of their work on behalf of what Loveman called “the naked, the despoiled, abhorred”.

Needless to say, anarchists and terrorists like Lingg will appear as villains in works like Lovecraft’s “The Street”, where Lovecraft will contrast them with America’s rightful conservative White majority, and their “stalwart“ (Puritan) forefathers. Such “swarthy and sinister” villains, along with their bestial, hybrid followers, will reappear (in increasingly loathsome and animalistic disguises) in works like Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “The Call of Cthulhu.”

Loveman's poem was written during a period, too, when, figures like Eugene Debs and other American progressive leaders were regarded by many as being helpful to "the Kaiser" -an idea which has added significance if one considers Lovecraft’s own wildly militaristic pro-war poetry from the WWI period.

Loveman’s reference here to abolitionist John Brown is significant, too, given Lovecraft’s vehemently pro-Confederacy and pro-slavery stance (Lovecraft even citing Christian theology to bolster his own pro-slavery position in such early poems as “De Triumpho Naturae“, in which Lovecraft incongruously argues that Whites enslaved Blacks by divine right.)

Roger Casement’s own anti-Imperialist stance, meanwhile, was apparently provoked by Casement’s experiences with English atrocities in the Congo during the Boer War in Africa; and, needless to say, if one also considers Casement’s Irish-separatist philosophy, it is hard to think of a figure more diametrically opposed to Lovecraft’s own views and philosophy. (Not to mention that the youthful Lovecraft’s favorite epithet for the Irish was “Micks.”)

It is not hard to see, then, why Lovecraft would have thought that Samuel Loveman “ought to be shot or in gaol” (like "Debs in Prison"), or why Loveman, for his part, would have gladly seen Lovecraft “guillotined”.

That Stone’s views were basically the same as Loveman’s is clear. As far as I know, however, Stone was not possessed of the leavening virtue of Samuel Loveman’s considerable poetic talent, which made Loveman so palatable to Lovecraft. For Lovecraft, then, I. F. Stone would have represented yet another alien (albeit an “assimilated” one) from an “Oriental” cultural strain, foreign to that of Lovecraft’s beloved Teutonic aristocratic elite, and therefore a Shoggothian agent of the West‘s racial-cultural decline.

Whether Lovecraft would have been OPENLY critical of Stone, however, I highly doubt. Indeed, Samuel Loveman himself was apparently unaware of Lovecraft’s anti-Semitism until after the publication of Lovecraft’s Selected Letters -a revelation which (rightly, I think) made Loveman furious.

Incredibly, Peter Cannon did not see fit to print Loveman’s final (and apparently highly-critical) essay on Lovecraft in Lovecraft Remembered, observing instead,

“In his old age, sad to say, Loveman was deeply hurt when he learned of Lovecraft’s apparent anti-Semitism from the published letters, and in an angry piece not included here denounced him for his racism and for his ill treatment of Sonia.“ (CANNON 177)

That Cannon could exclude so important a piece from an otherwise definitive collection of memoirs suggests, I think, the degree of hero-worship which surrounds Lovecraft to this day. (Was Lovecraft’s anti-Semitism only “apparent”, for instance?) On the other hand, one finds it equally incredible that Loveman could not have understood or decoded on his own the clear nativist/anti-Semitic meanings of Lovecraft’s fiction.

Elsewhere, in his biography of H. P. Lovecraft, S. T. Joshi goes so far as to suggest that Samuel Loveman’s anecdote, printed in L. Sprague de Camp’s 1970’s biography of Lovecraft, that Lovecraft threatened suicide by carrying a “phial of poison” around with him in New York City, is “preposterous”, Joshi flatly believing “that Loveman has made up this story -whether to blacken Lovecraft’s reputation or for some other reason, I cannot say.“ (JOSHI, HPL: A Life 388)

On the contrary, suicide -whether in response to adolescent trauma, or to the death of his mother, or to general ennui- was never, I think, very far from Lovecraft’s mind -Lovecraft’s own writings, whether poetry or prose, being full of intimations of it. Indeed, as Lovecraft himself wrote, shortly after his marriage to Sonia, Sonia rescued him from having

“no goal but a phial of cyanide when my money should give out. I had formerly meant to follow this latter course, and was fully prepared to seek oblivion whenever cash should fail or sheer ennui grow too much for me; when suddenly, our benevolent angel S.H.G. stepped into my circle of consciousness and began to combat the idea with the opposite one of effort, and the enjoyment of life through the rewards which effort will bring.” (deCAMP, Lovecraft: A Biography 212-13)

Significantly, Lovecraft here associates his own suicide with a “phial of CYANIDE“ ---thereby confirming the substance of Samuel Loveman’s disputed anecdote. The question then is not whether Samuel Loveman sought to “blacken Lovecraft’s reputation”, as Joshi puts it, but whether Lovecraft scholars, intentionally or not, are seeking to blacken the reputation of Samuel Loveman.

I do have a question about Samuel Loveman, if anyone on this forum can help me; in de Camp's HPL bio., he mentions that Loveman had a wife who died in childbirth. Anyone know the name of this lady, the name of the child (if it survived), etc.?

Quote:

the degree of hero-worship which surrounds Lovecraft to this day.

And thank the Dark Gods that we have unbiased, objective, lone heroic figures such as Gavin to combat this evil tendency!

That was a very intriguing and informative post, Gavin. Thanks.

I've been a Lovecraftian (and Smithian) forever, and, as a completist, am interested in the mole-hill of negative assessments along with the mountain of positive ones. I'd love to read Loveman's later thoughts on his old friend, as well as Ursula Le Guin's and others' pans of HPL that are hard to track down. (Though, inconsistently, I rather dislike attacks on Smith, whose stories transport me in a way that Lovecraft's don't. I especially can't stand the damning-with-faint-praise approach of second-raters like Jeff Vandermeer in those lamentable intros to the Bison reprints of Out of Space and Time and Lost Worlds.)

BTW, has the Loveman been reprinted anyplace? I wonder if readers would buy a collection that counters Peter Cannon's? Loveman, early Colin Wilson, Le Guin, Keller... Maybe the editor would be lynched!

Re: HPL's suicidal bent, I wonder if that's not overblown? It's always been hard for me to reconcile Lovecraft's obvious engagement with life (via the incomparable letters) with his apparent (or stated) ennui/depression. I've always felt his realization of an indifferent universe and "meaningless" existence didn't stop him at all from enjoying life and his circle of friends. The letters are so full of life.

Re: Loveman again. I read the de Camp bio so long ago that I can't recall mention of him having a wife. Other sources have always claimed he was gay (like others among HPL's friends and acquaintances). Columbia University has a box of Loveman's letters from 1911-1976 in their archives. Here's their description of him (from their website):

Samuel Loveman was born in 1887 in Cleveland, Ohio. An aspiring poet, Loveman left the Midwest in order to pursue his career as a writer and to live an openly gay lifestyle. He moved to New York City in the early 1920s where he made the acquaintance of several prominent authors including Ambrose Bierce, Hart Crane, and H.P. Lovecraft. Loveman owned a bookstore named the Bodley Bookshop in Manhattan with his partner David Mann. He wrote two books, The Hermaphrodite was a poem published in July 1926 and subsequently republished with additional poems in 1936 and Twenty-One Letters, a collection of letters sent to him by Ambrose Bierce. He also published The Sphinx in 1944. Loveman died in relative obscurity at the Jewish Home and Hospital in 1976.

Gary

Quote:

am interested in the mole-hill of negative assessments along with the mountain of positive ones.

I find this to be utterly fascinating. I can count on one hand the serious assessments I have read of Lovecraft that do not contain some negative component, be it whining about "adjectivitis", or self-righteous finger-wagging over Lovecraft's political views. I maintain that the alleged overwhelmingly positive response to Lovecraft and his writings exists solely in certain individuals' imaginations.

@ Gavin: Thanks for such an illuminating post. Much appreciated!


Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> “In his old age, sad to say, Loveman was deeply
> hurt when he learned of Lovecraft’s apparent
> anti-Semitism from the published letters, and in
> an angry piece not included here denounced him for
> his racism and for his ill treatment of Sonia.“
> (CANNON 177)
>
> That Cannon could exclude so important a piece
> from an otherwise definitive collection of memoirs
> suggests, I think, the degree of hero-worship
> which surrounds Lovecraft to this day. (Was
> Lovecraft’s anti-Semitism only “apparent”,
> for instance?) On the other hand, one finds it
> equally incredible that Loveman could not have
> understood or decoded on his own the clear
> nativist/anti-Semitic meanings of Lovecraft’s
> fiction.

While I think there is little doubt that Lovecraft was a anti-Semite, I've always felt (perhaps naively) that his racism was more theoretical than applied as such. After all he married a Jewish woman, which slightly puts his white-supremacist credentials in doubt. Apart from his writings I've not read of Lovecraft being involved in any actual action that can be called racist, although if someone knows different I'd like to know of it. Indeed, for someone who seemed genuinely repelled by otherness, Lovecraft seems surprisingly tolerant for an intolerant man. When you think of all their opposing and strongly held opinions, I find it interesting to think that the Lovecraft circle managed to get on as well as they did with such respect and love for each other.

