Was HPL a racist or was he just a man of his times, his fiction just an expression of the general xenophobia present around him and within him?
Or does it matter, even if he was? i.e is it relevant at all - when considering fiction or art - what the writer or artist actually believed in real life?

Has anyone read HPL's letters to Reinhardt Kleiner? These express extreme racist views.

Someone replied:

The more you find out about his life, the more you realize he was a nervous mass of contradictions, a walking labyrinth of irrational fears and sublime wonders. And ya know what, that's probably why we enjoy his works today. His stories are just like him: flawed, yes (aren't we all?), but still wildly complex and highly fascinating. His stories are pretty much about groping around in the dark, trying to make sense out of things -- and ultimately, that's the human condition. In that regard, he hit the nail on the head.

That's the best take on the HPL conundrum, in my view.

And that goes for all mankind's frailties in a sense; frailties that are kept in check by laws and by one's own views of others' views about oneself. Our life is 'Lost' and beset by Others, but through 'art' (the Synchronised Shards of Random Truth & Fiction) hopefully redeemable.

As many know, I'm a great believer in the 'Intentional Fallacy' in 'art' (which includes fiction). Hence, 'Nemonymous'.

Let's hope 'art' will make us love each other, at least for a while, whoever and whatever we are.

comments (2)

1. Weirdmonger left...

Tuesday, 6 November 2007 11:13 am

I think we all know within ourselves who we are and who we are not (most of the time, that is, assuming we can be objective about our own inner feelings). We judge ourselves. We stand up for what we believe to be right (even if that 'right' may be different from someone else's 'right').

We also judge others, from what we can see in them, from what we hear them say, from what they create (artistic or whatever) etc. But these judgements are often undependable inferences.

It is, however, I agree, human nature to allow those inferences to at least tinge our view of the products of that person about whom we are inferring (includng the books, works of art etc. that the person has created).

I think the original question of this thread allows us to explore this and draw varying conclusions. I have spent a lifetime reading HPL's fiction and simultaneoulsy wondering (agonising) whether I shoud be spending a lifetime in this way. More recently I have asked myself: what if I knew nothing at all about the person who wrote the HPL canon of fiction...?

=======================

Someone said (in the context of the internet): "It's much more difficult now to divide the author from the words and so personal lives, philosophy, etc. are factors in a way they never were in Lovecraft's time."

Perhaps it's time to try and halt this trend, then? The works should be all.

HPL expressed *extreme* racism (to my modern eye) in his letters (for example) to Reinhardt Kleiner. It wasn't possibly seen as racism then, however.

His fiction may or may not have stemmed from the fears (?) or prejudices (?) underpinnining such expressed 'racism', but his fiction certainly for me works well *without* knowing whether or not his fiction actually did stem from such expressed 'racism'.

2. Weirdmonger left...

Monday, 12 November 2007 9:53 am

Here is my story about HPL from 'Crypt of Cthuhlu' 1991 (Inside The Bud): http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/2007/11/12/

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