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Originally Posted by j. d. worthington  But, as I said, I don't think we need duck the issue where Lovecraft is concerned. If we can get past our own prejudices on this front, I think we'll find there's much more to be gained by reading him as he was, taking the blemished and the fair, and simply seeing him as he was, not as either a saint or a devil, but a very intelligent and complex man who refuses to fit into any easy mold.... |
Excellently put, this part in particular I liked, and a very thorough and interesting post. You also encouraged me to read some poems of HPL's that I hadn't previously read. It's obvious that Lovecraft did make some highly racist comments and clearly held ideas based on 18th-19th century pseudoscience and was a unrestrained anglophile. On the other hand I'd say that some of his resistance to changing these ideas were thoroughly engrained and added to by a seemingly anti-modernist approach to the world. From the way in which I read his works it seems to me more an artistic device in his stories rather than a particular attempt to introduce racial overtones (though of course it's an interesting question as to how much it shadows and affects his choices in this regard, the ideas of eugenics clearly hold interest for him and he explores them).
As you noted miscegenation is often at least a minor or background theme (and in the case you mentioned a rather larger part is given) but I'd also say that he seems to look at it more from the point of effective horror writing than from a persuasive or polemnical one. He seems to me to be more trying to evoke a certain terror and foreboding with themes of mental and physical degradation and corruption that extends and worsens over generations and in which humankind is shaped and twisted to better serve or amuse dark forces (which incidentally helps give scale and proper scope to his more alien and ageless horrors) than trying to espouse racist views. It is in that sense probably a bit telling as to his views that he manifested those fears in that particular way but as you note they was hardly an unusual views (even or perhaps particularly amongst the more literate section of society). Of course that's just my opinion but it's the impression that I at least get from reading his work - all in all I think that his work isn't particularly racist, despite certain over tones and approaches to the issues and regardless of exactly what views Lovecraft himself held (something that's ultimately impossible to truly know anyway).
As to the way some people judge Lovecraft and others - well in a way it's kind of ironic that culturally we openly tend to have an attitude of false superiority over people of other cultures and times for having openly attitudes of false superiority over other people (and their cultures). And in the end let's face it you don't have to agree with a person's attitudes to greatly enjoy their writing.
PS All of that said it is kind of sad that his work is featured amongst many white supremacist sites (amusing in light of his views on degenerate white trash), I suppose that we can at least take comfort that it might make them into more literate racists at least - there's always hope, no?