Out of interest can anyone recommend me a good bio of Lovecraft other than Joshi's - maybe one slightly more critical?

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

> I find this to be utterly fascinating. I can count
> on one hand the serious assessments I have read of
> Lovecraft that do not contain some negative
> component, be it whining about "adjectivitis", or
> self-righteous finger-wagging over Lovecraft's
> political views. I maintain that the alleged
> overwhelmingly positive response to Lovecraft and
> his writings exists solely in certain individuals'
> imaginations.

I agree. The constant sniping about adjectives and the posturing-outrage over his racism is tiresome and lazy. It seems to me that Lovecraft's views on race were widely, if wrongly, held by many, from the intellectual elite to the masses, and should be considered in a historical context. I think that his racism is actually vital to his fiction: Lovecraft's fear of degeneration manifests itself as an almost tangible and highly personal repulsion of all Otherness like no other horror writer I can think of. It is this fear of the Other which, to my mind, defines horror as a genre. However, I often wondered if his anti-Semitism would have been rocked should he have survived long enough to see the death camp footage after the fall of the Reich?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12 Nov 09 | 05:35AM by The English Assassin.

Quote:

While I think there is little doubt that Lovecraft was a anti-Semite, I've always felt (perhaps naively) that his racism was more theoretical than applied as such.

Your view is not naive; it is precisely right. Let's not forget that Lovecraft also merely held and parroted the conventional views of his era and his social class. Unfortunately, Lovecraft happened to be more articulate and voluble on the subject than others, and he also became famous. These facts about Lovecraft--that Lovecraft was almost always courteous, kind, and personally inoffensive in his dealings with others, and the fact that he merely held the prejudices of his time----are why I find Gavin's anti-Lovecraft campaign so ludicrous.

Further, anyone who considers himself (as Gavin appears to) as some kind of lone iconoclast, bravely breasting a tsunami of uncritical Lovecraft idolaters, is simply delusional.

For a much more critical, but also much more superficial and inaccurate biography of Lovecraft, see Sprague de Camp.

As to your remarks about Lovecraft's anti-Semitism (a sentiment shared by Clark Ashton Smith, by the way), Joshi, I believe, relates an anecdote about Lovecraft's hearing from a neighbor who visited Germany about the persecutions occurring in that country. According to Joshi, Lovecraft found all of this very disturbing, and there were no further "I like the boy"-type comments forthcoming from Lovecraft on the subject of Hitler and the Nazis.

With regard to Lovecraft's alleged complete fear of "otherness", this is a point about which I'd quibble. The matter is much more complex than that. Lovecraft held such a fear, to be sure, but otherness also held an attraction for Lovecraft. Where I differ with the PC Gestapo, led by types such as Gavin, is the weight I would accord Lovecraft's xenophobia in the construction of both his character and his fiction. There are many who feel the defining and motivating feature of the work is Lovecraft's horror of the alien in any form. I don't think, however, that Lovecraft's work can be reduced to that dimension.

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 and the extra-human, which is the root of the cosmic dimension of his horror (As you know, Lovecraft also wrote a fair number of non-horror fantasies--though some have horrific elements--in the Dunsanian vein). I would even call it a compensating xenophilia. Forgive the length of the following quotation from a letter by Lovecraft, but it gives, I think, a far more nuanced idea of Lovecraft's emotional motivations and his attraction to horror, wonder, and fantasy as a means of expressing himself:

"The true function of phantasy is to give the imagination a ground for limitless expansion, & to satisfy aesthetically the sincere & burning curiosity & sense of awe which a sensitive minority of mankind feel toward the alluring & provocative abysses of unplumbed space & unguessed entity which press in upon the known world from unknown infinities & in unknown relationships of time, space, matter, force, dimensionality, & consciousness. This curiosity & sense of awe, I believe, are quite basic amongst the sensitive minority in question; & I see no reason to think that they will decline in the future—for as you point out, the frontier of the unknown can never do more than scratch the surface of eternally unknowable infinity. But the truly sensitive will never be more than a minority, because most persons—even those of the keenest possible intellect & aesthetic ability—simply have not the psychological equipment or adjustment to feel that way. I have taken some pains to sound various persons as to their capacity to feel profoundly regarding the cosmos & the disturbing & fascinating quality of the extra-terrestrial & perpetually unknown; & my results reveal a surprisingly small quota. [...] It is not every [...] writer who feels poignantly & almost intolerably the pressure of cryptic & unbounded outer space. [...]

As for me, I think I have the actual cosmic feeling very strongly. In fact I know that my most poignant emotional experiences are those which concern the lure of unplumbed space, the terror of the encroaching outer void, & the struggle of the ego to transcend the known & established order of time, (time, indeed, above all else, & nearly always in a backward direction) space, matter, force, geometry, & natural law in general".

--H.P. Lovecraft, letter to Clark Ashton Smith, October 17, 1930

These are hardly the remarks of a simple xenophobe, on any level.

Finally, if, as it appears, Loveman's memoir of Lovecraft was little more than a personal attack based primarily on hurt feelings, then Cannon was right to omit it from his collection. Indeed, let that essay be part of a compilation containing the bilge and bile of others, such as LeGuin, Edmund Wilson, and the like. Such a collection would at least have the merit of stripping the scales from the eyes of those who feel that Lovecraft's reception has been unthinkingly and unanimously positive.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12 Nov 09 | 03:29PM by Kyberean.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
[lots snipped -- I don't have the stamina to comment on everything]]
>
> Incredibly, Peter Cannon did not see fit to print
> Loveman’s final (and apparently highly-critical)
> essay on Lovecraft in Lovecraft Remembered,
> observing instead,
>
> “In his old age, sad to say, Loveman was deeply
> hurt when he learned of Lovecraft’s apparent
> anti-Semitism from the published letters, and in
> an angry piece not included here denounced him for
> his racism and for his ill treatment of Sonia.“
> (CANNON 177)
>
> That Cannon could exclude so important a piece
> from an otherwise definitive collection of memoirs
> suggests, I think, the degree of hero-worship
> which surrounds Lovecraft to this day.

You assume that it was deliberately excluded. I heard that there were copyright problems. You may have noticed that The Occult Lovecraft, in which "Of Gold and Sawdust" appeared, has never been reprinted.

> Elsewhere, in his biography of H. P. Lovecraft, S.
> T. Joshi goes so far as to suggest that Samuel
> Loveman’s anecdote, printed in L. Sprague de
> Camp’s 1970’s biography of Lovecraft, that
> Lovecraft threatened suicide by carrying a
> “phial of poison” around with him in New York
> City, is “preposterous”, Joshi flatly
> believing “that Loveman has made up this story
> -whether to blacken Lovecraft’s reputation or
> for some other reason, I cannot say.“ (JOSHI,
> HPL: A Life 388)
>
> On the contrary, suicide -whether in response to
> adolescent trauma, or to the death of his mother,
> or to general ennui- was never, I think, very far
> from Lovecraft’s mind -Lovecraft’s own
> writings, whether poetry or prose, being full of
> intimations of it. Indeed, as Lovecraft himself
> wrote, shortly after his marriage to Sonia, Sonia
> rescued him from having
>
> “no goal but a phial of cyanide when my money
> should give out. I had formerly meant to follow
> this latter course, and was fully prepared to seek
> oblivion whenever cash should fail or sheer ennui
> grow too much for me; when suddenly, our
> benevolent angel S.H.G. stepped into my circle of
> consciousness and began to combat the idea with
> the opposite one of effort, and the enjoyment of
> life through the rewards which effort will
> bring.” (deCAMP, Lovecraft: A Biography 212-13)
>
> Significantly, Lovecraft here associates his own
> suicide with a “phial of CYANIDE“ ---thereby
> confirming the substance of Samuel Loveman’s
> disputed anecdote.

That's confirmation?!

Winfield Townley Scott heard it from Benjamin Crocker Clough who heard it from Loveman, but Clough admits that "'Phial' I'm not sure of." And why emphasise "cyanide" -- Loveman's anecdote doesn't mention cyanide, does it? Besides, Joshi gives pretty clear reasons for his opinion, which you omitted.

Martinus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's confirmation?!


Confirmation, surely, that it wasn't "preposterous", as Joshi said?


Martinus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> And
> why emphasise "cyanide" -- Loveman's anecdote
> doesn't mention cyanide, does it?


My thinking: "cyanide" = synonym for poison, with the marked use of "vial" or "phial" in the phrase being the lynchpin of identification.

As I read him, Joshi does not claim it is preposterous that Lovecraft, like nearly every human being at one time or another in his or her life, had occasional suicidal thoughts.

Rather, Joshi claims that it is preposterous to assert as a proven fact that Lovecraft carried a vial of poison on his person, and that he specifically "threatened" suicide to anyone, in particular. It is equally preposterous to assume, merely from melodramatic remarks in a personal letter to someone else, that those remarks specifically corroborate Loveman's assertion. Joshi, unlike others, offers reasons for believing as he does, and I have little doubt that Joshi is right.

