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S. T. Joshi Can't Stop Ranting About Lovecraft and Race

9/22/2014

33 Comments

 
Today I’d like to talk a bit about S. T. Joshi’s continued freak out over H. P. Lovecraft and racism. I know I shouldn’t keep talking about it, but I just can’t look away. I’ve never seen a literary critic implode so dramatically.

You will recall that Joshi’s dander rose up when Daniel Older suggested that the World Fantasy Award not take the shape of H. P. Lovecraft because Lovecraft was a racist who is not representative of current fantasy authors. He wrote a lengthy screed accusing Older of improperly going beyond his station by questioning his betters, prompting criticism from several quarters.
In a pair of blog posts published last week (September 16 and 18, 2014—he still does not have permalinks to individual entries) Joshi revisits his apoplectic rage that anyone should be troubled by H. P. Lovecraft’s racism, all while claiming that he has no interest in continuing to discuss the point. In the first post he singles out Salon.com book reviewer Laura Miller, who he says is unqualified to speak about Lovecraft and racism due to her lowly status as a journalist:
It is an unfortunate fact that journalists like Laura Miller—and that is all she is; to think of her as a literary or cultural critic would be equivalent to thinking of Edgar Rice Burroughs as an anthropologist—generally lack the education and training to have anything like a comprehensive grasp of the history of prose expression from the Greeks to the present.
This is, of course, in opposition to S. T. Joshi, a man who by his own autobiographical admission became a self-described literary critic at the age of 17 (when he clearly had a comprehensive grasp of the history of prose expression!) and later dropped out of a Ph.D. program in philosophy without receiving a degree to become a book editor.

I’m not sure what’s more insulting, the idea that journalists are disqualified from being cultural critics or that Joshi demands greater education and training from his critics than from himself. As someone who has somehow not found the secret door to the cultural critic club, I have nevertheless managed to write literary criticism (Knowing Fear, 2008; A Hideous Bit of Morbidity, 2009; my chapter in 21st Century Gothic, 2010—with a forward from S. T. Joshi!) without either a Ph.D. or formal training the history of prose expression.

But the real verbal fireworks came in the second post, when Joshi attacked Older anew for some ill-considered remarks Older made in The Guardian, where he falsely asserted that Lovecraft “enthusiastically advocated genocide,” which is simply not the case. However, Older almost certainly got the idea from Lovecraft’s letters, where Lovecraft hyperbolically said of “niggers” and the “puffy, rat-faced Jew”: “Either stow ’em out of sight or kill ’em off – anything so that a white man may walk along the streets without shuddering nausea” (February 1925 letter). He was, by his own admission, an enthusiastic supporter of “the Jim Crow principle.” But in answer Joshi does not bring up Lovecraft’s most hateful words; instead he quotes some of Lovecraft’s less inflammatory comments calling for segregation and then insults Older’s intelligence, demanding that Older thank heaven that “stupidity isn’t a capital offense,” and questioning facetiously whether Older understands a “three syllable word” or the concept of “suffrage.”

Joshi, though, is not done stooping to unbecoming insults. He is also enraged that Older fails to appreciate Lovecraft as a prose stylist, in which company Older joins Edmund Wilson—a far more accomplished literary critic than Joshi—and many others. Even Lovecraft’s admirers usually admit that many of his early works are overwritten. But Joshi can’t let a single point go, so he stoops to a false comparison in an attempt to humiliate Older. He attacks Older’s admittedly clunky prose by contrasting it dishonestly with that of Lovecraft.

Here is the excerpt he gives from Older’s Salsa Nocturna, from the story "Tenderfoot," a tale published in the Innsmouth Free Press:
When the regular fully dead Council agents want to get in touch with headquarters, they just use that special afterlife telepathy shit and it’s done. My half-and-half ass has to use the phone. I receive all their irritating updates and directives perfectly clearly—comes through like a radio blasting inside my head, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t work the other way. They rigged up a phone line and answering machine somewhere in that vast, misty warehouse they've taken over in Sunset Park. I call the number, leave my message and wait for the reply to blare through my skull.
Masterful literature it is not; Older’s prose style might be compared with Chuck Palahniuk, and it is obviously meant to invoke a masculine and streetwise urban patois. I hate it, but it’s the author’s choice. Joshi intentionally pretends not to understand the lines he quotes—which obviously enough refer to a semi-dead narrator (it’s a horror story, after all) with an incomplete psychic connection to the Council of the Dead.
Bravo! Hear, hear! I’m shedding tears of aesthetic rapture…well, at least tears of some sort. But certain things do puzzle me. I cannot imagine what a “half-and-half ass” could possibly be—perhaps an ass somehow made of cream? And the exquisitely radical failure to harmonise subject and verb (“irritating updates and directives…comes”) must mean that Older defies the stale and old-fashioned rules of grammar—which, after all, were instituted by all those dead white males!
Joshi ought to know better; a first person narrator speaks in his or her dialect, and the failure of grammar he points to is undercut by the em-dash, which signals a break in the grammatical construction, not its continuation. Therefore, comparing this admittedly clunky prose to Lovecraft’s erudite opening to “The Call of Cthulhu” is an improper comparison; the better choice would be to compare it to Lovecraft’s own wretched dialect writing, like the aesthetic rapture of “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”:
It took Obed to git the truth aout o’ them heathen. I dun’t know haow he done it, but he begun by tradin’ fer the gold-like things they wore. Ast ’em whar they come from, an’ ef they cud git more, an’ finally wormed the story aout o’ the old chief—Walakea, they called him. Nobody but Obed ud ever a believed the old yeller devil, but the Cap’n cud read folks like they was books. Heh, heh! Nobody never believes me naow when I tell ’em, an’ I dun’t s’pose you will, young feller—though come to look at ye, ye hev kind o’ got them sharp-readin’ eyes like Obed had.
Oh, right: It’s full of racist crap about Pacific Islanders, in a story about the horror of miscegenation.

