?> Comments on: The Fears of Lovecraft, Pt. 2 http://www.burnzpost.com/2007/08/27/the-fears-of-lovecraft-pt-2/ burning passions, burning opinions, simply juicy Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:48:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1.2 By: Michelle http://www.burnzpost.com/2007/08/27/the-fears-of-lovecraft-pt-2/#comment-317 Michelle Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:42:29 +0000 http://www.burnzpost.com/2007/08/27/the-fears-of-lovecraft-pt-2/#comment-317 Besides the fact that literary criticism makes me want clean my skin with a copper bristle brush, here I am having a go: It is a little disingenuous to to take early 20th century authors and hold them to the same opinions and standards of today's society. While we can and should realize that their opinions of race were wrong, we should also take time to understand that: 1) but that times standards the were the norm, and 2) that the nomenclature used did not always denote racial hatred, even if we consider it distasteful today. My favorite fictional example of this is the an episode of Disney's Proud Family. When the main character goes back in time to 1950 she talks about being a proud black woman to her father. Her father threatens to punish her for calling herself black...something he considered a racial slur in the 1950's version if himself. While I see the parallels you are drawing from Anthony's work...I would like to point out that the series works toward breaking down that barrier over generations. In the current books Xanth is much more populated with "mixed" characters as Anthony deliberately broke down those barriers in which his world started. Now having said that, Lovecraft's obsession with his lineage did not border on racism...it boarded the train with a paid ticket and a smiling face. As an "Aryan" race subscriber who couldn't handle even unmixed Celtic blood in his veins, racist is probably too kind of a word. He wasn't a fan of women, he believed in pure blood lines which didn't exist and he meted out the punishment for such sins in his writing. As a pulp fan though (both of the horror and the heroic versions) I realize there is merit in such work. 1) to teach a lesson on racism, 2) to show how Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror can deal with the problems of society and be relevant(because Lovecraft does that even if we disagree with his conclusions), 3) and provide entertaining escapism. I still enjoy Lovecraft, even with this understanding of his issue. I would find it harder to enjoy something that rewrites the history of racism as Hollywood often does. That seems more dangerous to me as it is easy to forget the mistakes of our past. Besides the fact that literary criticism makes me want clean my skin with a copper bristle brush, here I am having a go:

It is a little disingenuous to to take early 20th century authors and hold them to the same opinions and standards of today’s society. While we can and should realize that their opinions of race were wrong, we should also take time to understand that: 1) but that times standards the were the norm, and 2) that the nomenclature used did not always denote racial hatred, even if we consider it distasteful today. My favorite fictional example of this is the an episode of Disney’s Proud Family. When the main character goes back in time to 1950 she talks about being a proud black woman to her father. Her father threatens to punish her for calling herself black…something he considered a racial slur in the 1950’s version if himself.

While I see the parallels you are drawing from Anthony’s work…I would like to point out that the series works toward breaking down that barrier over generations. In the current books Xanth is much more populated with “mixed” characters as Anthony deliberately broke down those barriers in which his world started.

Now having said that, Lovecraft’s obsession with his lineage did not border on racism…it boarded the train with a paid ticket and a smiling face. As an “Aryan” race subscriber who couldn’t handle even unmixed Celtic blood in his veins, racist is probably too kind of a word. He wasn’t a fan of women, he believed in pure blood lines which didn’t exist and he meted out the punishment for such sins in his writing.

As a pulp fan though (both of the horror and the heroic versions) I realize there is merit in such work. 1) to teach a lesson on racism, 2) to show how Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror can deal with the problems of society and be relevant(because Lovecraft does that even if we disagree with his conclusions), 3) and provide entertaining escapism.

I still enjoy Lovecraft, even with this understanding of his issue. I would find it harder to enjoy something that rewrites the history of racism as Hollywood often does. That seems more dangerous to me as it is easy to forget the mistakes of our past.

]]>