Alas, this means it is time to find another avenue for smearing Lovecraft. I have faith, however, in our little resident Oedipus!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12 Nov 09 | 07:19PM by Kyberean.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>I have little doubt that Joshi is
> right.
>

Except that Samuel Loveman, unlike Joshi, or myself, (or our resident Lovecraft hero-worshipper here), had the advantage of actually being there. Indeed, not only being there, but seeing Lovecraft on a daily (and nightly) basis throughout his lengthy (and troubled) New York City-period. Who is more likely to be right?

It's interesting how defending Lovecraft against scurrilous innuendo and against absurd attacks that take the cheap guise of fifth-rate literary criticism makes one a "worshiper".

Anyway, to answer the rhetorical question: I'd say the one who is more likely to be right is the one who didn't write a memoir long after the fact on the basis of wounded feelings, and the one who has read letters from Lovecraft to all of Lovecraft's friends and relatives of the period, and who gauged Lovecraft's relative degree of intimacy with each. I can see why little Oedipus sides with Loveman, though: In addition to politics, they both have in common the fact that Lovecraft upsets and threatens them terribly, and therefore they attack and try to discredit him.

As for whom to believe, don't take my word for the matter: Everyone should read Joshi's arguments and decide for himself. At least Joshi manages to offer arguments and reasons for believing as he did, arguments that are a little more sophisticated than "Loveman was there, and, oh, by the way, he was an extreme Leftist, and therefore one of the good guys, and therefore he must be right".



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 13 Nov 09 | 06:13PM by Kyberean.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Indeed, not only being there, but seeing Lovecraft
> on a daily (and nightly) basis throughout his
> lengthy (and troubled) New York City-period. Who
> is more likely to be right?

In "Of Gold and Sawdust", Loveman speaks of Lovecraft's "smouldering hatred" of him. Is that supported by other sources, e.g. Lovecraft's letters? Does Lovecraft ever say how much he hates Loveman? I'd say that his admiration of Loveman is clearly shown by many things, including the fact that he set down in writing poems by Loveman that otherwise would have been lost. What you are ignoring is Loveman's bitterness at discovering Lovecraft's anti-Semitic tendencies, which he blows up completely out of proportion. So no, everything Loveman says should be viewed in the light of this.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Martinus Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > That's confirmation?!
>
>
> Confirmation, surely, that it wasn't
> "preposterous", as Joshi said?

What Kyberean said. I repeat: Joshi gives clear and plausible reason for why he thinks the statement is preposterous, and you can bet that he is aware of the quoted passage (which I cannot locate among Lovecraft's letters at the moment because of De Camp's moronic way of handling his references, but I would love to know the context). If Lovecraft had spoken of using a spoon, you would have taken that as confirmation of the cyanide anecdote too?

>
>
> Martinus Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > And
> > why emphasise "cyanide" -- Loveman's anecdote
> > doesn't mention cyanide, does it?
>
>
> My thinking: "cyanide" = synonym for poison, with
> the marked use of "vial" or "phial" in the phrase
> being the lynchpin of identification.

But that lynchpin is very uncertain, as I just pointed out, since Clough is uncertain of this particular word.

garymorris Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> (Though,
> inconsistently, I rather dislike attacks on Smith,
> whose stories transport me in a way that
> Lovecraft's don't.

I don’t understand the various criticisms of Smith myself, either. Of course, each to his own, but the weird condescension of writers like Brian Aldiss, or various scholars in Lovecraft Studies, etc., all presented without any explanation or reason, simply baffles me.

garymorris Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>“Re. HPL’s suicidal bent. I wonder if
>that’s not overblown? It’s always been
>hard for me to reconcile Lovecraft’s
>obvious engagement with life (via the
>incomparable letters) with his apparent
>(or stated) ennui/depression…”

Don’t forget, even HPL’s letters, though entertaining, witty, etc., are also full of his almost Buddhistic/Schoepenhauerian philosophy of humility, self-denial, abnegation, etc. HPL’s ultimate goal, he once told Loveman, was to be regarded as a “non-entity”, and indeed he often referred to himself as such.

This reveals itself in various ways in his stories- most prominently, perhaps, in the controversial coda of “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, in which the deep-sea glories that Lovecraft’s narrator discovers on the ocean floor mirror (or at least so I believe) that same oblivion which Lovecraft had sought, so many years before, in his 1904 fantasy of drowning in the Barrington River.

garymorris Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>“I read the de Camp bio so long ago
>that I can’t recall mention of him [Loveman]
>having a wife…”

I found it on page 117; I have the paperback version of de Camp’s bio, though, so the pagination might be off- but it’s in the “Wasted Warrior”, chapter:

“Originally trained as an accountant, he [Loveman] served in the U.S. Army during the First World War, in the course of which his wife died in childbirth.”

I don’t recall seeing any mention of Loveman’s family in either Joshi’s HPL: A Life, or in Hippocampus Press’s Out of the Immortal Night, so I was wondering:
1) is this a case of a “fictional” family, made up in the seventies to cover the fact that Loveman was gay, or
2) did Loveman really have a family, but the gay “party-line” came to obscure everything else, so that Loveman’s family was simply shuffled aside/forgotten?

The English Assassin wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>“The constant sniping about adjectives …”

Those critics who complain about Lovecraft’s supposed “adjectivitis” are missing the forest for the trees. They snidely comment on Lovecraft’s repetitive and heavy-handed use of such words, and then promptly move on -and thus fail to read the deeper meanings behind them. (Such as the source of many of Lovecraft’s adjectives in the fiery invectives and sermons of archaic Puritan divines, or in Christian theology, or in Classical writers, etc.)

Kyberean wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>“...the alleged overwhelmingly positive
>response to Lovecraft and his writings
>exists solely in certain individuals’ imaginations…”

For my part, when I refer to HPL-hero worship, I could just as easily be using the word “fanboy” or “fandom.” E Hoffmann Price referred to this phenomenon in his essay “The Lovecraft Controversy- Why?”, where he observed:

“There is, however, ...one problem which derives from the Lovecraft worshippers whose fanaticism HPL’s good friend, the late W. Paul Cook, discussed as long ago as 1945, in the fan magazine The Ghost. His apprehensions have proved all too well justified. If, instead of wrangling at conventions and assailing each other in fan-magazine columns, they could set aside juvenile emotionality and permit themselves enrichment from the two books in question, they would profit…

“(…) An HPL worshiper who was not even born until after the Old Master’s death reproached me for not having condemned de Camp’s book. He could scarcely believe me when I declared that I’d written well of it. Since he had long known me as one who has a deep regard for HPL, he found it inconceivable that I had not petitioned to have de Camp hanged by the toes and flogged to death, at least in effigy, until devotees could seize and settle the culprit.”

One sees similar distortions of reality/hero-worship in various youthful/genre groups of the present day, most familiarly in the comic book-world. Steve Ditko has published some brilliant material recently, criticizing the “mass mind” and “mob rule” often associated with this phenomenon. Perhaps the worst aspect of this, though, is the current mystical-craze which is associated with Lovecraft and the Necronomicon. I hear HPL fans even meet at Lovecraft’s grave on his birthday to recite magic spells! Utter madness.

Of course, it is often painful when a fanboy has his illusions shattered. Kyberean’s odd “Oedipus”-centered rhetoric is very revealing in this regard -----for while it has no meaning for me, it obviously has some meaning for Kyberean -perhaps because he himself somehow regards Lovecraft as a father-figure in some way. But, obviously, I am only guessing here.

Kyberean further reveals this tendency to hero worship, when he erroneously refers to things like "scurrilous innuendo", "absurd attacks", and "smearing Lovecraft".

"Smearing Lovecraft" -how? By a statement of fact? Kyberean takes it for granted that positing Lovecraft contemplated suicide during his "darkest days" constitutes a "smear" -a fact which reveals a great deal regarding Kyberean's own (unconscious?) psychology.

For instance, if one one were a Romantic or a Decadent or a fan of Rimbaud, etc., one could easily regard HPL's tragic despair and poison-carrying as morbidly Romantic, cool, spooky -a Wertherian protest against "modern society". But Kyberean regards it as an attack. And, perhaps for Kyberean -it is.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 14 Nov 09 | 04:48PM by Gavin Callaghan.

Kyberean wrote:
-----------------------------------
>“…Lovecraft merely held and parroted
>the conventional views of his era and
>social class. Unfortunately, Lovecraft
>happened to be more articulate and voluble
>on the subject than others, and he also
>become famous….he merely held the
>prejudices of his time---…”

So, from Kyberean’s point of view, Lovecraft wasn’t a creator. He was articulate, but not a great artist, and not even a writer. He was merely a “parrot”, i.e. an automaton, recording, copying, and repeating the views of an “era” and “class”- an era and a class which Lovecraft himself, as his own writings plainly reveal, was often alienated from or completely at odds with. And despite the fact that even among Lovecraft’s own family and acquaintances, HPL’s political, social, and racial views were far different, and far more atavistic, than the norm.

For Kyberean, Lovecraft isn’t an artist, creating and encoding a complex, brilliant, subversive, satirical racial and social polemic. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu “Mythos” is the creation of Lovecraft’s maiden aunts, mother, and uncles. Lovecraft wrote it down for them, so that they wouldn’t have to. Plus, Lovecraft had a little bit more of a facility with language, so it all worked out fine.

