I've often written about my lifelong fascination with the writings and personal life of famed weird fiction writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
One aspect of his life that I have never written about is his "racism". I have not written of this because it is always a hot button of serious debate amongst fans & scholars alike. These debates never solve or even further the understanding of the man's writing's or his life. Useless as it is to debate whether his work loses meaning because of his personal beliefs, I am finally going to join in this quagmire to offer my own thoughts & feelings regarding this topic.
Oh, I am quite sure that some of you reading this will be gnashing your teeth & railing against your smartphones at what I am going to say. I first say to you this: be patient & thoroughly read this blog entry to it's conclusion.
There is little need for an introduction about Lovecraft as undoubtedly if you've had the interest to read this far, you already know who he was & have read at least some of his writings. It would be an unnecessary and redundant exercise.
So, let's get to the heart of the matter.
H.P. Lovecraft had racist views that spilled into his writings. Yes, indeed he did. There is no argument that this is true.
Lovecraft was a frail & faulty human being, as we all are. The era in which he was born & raised cannot bear the full responsibility in the creation of his feelings - as not all people at the time held the same feelings as he did. The era certainly had a part in it, although I believe it was only partially responsible.
Many factors make people feel as they do. Humans are a vastly intricate, almost incomprehensible, conglomeration of many different things. Many aspects of which will never be understood. No one on Earth is exempt from this most basic realization.
Every single one of us have feelings that we share & some that we don't. All of us.
We all internalize those feelings that we have been told are undesirable concepts for "normal" people to possess.
All feelings that a person has is valid. It is how one acts upon those feelings that make them right or wrong.
That was true in Lovecraft's era & it is true today.
To look back in time & condemn this man for his thoughts & feelings is ridiculous. To strip away his work & posthumous notability is wrong for us to do.
Our current "enlightened" status is systematically destroying or rewriting the past. Lovecraft is a victim of retroactive political correctness.
Great works, like Lovecraft, must be preserved as they were written & left untouched. We can derive meaning from the work in all of it's ways, good or bad. Determining the "worth" of written work is totally up to the reader and not the imposition of a moral judgement from a group of people acting retrospectively.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Stowe has been heavily edited. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Twain suffered the same fate.
Why? Because some of the words in the books are condoned as offensive by modern society. Are the words offensive? Yes. Should the works be edited? No. Have Twain & Stowe been stamped as bigoted racists? No.
So why has Lovecraft not been afforded the same luxury as Twain & Stowe?
Lovecraft's image has been removed from literary awards, essays written condemning the man for his views, his work pulled from school libraries...
Lovecraft was simply a man. A man with faults. A man who created the greatest science fiction and horror mythos ever written. His personal feelings crept into his work as alien hybrids, strange invaders, mysterious forces & incomprehensible madness.
He was a flawed human being as we all are. No better, no worse.
Cover art depicting a scene from "The Call of Cthulhu" (above).
