tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273317289668707416.post2128923862664090603..comments2023-11-03T07:47:28.307-07:00Comments on Charles Hoffman: Essays and Fiction: Making Excuses for Lovecraft's RacismCharles Hoffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03465623287702558974noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273317289668707416.post-1223683924507350332016-03-13T13:20:41.180-07:002016-03-13T13:20:41.180-07:00Very solid post, though I might quibble with a few...Very solid post, though I might quibble with a few points. I think #9 is probably the most cogent point of the discussion - it's sort of the rough edges that make Lovecraft who he was, and make his fiction what it is. We know now that many of his views on race were factually incorrect (he lived in the days before DNA, and often talked about "races" the way we might talk about breeding dogs or flowers), but many of the same misconceptions of race, genetics, and evolution that Lovecraft had, and which so informed and appeared in his works, are with us today. You can't really squirm at the ending of "Medusa's Coil" without being acutely aware of what miscegenation is, for example.<br /><br />I touched on some aspects of this in SEX AND THE CTHULHU MYTHOS and "The Shadow Out of Spain" articles about Hispanics in the fiction and correspondence of Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard - and I'm working on a much more in-depth examination of Lovecraft's beliefs regarding race and prejudice - but I think it also worth remembering that in his own light, Lovecraft acknowledged many of his prejudices but did not think himself a bigoted. He wrote to Rheinhart Kleiner in 1915:<br /><br />"I hardly wonder that my racial ideas seem bigoted to one born & reared in the vicinity of cosmopolitan New York, but you may better understand my repulsion to the Jew when I tell you that until I was fourteen years old I do not believe I ever spoke to one or saw one knowingly." (Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner 27)<br /><br />Personally, I think Lovecraft neither needs to be apologized nor demonized for his views - but only that those views should be better understood, placed in their proper context, and that their effects on us today are realized.greyirishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08613850313903205301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273317289668707416.post-31338045023604827312016-03-13T13:06:16.626-07:002016-03-13T13:06:16.626-07:00This is probably the sanest dissection of this iss...This is probably the sanest dissection of this issue that I have seen. Well done!<br /><br />One of these days I am going to sit down and read all Lovecraft texts available to me dating from 1 January 1936 to 15 March 1937, to see where HPL stood in his last year.<br /><br />Martin AnderssonMagisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07903799437411528229noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6273317289668707416.post-29656398461500502482016-03-13T12:45:40.630-07:002016-03-13T12:45:40.630-07:00Excellent and very well researched essay! I wish t...Excellent and very well researched essay! I wish there were more voices of common sense as yours, sir. Well done! BryAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08014945370736817466noreply@blogger.com