Of course, this view is absurd. There is a reason why, even during the 1930’s, Lovecraft’s fiction was different from that of all others- others of his era, and of his class, and even of his own genre. A reason why there were horror writers who were not racists, yet who managed to churn out terrifying and fascinating stories of the occult, alienation, or otherness. There is a reason, too, why Lovecraft -unlike Russell Kirk- has never become a darling, or a leading light, of the Conservative movement.

Lovecraft was a modern day Cato or Cicero- and he was so consciously, using all of his verbal brilliance, wit, and art- and neuroses. He wrote against his time, not for it- against the grain, not with it. Like Hogarth, whom he admired, Lovecraft was a master of caricature- and Lovecraft captured- and caricatured- the most hated polemical antagonisms of his time -the drunken rabble, the democratic herds, the foreign crowds, the mindless masses, the “yellow hordes ”. These hatreds were intrinsic to Lovecraft, they were intellectual -and they were also psychological. They were the fuel of his nightmares, and his desires- and perhaps they were nightmares because they were desires.

For Kyberean to say,

“Lovecraft happened to be more articulate and voluble on the subject than others, and he also become famous”

is to somehow suggest a separation between Lovecraft’s public fiction and his private views- as if a few non-PC jokes had posthumously been found among HPL’s correspondence, and then magnified by detractors beyond all proportion. When in fact Lovecraft’s views are not only there in his fiction (and there in plain sight), but are part of an elaborate polemical tapestry , inextricable from the meaning of his fiction, and of Lovecraft’s thought, as a whole. They were placed there intentionally by Lovecraft -playfully, perhaps, but also meaningfully, in the hopes that his readers would find them, and notice them, and think. To note this fact, and to admit that it is a fact, is to engage in simple literary analysis, nothing more, and nothing less.

And for Kyberean to misrepresent this process of deciphering Lovecraft’s meaning as mere “self-righteous finger wagging over Lovecraft’s political views” is to do a great disservice not only to the process of literary inquiry, but also to Lovecraft’s work/intentions as a whole.

Kyberean wrote:
-----------------------------------
“Where I differ with the PC Gestapo, led by types such as Gavin, …”

Kyberean’s acquaintance, Boyd Rice, is closer to being a member of the Gestapo than I’ll ever be. But if Kyberean would give a pass to thugs like Rice and Schreck, it’s no wonder he’d give a pass to the admittedly more civilized, mild-mannered and cultured Lovecraft.

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


> With regard to Lovecraft's alleged complete fear
> of "otherness", this is a point about which I'd
> quibble. The matter is much more complex than
> that. Lovecraft held such a fear, to be sure, but
> otherness also held an attraction for Lovecraft.
> Where I differ with the PC Gestapo, led by types
> such as Gavin, is the weight I would accord
> Lovecraft's xenophobia in the construction of both
> his character and his fiction. There are many who
> feel the defining and motivating feature of the
> work is Lovecraft's horror of the alien in any
> form. I don't think, however, that Lovecraft's
> work can be reduced to that dimension.
>
> 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 and the
> extra-human, which is the root of the cosmic
> dimension of his horror (As you know, Lovecraft
> also wrote a fair number of non-horror
> fantasies--though some have horrific elements--in
> the Dunsanian vein). I would even call it a
> compensating xenophilia. Forgive the length of the
> following quotation from a letter by Lovecraft,
> but it gives, I think, a far more nuanced idea of
> Lovecraft's emotional motivations and his
> attraction to horror, wonder, and fantasy as a
> means of expressing himself:


I think this is true, there are many facets to Lovecraft's fiction, none of which should be ignored for full appreciation, and certainly his 'sense of wonder' is a strong element. Part of Lovecraft's appeal seems to come from his crossing over of horror, fantasy and science fictional elements (genres or sub-genres that were only in their infancy at best) into a cohesive whole. I believe his conceptual strength largely comes from his scientific and secular rational to his Mythos married with its cosmic scope and love of the fantastical, especially found in his 'dreamland' stories and his later 'cosmic' stories. However he was obviously writing from or in the horror tradition. I wouldn't try to strictly define horror, but for me it is predominately about 'otherness.' Horror is innately xenophobic and racists. That doesn't mean that you have to be a racists to read/write horror nor does it mean you have to believe what you are reading (a commonly held mistake when people are taking about supernatural fiction) nor do I mean it literally in any way, but it does mean that in horror the 'other' must remain a threat and an invading force, in my (not so expert) opinion. There must be exceptions (and by naling my colours to the mast I'm obviously leaving myself open to being told them), but to my mind attempts to humanise or understand the other in horror are misguided. Dracula (for all its faults as a novel) remains pure horror, because the Count remains a monster throughout: corrupting and insidious: his motivations are malignant to humans, while Anne Rice's nonsense turns into dark fantasy or whatever because it demystifies it's otherness. Anne Rice might of course be right, vampires might also have hopes and fears and be just another bunch of humans who need to be understood and integrated (and so may Cthulhu, serial killers, etc...), but that isn't horror because it transforms the monster into something that can be psycho-analysed and understood. Fantasy and SF can also have a strong other-factor, but in my opinion their otherness works very differently, being either something to be immersed in (Middle-Earth, Narnia...) or a mystery to be explained (the black monolith in 2001, cyberspace...). While, I agree, Lovecraft uses both these devises to greater or lesser degrees in his fiction, he never looses sight of keeping his Mythos largely beyond human, therefore his perspective remains xenophobic - and justly so! Cthulhu remains a monster, an uber-monster throughout.

I do take your point that Lovecraft has strong sense of cosmic awe but it seems to me that this was primarily focused upon the inorganic world, i.e. his scientific interest seemed to focus on chemistry, physics, astronomy and geology, as far as I have read, and let's face it he was grossly out of touch on the issue of eugenics. Of course he had a strong love of archaeology and history, so things weren't obviously as clear cut as that, but to my mind his love of the past is strongly related to his love of the fantastic, i.e. an imaginary world he used to enhance his life. However, I think it is the juxtaposition of Lovecraft's awe of the universe and his fear of life (or at least different life), which makes him so interesting.

I don't think it is insulting to Lovecraft to say he used his racism in his writing. He was blatantly a racist, even by his own era's standards, and he was probably the 20th century's greatest cosmic writer. There is, of course, a contradiction here. To be cosmic, yet to consider skin colour important is at odds with one another; racism is as "Earth-bound" as Derlerth's Christianity is, but then Lovecraft has as much right to be inconsistent as the rest of us.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> For Kyberean, Lovecraft isn’t an artist,
> creating and encoding a complex, brilliant,
> subversive, satirical racial and social polemic.
> Lovecraft’s Cthulhu “Mythos” is the creation
> of Lovecraft’s maiden aunts, mother, and uncles.
> Lovecraft wrote it down for them, so that they
> wouldn’t have to. Plus, Lovecraft had a little
> bit more of a facility with language, so it all
> worked out fine.

I must admit I don't understand this view either. Lovecraft was a great (and underrated) rhetorical writer and clearly knew and believed what he was writing. He was not just some mouthy oik in the pub slagging of immigrants. Saying that, I don't suppose he expected to have all his letters published either, but enough of his public writings echo his private correspondence (worse in the case of his poetry) that it is impossible to make excuses for him other to say that he wasn't alone in his views. Does his racism matter. Yes and no. Yes because it was a fairly big part of his writing and opinions and can allows the armchair critic a wider perspective on his writings, but no it should be judged negative because of it. We bend over backwards to accommodate the racist, misogynistic and homophobic views of other cultures, but we judge the past harshly.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> "Smearing Lovecraft" -how? By a statement of
> fact? Kyberean takes it for granted that positing
> Lovecraft contemplated suicide during his "darkest
> days" constitutes a "smear" -a fact which reveals
> a great deal regarding Kyberean's own
> (unconscious?) psychology.
>
> For instance, if one one were a Romantic or a
> Decadent or a fan of Rimbaud, etc., one could
> easily regard HPL's tragic despair and
> poison-carrying as morbidly Romantic, cool, spooky
> -a Wertherian protest against "modern society".
> But Kyberean regards it as an attack. And,
> perhaps for Kyberean -it is.

I quite agree. Why should suicidal thoughts be seen as a sign of weakness. While I have no idea if Smith had them, his letters to Sterling reveal that he shared Ambrose Bierce's open (even idealistic) view on suicide, a view I generally agree with.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Those critics who complain about Lovecraft’s
> supposed “adjectivitis” are missing the forest
> for the trees. They snidely comment on
> Lovecraft’s repetitive and heavy-handed use of
> such words, and then promptly move on -and thus
> fail to read the deeper meanings behind them.
> (Such as the source of many of Lovecraft’s
> adjectives in the fiery invectives and sermons of
> archaic Puritan divines, or in Christian theology,
> or in Classical writers, etc.)