Joshi concludes that Older is not able to cast judgment on Lovecraft because Older’s own prose does not compare to that of Lovecraft. So, to take him at his word, by what right does Joshi cast judgment on either man’s prose, either to praise Lovecraft or condemn Older? His own fiction is, in a word, serviceable. I say this as the highly (if facetiously) praised author of a story about zombie pigs in the Baconology anthology. Here’s some of Joshi’s own work, from the novel The Removal Company, which he published under the name J. K. Maxwell, larded as it is with clichés, and an em-dash that lets him violate the grammatical rule whereby a prepositional phrase must include a preposition:
Imagine Joe Scintilla a college boy! — Johns Hopkins U., no less. I was just a bit too young for the initial draft registration of May 1917, and by the time I did register a few months later I was already neck deep in books. I browsed into everything—English, history, philosophy, science—specializing in nothing. But when I finished, I had no desire to be a cog in someone else’s machine: I had to strike out on my own.
But Joshi doesn’t care to follow his own diktats; he is instead a polemicist offering a closing argument on the greatness of Lovecraft to an imaginary jury he perceives to be adjudicating between Daniel Older and the silent Lovecraft. And like a literary lawyer, he’s happy to use innuendo, insults, and incomplete arguments to push an emotional case by making the argument about the character of the plaintiff—Daniel Older—rather than actions of the defendant. Older’s prose is irrelevant to his claim, just as Laura Miller’s two decades of journalism have no impact on her ability to form a judgment on Lovecraft.

Let’s conclude with a few of Lovecraft’s own thoughts, taken from his October 12, 1928 letter to August Derleth, collected by none other than S. T. Joshi in Essential Solitude vol. 1 (2010):
In the matter of politics—I don’t go much with the younger crowd. I’m more interested in keeping the present 300-year-old culture-germ in America unharmed, than in trying out any experiments in “social justice”. [Al] Smith, to my mind, is a direct exponent of the newer-immigration element—the decadent & unassimilable hordes from Southern Europe & the East whose presence in large numbers is a direct & profound menace to the continued growth of the Nordic-American nation we know. Some people may like the idea of a mongrel America like the late Roman Empire, but I for one prefer to die in the same America that I was born in. Therefore, I’m against any candidate who talks of letting down the bars to stunted brachycephalic South-Italians & rat-faced half-Mongoloid Russian & Polish Jews, & all that cursed scum! You in the Middle West can’t conceive of the extent of the menace. You ought to see a typical Eastern city crowd—swart, aberrant physiognomies, & gestures & jabbering born of alien instincts.
Compare Lovecraft’s anti-Italian rant with that of Thomas Sinclair 35 years earlier, which similarly called for a Nordic-Teutonic white retrenchment against Italians by celebrating the alleged ancient voyage of Henry Sinclair of Orkney in place of Columbus, a myth that remains with us today.

Four of my great-grandparents were among the “stunted brachycephalic South-Italians” who gave Lovecraft such horror. The other four, three Poles and a German might not have quite classified as “cursed scum,” though only by dint of not being “Jews.” Well, the German probably passed muster except for his unfortunate Habsburg Empire tendency toward intercultural marriage. But Joshi is right on this point: The prose paints Lovecraft’s hatred in more beautiful blossoms of putrescent extravagance than ever Older did write.
33 Comments
spookyparadigm
9/22/2014 07:40:45 am

Saw his posts, thought about passing them along, didn't much see the point. Joshi has severely damaged his reputation with these rants. And while those with even a passing interest in Lovecraft's actual writings probably know Joshi's name, this is probably the first time most people who have vaguely heard of Lovecraft/Cthulhu (aka, most of the internets) will have heard Joshi, as a ranting and raving old man apologizing for obvious racism.

