H.P Lovecraft

After reading a bit of HP lovecrafts work I started thinking Lovecrafts death was a bit premature. What if he had lived until say age sixty five. Thats assuming he is in the health to write until say age sixty three. What do you think the effects of this would have been?
 
He would eventually retire. Nothing would change, really. Bear in mind that his work only really became popular a while after his death.
 

Thande

Donor
I'm not a Lovecraft fan but it is an interesting idea. Perhaps if he had lived through WW2 he might be forced to confront the racism that a lot of people note today in his works (pretty strong even by the standards of the day).
 
I'm not a Lovecraft fan but it is an interesting idea. Perhaps if he had lived through WW2 he might be forced to confront the racism that a lot of people note today in his works (pretty strong even by the standards of the day).

On the other hand, he might be even more put off by such things and retreat further away from the world. Takes a lot to move a strong racist like him. Hell, I wonder if he'd support Hitler.
 

Thande

Donor
On the other hand, he might be even more put off by such things and retreat further away from the world. Takes a lot to move a strong racist like him. Hell, I wonder if he'd support Hitler.

True. Perhaps he might even be tied into the whole "Nazi occult beliefs" thing...
 

Hendryk

Banned
True. Perhaps he might even be tied into the whole "Nazi occult beliefs" thing...
Nah, by the end of his life Lovecraft was beginning to distance himself from his earlier paranoid racism, and found Nazism too vulgar for his patrician tastes. Plus he was too much of a rationalist to have any genuine interest for the hodgepodge of occult stuff that was associated with the Nazis ex post facto.

I think a longer-lived Lovecraft would become something of a father figure for the rising generation of horror writers, some of whom went to Hollywood to write screenplays. He'd remain fairly reclusive and oblivious to societal changes, except insofar as they'd provide him with material for his stories.
 

Thande

Donor
Nah, by the end of his life Lovecraft was beginning to distance himself from his earlier paranoid racism, and found Nazism too vulgar for his patrician tastes. Plus he was too much of a rationalist to have any genuine interest for the hodgepodge of occult stuff that was associated with the Nazis ex post facto.

I meant that his writings might be folded into the public vision of Nazi occultism, not the other way around. I mean, there is the whole Antarctica connection for a start.
 
It would be interesting to read what HP would write about WW2. His work involving WW 1 was always interesting but WW 2 is another dimension.

About the racism the evidence regarding said racism is rather muddled and even if he was by the end he was turning against it.
 
It would be interesting to read what HP would write about WW2. His work involving WW 1 was always interesting but WW 2 is another dimension.

About the racism the evidence regarding said racism is rather muddled and even if he was by the end he was turning against it.

He consistently depicted black people as being as inhuman as his own monsters in his book. Rather muddled?
 
He consistently depicted black people as being as inhuman as his own monsters in his book. Rather muddled?


He married a jew,had jewish friends,had a jewish publisher,was known for saying remarkably offensive things even back then just for the shock value and the like.

His depiction of blacks was pretty common in books of the time. Take note that it was not just blacks he depicted as monsters. Pretty much everyone got depicted. Even the proud anglos were shown in many ways to have degraded into monsters worse then negroes were ever shown.

The rats in the walls and shadows over innsmouth are two examples as is the dunwhich horror.
 
He married a jew,had jewish friends,had a jewish publisher,was known for saying remarkably offensive things even back then just for the shock value and the like.

His depiction of blacks was pretty common in books of the time. Take note that it was not just blacks he depicted as monsters. Pretty much everyone got depicted. Even the proud anglos were shown in many ways to have degraded into monsters worse then negroes were ever shown.

The rats in the walls and shadows over innsmouth are two examples as is the dunwhich horror.

And his wife once described him as being physically repulsed by being in the mere presence of blacks and other non-whites. And if he was racist to people other than blacks, then that hardly excuses it, does it? :p

So yeah, he was a racist. No two ways about it. ;)
 
I'm not a Lovecraft fan but it is an interesting idea. Perhaps if he had lived through WW2 he might be forced to confront the racism that a lot of people note today in his works (pretty strong even by the standards of the day).

Actually I find his racism is fairly moderate by the standards of the day. It does not even grate on the modern reader, it's just understood as a product of the time. He would have been able to get away with it well into the sixties, especially in America.
 
And his wife once described him as being physically repulsed by being in the mere presence of blacks and other non-whites. And if he was racist to people other than blacks, then that hardly excuses it, does it? :p

So yeah, he was a racist. No two ways about it. ;)

By our standards so was everyone else at the time. He was a big anglophile even for the time.
 

cbrunish

Banned
You can't really look at older authors in the same context of today. Racism was prevelant at the time (look at Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs). This was the thought at the times. The reason why the government made cocaine illegal was because of the thought that negros would rape white women.:eek: And even President Wilson was a racist.:eek:

I say just enjoy the stories for what they are. Even Mark Twain's writing can be considered racist.
 
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