Yes, yes and YES! Lovecraft's so-called adjectivitis is massive misunderstood. He is much more selective about when and how he uses them than he's given credit for. His descriptions of alien architecture in Mountains of Madness are hypnotic. Indeed he uses so much description that it becomes harder and harder to imagine what he is describe, which is of course the point! He layers the detail upon details into the most evocative and impressionistic prose: a hallucinogenic 'stream of adjectives.' If Joyce or Conrad did this, everyone would be heralding the technique as a stroke of genius.


On a separate note: why all the hate in this thread? Lovecraft and Co. managed to disgusts far more weighty matters with each other without resorting to sniping and name-calling.

That's a great last point, Assassin, about the "hate in this thread" and invoking Lovecraft & Co as a model for discussions like this. HPL and his circle could indeed be passionate, focused on the subject, strong in defending their opinions without resorting to condescension and juvenile name-calling -- except, of course, when it came to short-sighted editors! (But even that was often done with humor.)

English Assassin:

I think that you are splitting hairs with respect to Lovecraft's interest in the cosmic. I agree, however, that "otherness" can take different forms, and that, to Lovecraft, some of these forms are more palatable than others. Even if I allow your distinction, though, it still reinforces my point: That Lovecraft shows as much fascination with otherness, in general, as he shows a horror of it, and that it is a gross over-simplification to over-emphasize the latter.

As for your statement regarding the essence of horror, we shall never agree on that subject, so there is little point in continuing to discuss it. That horror entails so much more than mere loathing and racism is self-evident, to me. You need to educate yourself more about the roots of literary horror in the 18th-Century aesthetics of the Gothic and the Sublime, for instance, as well as in the didactic, so-called "Graveyard School" of poetry.

Quote:

There is, of course, a contradiction here. To be cosmic, yet to consider skin colour important is at odds with one another; racism is as "Earth-bound" as Derlerth's Christianity

While I still question the over-emphasis on Lovecraft's racism, I otherwise agree completely with this very perceptive observation. The dichotomy you describe limns the great tension, if not outright contradiction, in Lovecraft's thought. Lovecraft would have been a far better and happier man, I think, if he had realized the extent of this contradiction, and if he had, like CAS, kept mere Earth-bound and social concerns in proper perspective. CAS's refreshing lack of emotional investment in matters social, socio-political, and economic is one of the hallmarks of his wisdom, from my perspective, and Lovecraft would have done well to emulate CAS in this respect. "Caring about the civilization" , on the one hand, and the cosmic perspective, on the other, are indeed difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile. This is true a fortiori when such "caring" takes the form of a parochial, culturally inculcated racism.

As for the flaming:

Gavin, as you see, loves to psychoanalyze. Ah, psychoanalysis! So often fueled by personal insecurity and resentment, which then aims to cut others down to size, it is the quintessential expression of the weak man's "will to power". This mode of "criticism" was outdated and discredited soon after Freud was in his grave, but that fact doesn't seem to deter some people. Clear-sighted, as always, CAS loathed psychoanalysis. I can only imagine CAS's reaction if he knew that a forum dedicated to him hosted psychoanalytical attacks upon one of his closest epistolary comrades.

Anyway, Gavin's quite good at dishing out psychoanalytical criticism, but, like most such types, he can't take it very well. So, when I satirize his methods of analyzing Lovecraft, by suggesting that Gavin's unhealthy obsession with Lovecraft speaks volumes about his own emotional problems and murky motives, he either misses the point completely, reacts with hysterics, or deliberately misconstrues my point.

For instance, here is one example of the latter. It should be apparent even to a complete idiot that what I mean by "smear" refers, first, to the totality of Gavin's anti-Lovecraft posts, and, second, to the suggestion that Lovecraft actively threatened suicide and made histrionic gestures, such as ostentatiously carrying poison on his person--which is not the same thing as merely having private suicidal thoughts. Indeed, I made quite clear that I believe nearly everyone has such thoughts, at times, and therefore I would not consider that fact alone to be stigmatizing.

At any rate, whatever his other shortcomings, Gavin is no idiot, so I can only assume that desperation led him to seek to score points by creating a crude misrepresentation of my (obvious) meaning, and then demolishing it. I tend to lose patience very quickly with this quintessentially "Internet" debating tactic. This impatience, in turn, causes me lose my temper on occasion--a fact of which I am not proud, but that honesty makes me acknowledge.

For the rest, if you are curious as to the history of Gavin's and my charming exchanges, then simply do a little research in the archives, and that will answer your question.

Finally, if all you and garymorris see in Gavin's and my exchanges is "hate", then you are simply choosing to focus upon and exaggerate that particular facet. The ratio of substance to insult in these discussions, while not ideal, is still far greater than either of you seem to allow. Also, unless either of you has spent your entire life without ever having had such an exchange as this with anyone, in any way, please don't pretend to be "above it all". That makes you seem condescending.

I should add that I actually don't dislike Gavin, at all--although I obviously loathe his Lovecraft criticism. Gavin is very intelligent and articulate in those rare moments when he is not frothing over his pet obsession. He could contribute much more of substance here than mere copied-and-pasted excerpts from his latest anti-Lovecraft screeds, if he so chose. I simply think that he goes completely off the rails when he is on the the subject of his little mania--and, unfortunately, he seldom posts here on any other subject.

And as for the topic at hand, I've said all I have to say. Read Joshi's observations and decide for yourself who is more credible on the subject of Lovecraft's alleged suicide threats.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 15 Nov 09 | 11:34AM by Kyberean.

Well, I seem to have started a real thread. That aside, on the matter of the monstrosity of alien things, a review in the TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT years ago of a volume containing "At the Mountains of Madness" noted a sympathy for the monsters and how even the monsters had monsters. That line to the effect that these alien creatures "were men" shows HPL considered spirit above form, perhaps why he had Jewish friends in spite of a sort of generic anti-Semitism. I have known people who speak ill of "others" generically, but who actually symbolically did give the shirt offd their back to individuals of the despised "otherness." People are not consistent - thank Azathoth.

JBP

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As for your statement regarding the essence of
> horror, we shall never agree on that subject, so
> there is little point in continuing to discuss it.
> That horror entails so much more than mere
> loathing and racism is self-evident, to me. You
> need to educate yourself more about the roots of
> literary horror in the 18th-Century aesthetics of
> the Gothic and the Sublime, for instance, as well
> as in the didactic, so-called "Graveyard School"
> of poetry.

Aye, I dare say you might have a point there, my knowledge of horror literature is far from encyclopaedic: me being a mere dabbler in the dark arts. Maybe my point is more pertinent to 20th C horror or the horror found in Lovecraft's writing or maybe it's just what I personally look for in horror. I dare say in the pre-pulp/literature divide of the 20th C that such distinctions were more nebulous. I should point out that I'm pretty much confiding myself to supernatural genre horror here. Maybe this is an artificial distinction, I don't know...


> Finally, if all you and garymorris see in Gavin's
> and my exchanges is "hate", then you are simply
> choosing to focus upon and exaggerate that
> particular facet. The ratio of substance to insult
> in these discussions, while not ideal, is still
> far greater than either of you seem to allow.
> Also, unless either of you has spent your entire
> life without ever having had such an exchange as
> this with anyone, in any way, please don't pretend
> to be "above it all". That makes you seem
> condescending.

No condescending tone intended. My 'hate' comment was said entirely flippantly and not made as a personal attack on any one or two persons. I think this was clear, but maybe not: it's infamously hard to gauge tone of voice online or in txts. When I said: 'why all the hate?' I didn't mean 'all' as in all of this thread is exclusively full of hate, I meant all, as in why is there all of this hate here, therefore my intention was to include all the haters in this thread (both active and inactive) and not just target one or two individuals. This is of course somewhat artificial and disingenuous of me, but then so is small things like 'good manners' and 'politeness,' which, I guess, is part of the point I was making... Or maybe, all haters are equal, but some haters are more equal than others...

I totally agree that the content is highly informative in this thread and others, hence I've chipped in with my own crappy two pennies worth here and there in appreciation of all the good points made and in wanting to join the debate for whatever reason we feel the need to participate on a forum (I'm not sure why that is?). I'll go further and say that this forum is without a doubt the most well-informed forum that I've ever visited, which is in no small way down to posters like yourself, Gavin and Gary - among many others. However, I'll temper that by saying that it is, at times, the most aggressive forum I've visited as well. I've seen individual threads on other forums get more out of hand and personal, but I really don't think I've read the consistent level of aggressive posting as I have here. Albeit aggression with good content. Anyway, I'm here and in general I like the place, which indicates that I don't really care about the agro, because... well, as you say, the content's good stuff. Anyway, if it was just a flame war then I'd have taken no part (it not involving me in the build up), either ignoring the thread or maybe I'd have just stood back and laughed as Rome burned around me... but I haven't ignored it thus you may certainly assume that yes I'm enjoying the thread.

And yes, of course, we've all been suckered into taking the odd post personally here and there. It's very easy to end up tackling the man and not the ball when one's blood is up. We are all effectively fundamentalists to some extent on here or on other effectively niche forums like this one (no offence, I like a good niche), so it's not surprising that we can all let rip at times. I realise that I maybe as guilty as anyone here of losing it on a forum at times, but it's a rare day (at least I think/hope it is) that I directly insult someone personally, although I'll hold my had up say say yes, I do like to throw in the odd flippant remark at times (like 'why all the hate?' or a 'what's all this guff?' or whatever), which is probably highly immature of me (what can I say?), but then this is only a forum and we're not under oath in the Crown Court and surely the odd conversational tone or bit of banter is okay here and there? And of course the nonsensical opinions of others is fair game... ;) However I'd also say that there is a definite undertone (at the very least!) of outright hostility on this forum at times and to deny it or to say that it doesn't matter, just so long as they back up their constant name-calling with some (or even a lot) of great content, makes it all hunky-dory then is, frankly, talk of the finest arse-water, I believe. All I can say is that I doubt many of us go out drinking in many pubs with that attitude. Not unless we wanted our teeth kicking in at the same time...

Anyway, yes I stand by my 'why all the hate?' comment as, I think, it's worth pointing out now and again when things are getting unnecessarily agro (and this thread is pretty mild compared to some really), because, let's face it, the debate is only about our opinions on a subject, Lovecraft, who none of us has actually met (I presume?), who we only know from his writings and the opinions of other who knew him and by those who, much like us, base their opinions entirely on these sources coupled with their own deductions. It is, after all, only brain-candy to occupy our futile existences before we die...

Martinus wrote:
---------------------------------
>In “Of Gold and Sawdust”, Loveman speaks
>of Lovecraft’s “smouldering hatred” of him.
>Is that supported by other sources, e.g. Lovecraft’s
>letters? Does Lovecraft ever say how much he
>hates Loveman?

By “smouldering hatred”, Loveman could easily be referring to Lovecraft’s hatred for Jews in general -and thereby, by extension, hatred for Loveman himself. This, in addition to Lovecraft’s clear ambivalence toward Samuel Loveman in the correspondence, as well as Lovecraft’s obvious hypocrisy in his dealings with Loveman, would perhaps be enough to explain Loveman’s reference.

True, Loveman was obviously a hypersensitive -but this does not necessarily make him a liar. One could just as easily argue that Loveman, because he was angry at Lovecraft, was more inclined to be truthful, because now he would be more inclined to reveal hidden facts which he, as a good friend, probably otherwise would have whitewashed.

It would help, of course, if I knew the context of Loveman’s comment, above- where was Samuel Loveman’s anti-Lovecraft essay published? I’d love to read it.

Martinus wrote:
---------------------------------
>“If Lovecraft had spoken of using a spoon,
>you would have taken that as confirmation
>of the cyanide anecdote too?”

Spoon? I don't understand. I'm not trying to be a "smart aleck", here, I really don't get this!

garymorris wrote:
---------------------------------
>That's a great last point, Assassin, about the "hate
>in this thread" and invoking Lovecraft & Co as a
>model for discussions like this. HPL and his circle
>could indeed be passionate, focused on the subject,
>strong in defending their opinions without resorting
>to condescension and juvenile name-calling --

Oh no -on the contrary, Lovecraft’s debates within the amateur press were nothing if not acrimonious- witness Lovecraft’s lengthy and involved debates with William J. Dowdell and others; Lovecraft‘s “In Defense of Dagon”, etc.

Lovecraft’s venomous attack on Ida C. Haughton, the president of the United Amateur press association, was particularly blood-thirsty: in a poem entitled “Medusa: A Portrait” Lovecraft describes Haughton as:

“Soak’d in her noxious venom, puff’d with gall,/ Like some fat toad see dull MEDUSA sprawl,” (JOSHI 259-60)

Joshi calls it “the most vicious and unrestrained of his [HPL’s] poetic satires, and in it he mercilessly flays Haughton for her large bulk and her supposed foulness of temper.” As fellow-amateur Rheinhart Kleiner observed, “Lovecraft pulled an amount of heavy artillery into action against his rabbits which might have been adequate for larger game.”

Lovecraft’s entry into the amateur press itself, too, was precipitated by yet another, earlier, and equally acrimonious debate between Lovecraft and the readers of the various Munsey magazines, in which Lovecraft complained about the number of sentimental and romantic stories appearing in the magazines. (Lovecraft preferred to read weird/fantastic fiction.) Later, Lovecraft and his circle would come under a similar attack from Forrest J. Ackerman, who objected to the fantastic elements in their fiction- what goes around, comes around, I guess.

True, HPL developed an (outwardly) calm demeanor later on, but this was slow in coming, and only occurred after many sustained battles over many years.

The English Assassin wrote:
---------------------------------
>While I think there is little doubt that Lovecraft
>was an anti-Semite, I've always felt (perhaps naively)
>that his racism was more theoretical than applied as such.
>After all he married a Jewish woman, which slightly
>puts his white-supremacist credentials in doubt.

Lovecraft’s unlikely marriage to the “Junoesque” Sonia is paralleled by numerous other such marriages in his fiction, in which the wife/women acts as an agent of chaotic infiltration and/or racial corruption:

-the Eastern/ Oriental seclusion of Captain Marsh’s wife in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”; the similar seclusion of Jermyn’s wife in “Arthur Jermyn”; the interracial marriage of Denis and Marceline de Rusy in “Medusa’s Coil”; Suydham’s sacrifice to Lilith in “Red Hook”; the marriage of the Duke de Blois to the creepy Dame de Blois in “Psychopompos”; and, perhaps most importantly, the marriage of poor Derby to the predatory Asenath Waite in “The Thing on the Doorstep.”

Not to mention HPL’s weird/humorous 1919 playlet “Sweet Ermengarde”, in which the melodrama’s “hero”, “Jack Manly” -completely forgetting his “true love”, Ermengarde- returns home from the city, “worn and seedy, but radiant of face”, and says, “Squire ---lend me a ten-spot, will you? I have just come back from the city with my beauteous bride, the fair Bridget Goldstein, and need something to start things on the old farm.” (MW 44)

Lovecraft’s marriage does not negate his anti-Semitism- it merely underscores the contradiction, a contradiction which, I would submit, probably tormented Lovecraft, given its constant appearance in his fiction (as shown above).

Interestingly, the nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg -whose “sub-human” ideology had several parallels in the works of Lovecraft, and whose life parallels Lovecraft‘s in various odd ways- was not averse to having sexual relationships with Jewish women, either, including one woman who was later arrested by the Gestapo -and this at a time when such relationships could have cost him his life. Such hypocrisy at the very center of nazism does not negate Rosenberg’s anti-Semitism, any more than HPL’s marriage negates the philosophy which he promulgated throughout his works.

J. B. Post wrote:
---------------------------------
>a review in the TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT years
>ago of a volume containing "At the Mountains of Madness"
>noted a sympathy for the monsters and how even the
>monsters had monsters. That line to the effect that
>these alien creatures "were men" shows HPL considered
>spirit above form, perhaps why he had Jewish friends
>in spite of a sort of generic anti-Semitism.

Lovecraft’s identification of the Old Ones as “men” in “At the Mountains of Madness” is frequently cited as an example of Lovecraft’s “humanizing” of his monsters and, therefore, as a lessening of HPL’s racism, but this, I would assert, is a misinterpretation. As David A. Oakes suggests in his essay “A Warning to the World: The Deliberative Argument of At the Mountains of Madness” (LS: 39), Lovecraft’s story functions as a parable for the human race- and this apocalyptic parable can function only if Western Civilization and the civilization of the Old Ones are identified with each other.

But the true monsters of this story, the Shoggoths, not only still exist, despite HPL’s supposed “humanizing” tendency- but they are also among the most loathsome of all of Lovecraft’s monsters: excremental, shapeless, and eye-filled caricatures, which manage to encapsulate within them nearly all of Lovecraft’s polemical antagonisms, whether black, female, Semitic, or capitalistic/ industrial. And the Shoggoths themselves are only a small part of a larger, and implicitly anti-Semitic, socio-political tapestry within the story itself. True, this didactic function of HPL’s later “black” fiction is often obscured by HPL’s admittedly effective atmospherics, but it is still there.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 30 Nov 09 | 05:19PM by Gavin Callaghan.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
>
> By “smouldering hatred”, Loveman could easily
> be referring to Lovecraft’s hatred for Jews in
> general -and thereby, by extension, hatred for
> Loveman himself.

No, he is quite clear on that: "smouldering hatred of me".

> This, in addition to
> Lovecraft’s clear ambivalence toward Samuel
> Loveman in the correspondence, as well as
> Lovecraft’s obvious hypocrisy in his dealings
> with Loveman, would perhaps be enough to explain
> Loveman’s reference.

That is not clear at all. Lovecraft praised Loveman (apart from that silly ambiguous "Jew or not" and comments like that). There is no "obvious hypocrisy" here. When Lovecraft is writing about Loveman to others, he says good things about him.

>
> True, Loveman was obviously a hypersensitive -but
> this does not necessarily make him a liar. One
> could just as easily argue that Loveman, because
> he was angry at Lovecraft, was more inclined to be
> truthful, because now he would be more inclined to
> reveal hidden facts which he, as a good friend,
> probably otherwise would have whitewashed.

Which is probably your explanation why the other Kalems didn't say anything in their memoirs. And since it is negative, that makes it more interesting. However, if Lovecraft "hated" Loveman, then why did he let him know that he was carrying poison on him? Wouldn't that be a revelation reserved for people he trusted and liked? It is equally obvious that Loveman could have had an agenda, to get back at Lovecraft for his "smouldering hatred".

No, that does not make him a liar, but he was careless with the truth at other times. He had a reputation for forging author's autographs in books he was selling and for pasting Hart Crane's left-over bookplates into otherwise worthless books. That, in addition to the fact that no other person who knew Lovecraft at the time refers to the alleged posion, makes the entire episode questionable.

> It would help, of course, if I knew the context of
> Loveman’s comment, above- where was Samuel
> Loveman’s anti-Lovecraft essay published? I’d
> love to read it.

I already supplied that information.

>
> Martinus wrote:
> ---------------------------------
> >“If Lovecraft had spoken of using a spoon,
> >you would have taken that as confirmation
> >of the cyanide anecdote too?”
>
> Spoon? I don't understand. I'm not trying to be
> a "smart aleck", here, I really don't get this!

You are referring to H. P. Lovecraft: A Life in connection with the poison anecdote. Therefore you know, or should know, that the word "phial" in connection with the episode is in doubt (Scott heard it from Clough who heard it from Loveman, yet Clough wasn't sure of "phial"), yet you use that word as your "lynchpin [sic] of identification" to connect it to that Lovecraft quotation. I already pointed that out. If you are ignoring this fact, then I can only conclude that the mention of a spoon would have supplied equal confirmation.

>
> Interestingly, the nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg
> -whose “sub-human” ideology had several
> parallels in the works of Lovecraft, and whose
> life parallels Lovecraft‘s in various odd ways-
> was not averse to having sexual relationships with
> Jewish women, either, including one woman who was
> later arrested by the Gestapo -and this at a time
> when such relationships could have cost him his
> life. Such hypocrisy at the very center of nazism
> does not negate Rosenberg’s anti-Semitism, any
> more than HPL’s marriage negates the philosophy
> which he promulgated throughout his works.

Which you see him as promulgating throughout his works

> Lovecraft’s identification of the Old Ones as
> “men” in “At the Mountains of Madness” is
> frequently cited as an example of Lovecraft’s
> “humanizing” of his monsters and, therefore,
> as a lessening of HPL’s racism, but this, I
> would assert, is a misinterpretation.

Has it ever struck you that you might be the one doing the misinterpretation?

> As David A.
> Oakes suggests in his essay “A Warning to the
> World: The Deliberative Argument of At the
> Mountains of Madness” (LS: 39), Lovecraft’s
> story functions as a parable for the human race-
> and this apocalyptic parable can function only if
> Western Civilization and the civilization of the
> Old Ones are identified with each other.
>
> But the true monsters of this story, the
> Shoggoths, not only still exist, despite HPL’s
> supposed “humanizing” tendency- but they are
> also among the most loathsome of all of
> Lovecraft’s monsters: excremental, shapeless,
> and eye-filled caricatures, which manage to
> encapsulate within them nearly all of
> Lovecraft’s polemical antagonisms, whether
> black, female, Semitic, or capitalistic/
> industrial. And the Shoggoths themselves are only
> a small part of a larger, and implicitly
> anti-Semitic, socio-political tapestry within the
> story itself. True, this didactic function of
> HPL’s later “black” fiction is often
> obscured by HPL’s admittedly effective
> atmospherics, but it is still there.

That is, you think it is still there.

*sigh* I still think the eyes = misogyny argument is the flimsiest I've ever seen.

Martinus wrote:
------------------------------------------
>Which is probably your explanation why
>the other Kalems didn’t say anything in their memoirs.

Martinus assumes this. I simply thought (if I actually thought about it) that they weren’t privy, for whatever reason.

Martinus wrote:
------------------------------------------
>And since it is negative, that makes it more interesting

Again, this assumes it IS intended as negative -when in fact the only real effect of the anecdote is to confirm what we already knew- that Lovecraft hated New York City.

Martinus wrote:
------------------------------------------
>However, if Lovecraft ‘hated’ Loveman, then
>why did he let him know that he was carrying
>poison on him? Wouldn’t that be a revelation
>reserved for people he trusted and liked?

As Robert Waugh and others have argued, Lovecraft’s relationship with Loveman was complex. I would characterize it as ambivalent. As ambivalence argues a simultaneous attraction and repulsion, it may be the attraction which prompted Lovecraft’s revelation. (But for all we know, Loveman simply saw the poison, etc.)

Martinus wrote:
------------------------------------------
>It is equally obvious that Loveman could have
>had an agenda, to get back at Lovecraft

How? “I’ll get back at Lovecraft, by reinforcing the suicidal impulses already documented by his letters”? Was that Loveman’s “plan”? Admittedly Loveman wasn’t wholly rational, but the only effect of such a “plan” was to draw derision from S. T. Joshi.

Martinus wrote:
------------------------------------------
>Therefore you know, or should know, that the
>word ‘phial’ in connection is in doubt…

My point precisely. The term is doubtful- that is, until we see Lovecraft using the same term in his correspondence, thereby serving to bolster its credibility.

Obviously, both Martinus and I are merely restating our positions at this point. The poison anecdote cannot as yet be “proven” one way or the other. But that’s my main point- that Joshi is wrong when he calls it “preposterous.”

For that matter, L. Sprague de Camp presumably examined the same source materials that Joshi did- but came to very different conclusions. Nor am I inclined to throw the baby out with the bathwater in the case of de Camp's biography.

Martinus wrote:
------------------------------------------
>Which you see him as promulgating
>throughout his works

Read Lovecraft’s essays, letters, poems, and stories. Or is the phrase “a foetid flood of swart, cringing Semitism” a misprint?

Martinus wrote:
------------------------------------------
>That is, you think it is still there.

I am hardly the first one to note the sociological subtext of “At the Mountains of Madness”; Waugh, Oakes, are others. Even Lovecraft’s original pulp readers were put off by the more complex aspects of Lovecraft’s late fiction. Or are they all “just imagining things” too?

Martinus wrote:
------------------------------------------
>Has it ever struck you that you might be
>the one doing the misinterpretation?

Not with regard to Lovecraft’s statement “they were men!”, no. It’s main use here is to cement the identification of men with the Old Ones for the purpose of Lovecraft’s warning “parable.” And “men”, for Lovecraft, meant Western European men. One often finds that those who cite Lovecraft’s “they were men!“ phrase as evidence of Lovecraft’s increasing “liberalism” very often ignore the story’s larger tapestry involving the subjugation and enslavement of the Shoggoths, and Lovecraft’s paralleling of the Old One’s decline with the Semitic (and supposedly “decadent”) artwork of Palmyra.

By the same token -and using the same standard by which “they were men!” is usually misinterpreted- Lovecraft’s earlier use of a similar phrase (it “had at one time been a MAN!!!”) in the juvenile “Beast in the Cave”, is far more “humane” -since Lovecraft is at least implicitly admitting the humanity of a loping, degenerative ghoul- a ghoul which has its spiritual descendent in the Shoggoths, which are, on the contrary, described as the ultimate embodiment of the “thing that should not be.”

Martinus wrote:
------------------------------------------
>I still think the eyes=misogyny argument is
>the flimsiest I’ve ever seen.

Again- read Lovecraft’s works. Did Lovecraft accentuate the “eyes” of the Dame de Blois and Asenath Waite, or is this another “misprint” -along with the “vial of cyanide”? And did Lovecraft equate “blacks” with “women” as twin “troubles” in his 1929 travelogue, or did he not? (Cf. “In 1619, wives were sent out for the colonials, and in the same year the first cargo of African blacks arrived-- proving that troubles never come singly” [MW 336])

It’s not only “eyes = misogyny”, however, but eyes + shapelessness + imitativeness + hypnotism = women, Lovecraft’s imagery here reflecting that of other contemporary misogynous and anti-Semitic accounts of his time, like those of Otto Weininger.

(Cf. here Weininger’s ideas in Sex and Character regarding Shapelessness-
“Male thought is fundamentally different from female thought in its craving for definite form, and all art that consists of moods is essentially a formless art.”

Imitativeness-
“The undesirability of [female] emancipation lies in the excitement and agitation involved. It induces women who have no real original capacity but undoubted imitative powers to attempt to study or write …”

Hypnotism-
“Woman is the best medium, the male her best hypnotizer. For this reason alone it is inconceivable why women can be considered good as doctors; for many doctors admit that their principal work up to the present- and it will always be the same- lies in the suggestive influence on their patients. The female is uniformly more easily hypnotized than the male throughout the animal world…”

---and then compare this with Lovecraft’s similar rhetoric in “At the Mountains of Madness”, with regard to the Shoggoths: “Formless protoplasm able to mock and reflect all forms…--slaves of suggestion,” etc.)

Of course, Martinus may attempt to salvage a pro-feminist meaning from Lovecraft’s works, if he so wishes. But that would involve a greater feat of deduction than my own modest attempts at interpretation.

My own interpretations, on the other hand, are made possible only because the facts oblige me- and that, ultimately, raises the basic question- which is, do the facts matter? Or don’t they?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 5 Dec 09 | 04:56PM by Gavin Callaghan.

Yes, but the problem with words like "misogynist" or "racist," is that they imply a misleading, mutually exclusive dichotomy. As though it isn't possible to be something other than "pro feminist" or a "hater of women"! (The same is true of "racism.") To say that Lovecraft was a "misogynist" ("crypto" of otherwise) because of an isolated flip (and almost certainly playful) remark about "twin troubles coming with blacks and women," is absurd on its face. Are we supposed to assume from that single statement (even taken in combination with Gavin's astute, though I fear specious analysis of "At the Mountains of Madness.") that Lovecraft literally "hated" women? 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?

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, you could probably find an instance or two where I referred to the Fair Ones as "irrational." Does that mean I'm a misogynist and that I hate half of the human race? Must that even be defended?

The problem I have with Gavin's approach is ultimately twofold. Number one (as I have pointed out), it assumes that people are much less complex than they actually are, and that it is a simple matter to put them into one category or another ("misogynists to the left, pro-females to the right!"). Don't we all konw people who have a different view of such things every two days? Indeed, most people--certainly the interesting ones--are shot through with that variety of contradiction.(What is more, it is often the most "developed" individuals who are the most extreme examples of this.) And with a personality as complex and unique as Lovecraft's, it is a perilous--and I would say unenlightening--business to attempt this kind of facile reductionism.

The other difficulty with this variety of criticism (and the trend is all but ubiquitous at present), is that in many cases it represents an attempt to "pathologize" anything that rises above the average level. Thus, History is no longer the history of Great Men, but of the manner in which their "complexes" made them SEEM great. Literature is no longer about reading (or God forbid, enjoying!) the Great Books, but about trying to decide when precisely when someone like Thomas Mann became a "pedophile". But do we really understand the essence of the rose by studying the manure out of which it grew?

(Incidentally, has anyone noticed that the psychiatric community (probably not coincidentally in light of Freud, etc.) seems to have adopted this same kind of pessimistic weltanshauung? Now young boys with too much energy and life force are deemed "mentally ill"--by school guidance counselors and the DSM 4. If they don't have "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" then you can almost certainly nab them with "Depressive Personality Disorder"--and God help the millions of creative, artistic, and introspective young people with that one! Neverthless, isn't our current mania for "deconstructism" and "cutting down to size," working a similar kind of mischief on the lives of our great men?)

At any rate, not to suggest that SOME of this type of criticism isn't valid--I believe it is. But it's a question of overall orientation and intention. Are we embracing this approach to better understand a great work of literature, or a great man (perhaps I should have just said "great person"--one can never be too careful!), or is it about simply hacking down until everything looks equally base, sordid and mediocre?

I have to agree with Dexterward, while psychoanalysing people from the past (Great Men or not) can be fun and can illuminate some insight into their artistic endeavours (assuming they are artists), ultimately I feel this approach isn't helpful because we are incapable of not superimposing modern values upon those who blundered before us (as we blunder forth behind them). I think it is impossible to refute that Lovecraft was a racist, even by the values of the time he was living in, and I'm sure his views on women were far from progressive by modern Western standards. I do think he used his fear of other races to evangelise his fear of the Other in his fiction, but, of course, it's quite possible that he was doing what most artists do, i.e. use their imagination, and I wouldn't want to make too much of this as I think Kyberean said there is more to Lovecraft than this. I'm also a little loathed to psychoanalyse an author too much by their fiction alone, although I will concede that in Lovecraft's case it's hard not to do because he uses rhetoric so well. In my opinion he obviously believes what he is writing. But as a general rule I tend to lean towards a 'Death of the Author' approach to literature and consider the author largely irrelevant to by relationship with a book, art, whatever...

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.

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:
-------------------------------------------------------

> 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:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 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-

Rand and the Randians have long been aware of Ortega y Gasset as a fellow traveler. See, for instance, this article, which appears in an online publication entitled The Daily Objectivist.

Absquatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rand and the Randians have long been aware of
> Ortega y Gasset as a fellow traveler. See, for
> instance, this article, which appears in an online
> publication entitled The Daily Objectivist.

Many thanks!

Absquatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...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?(...)

> 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: (....)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.

It is not simply a matter of comparing HPL’s stories to his letters, as Absquatch says, however- simply because HPL’s polemical views, whether on history, society, economics, aesthetics, etc., had far more outlets than simply just his letters: Lovecraft also wrote essays, epigrams, satires, and verse, etc. And it is my contention that Lovecraft’s later fiction constitutes basically a prose version of his earlier (and quite biting) verse satires: in this case, an inverted satire of Greek myths, utilized by HPL to serve as a medium for his sociological polemicism.

Now, if Absquatch were referring solely to Lovecraft’s early weird fiction, I would have to agree with him. Although some general deductions about Lovecraft’s racism, conservatism, or Puritan values can perhaps be probably discerned from them, Lovecraft, at this early date, has still not yet succeeded in combining his weird fiction with his sociological polemics. Indeed, one could define the “advent” of the truly “Lovecraftian” story as being characterized by the successful combination of Lovecraft’s weird cosmology with his sociological/satirical polemicism. And so when Lovecraft observed, later in life (1935), “I simply can’t write a short story these days” (SLV 136), he was acknowledging the fact, without explaining the cause: i.e. the usurpation of his weird/cosmic imagination by his sociological polemicism, often to the detriment of the atmosphere of his later works. (Just imagine how truly amazing, and horrifying, At the Mountains of Madness could have been, if HPL had made the alien ruins truly alien and unknowable, instead of using them as a parable to prop up his quasi-Spenglerian ideas.)

Nor is it accurate to somehow imply a wall between Lovecraft’s views on the one hand, and his weird fiction on the other. When Lovecraft, in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, has Joseph Curwen compare the creaking of a tavern sign with a modern jazz piece, HPL is revealing, rather pointedly, his own point of view on a number of topics: whether modernism, blacks, jazz, chaos, and wine and teetotalerism. And when, in the same story, Lovecraft observes (rather ludicrously) that servants have no imaginations, he is putting forward, rather obviously, a pointedly aristocratic perspective. Neither of these two digressions are intrinsic to the story; (very few weird stories contain criticisms of servants or of jazz) -but they were necessary to convey/advance HPL’s point-of-view.

Absquatch Wrote:

> 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,

What Absquatch is saying about myself -that I rely too much on Lovecraft’s letters, etc.- in truth applies more accurately to Absquatch than myself: for while he is correct to say that ideas of scientific wonder and cosmicism likewise motivated HPL’s fiction, Lovecraft’s dispassionate cosmic perspective is far more evidenced, or so I believe, in his correspondence, than it is in his fiction -in which the cosmic element is, contrary to popular belief, either small, or overwhelmed by his polemical perspectives.

Aside from a few truly cosmic works, such as the early, masterful “Dagon”, “From Beyond”, “Beyond the Wall of Sleep”, “The Colour Out of Space”, “The Whisperer in Darkness”, the later “The Shadow Out of Time”, and a few weird poems, the content of most of Lovecraft’s fiction is either mundane or sociological.

Stories of cannibalism: “The Rats in the Walls”, “The Horror at Red Hook”, “The Lurking Fear”, “Pickman’s Model”, “The Picture in the House”, “The Moon Bog”;
stories of necrophilia: “Herbert West: Reanimator”, “The Loved Dead”, “The Hound”, and “The Tomb“;
stories of sociological disruption or xenophobic infiltration: “The Call of Cthulhu”, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, At the Mts. Of Madness, “The Street“;
stories of “miscegenation“/failed marriages: “Medusa’s Coil”, “Arthur Jermyn”, “The Thing on the Doorstep.”
stories of rural degeneration: “The Unnamable”, “The Dunwich Horror.”
straight all-out parodies: “The Haunter of the Dark”, “The Horror in the Museum.”

It is Absquatch, and not myself, who is allowing his reading of Lovecraft’s letters to cloud his own reading of Lovecraft’s works. Nor is he, I think, alone in this.

Absquatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> 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.

Absquatch seems to be advocating the old dodge here: collective guilt means no guilt, collective error means no error. Again, HPL was the advocate of bizarre, retrograde views which were archaic even compared to the Enlightenment views of the 17-century, not to mention the early 20th. Even a 1920’s bigot would have looked askance at things like Lovecraft’s elitism, and his anti-American Toryism.

Absquatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> by those who have some strange
> emotional need to denigrate their betters

By that criterion, the only person qualified to offer an interpretation of HPL would be Stephen King. For that matter, if HPL had held such a deferential attitude toward his “betters” as Absquatch seems to advocate, I daresay neither T. S. Eliot, James F. Morton, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Donne, or Oscar Wilde would ever have been subjects of Lovecraft’s criticism. (For his part, HPL never proclaimed himself to be anything other than a non-entity.) At any rate, I tend to think HPL would have taken more delight in the criticisms advanced even by a marked inferior, than the accolades of a worshipful follower.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 23 Mar 10 | 06:32PM by Gavin Callaghan.