Wilson's critiques of Lovecraft as a writer were off-base. But one section wasn't. Wilson explicitly criticizes all the Cthulhu fanboys that already existed even at that early date, comparing them with the Holmes fanatics. One suspects that this inspires part of Wilson's disdain for Lovecraft, much in the same way that it is impossible to review or critique the original Star Trek without talking about it as a cultural phenomenon. This same class-based snobbishness (with sf fans being even more working or skilled-laborer class then than they are today) is also why professional academics have been so slow to address issues like pseudoarchaeology, UFOs etc even as just social or psychological phenomenon. They're gauche.

Joshi's rants, coming from the man who has done the most to legitimize Lovecraft, are deeply hurting his legacy and his cause. I knew he could be kind of pointed, but I did not expect he was missing this level of self-awareness.

Reply
EP
9/22/2014 09:23:07 am

"professional academics have been so slow to address issues like pseudoarchaeology, UFOs etc even as just social or psychological phenomenon."

That's not quite true, especially the psychological part. There is a substantial empirical literature and there has been for a while. If by addressing you mean debunking, then I agree, though I'd attribute it to different causes (i.e., not cultural snobbery).

Reply
spookyparadigm
9/22/2014 10:39:36 am

I don't mean debunking, especially in the UFO case.

I should be clear though. I usually don't think of Contactees and Space Religions when I think of UFOs. That just seems to be a very slightly different version of new religious movements and yes, that has made them easy for sociologists and psychologists to study. They look a lot like topics they already knew, but with more tin foil.

"Discovery"-based paranormal activities (as classified in the book Paranormal America) have not gotten much attention. Here I mean what is usually called ufology, cryptozoology, parapsychology, much of pseudoarchaeology (what cultural study there has been of that topic before very recently has largely been in cases of state-driven bad archaeology, usually the Nazis though other examples more recently), and similar efforts that use the rhetoric of science but not the methods. Folklore has touched on the beliefs of these people somewhat (Rojciewiscz [sp.] comes to mind, along with a few others), and we've seen more on them recently, but not a lot. There have been some psychological attempts at addressing witnesses, but they're not common, and they're usually pretty shitty IMHO. At least in terms of ufology, this is a literature I am pretty familiar with.

Alien abduction has gotten decent treatment, oddly enough.

The one caveat I'd add to the above is that I've mellowed my stance re: contactees/ufologists or mediums/parapsychologists. That wall is a little more porous than I once thought. Nonetheless, it still is there. You can read all the studies of the Unarians you want, they're not going to help you all that much in understanding Stan Friedman, Kevin Randle, Jacques Vallee, and those who listen to them. Studies of Spiritualism might help somewhat in understanding ghost hunting groups though not entirely, and it isn't that much use in trying to understand the psi labs, Rhine, STARGATE and so on.

EP
9/22/2014 11:31:15 am

Sounds like you have a fairly restricted topic in mind (though I still not fully understand what it is). Friedman et al and their fans? Whether this phenomenon is anything other than a special case of something generally better studied depends on what it is exactly that you mean by "understanding" them.

Casey Allen
5/31/2016 06:43:10 pm

Joshi's real fans (and yes, I include myself) aren't the least bit put off by his comments. Why so? Because we've read what he's already done, and we've come to appreciate his work on HPL's textually corrected versions of all of his stories. We also appreciate how he helped HPL finally get published by Penguin. He was...understandably hurt by the World Fantasy Award getting changed from HPL into someone else's image. Why wouldn't this upset him? He's a human being, not a robot...

Reply
spookyparadigm
9/22/2014 07:45:19 am

I mentioned this before, but now I feel it confirmed.

Joshi definitely has absorbed Lovecraft's letter writing style. This passage, at first glance, looked like Lovecraft

"Imagine Joe Scintilla a college boy! — Johns Hopkins U., no less. I was just a bit too young for the initial draft registration of May 1917, and by the time I did register a few months later I was already neck deep in books. I browsed into everything—English, history, philosophy, science—specializing in nothing. But when I finished, I had no desire to be a cog in someone else’s machine: I had to strike out on my own."

Only the last line made me re-read your description and realize I wasn't reading a Selected Letter excerpt.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, I'm not qualified. But whether on purpose or not, it sounds like Lovecraft's letters.

Reply
EP
9/22/2014 09:24:17 am

I'm qualified. It's bad. :)

Reply
Not the Comte de Saint Germain
9/22/2014 07:48:29 am

So the late Roman Empire was "mongrel" and undesirable, the implication being that Rome declined because of a mixture of races. What did Lovecraft have in mind? The influx of Germanic tribes during the late empire? I thought in his mind Germans were preferable to "stunted brachycephalic South-Italians"—like, y'know, the people of Rome, who in ancient times regarded Latium as more like Campania than like Etruria, let alone Gaul and the German borders. Racist logic is so warped.

Reply
spookyparadigm
9/22/2014 08:00:27 am

In the early 1920s especially, he repeatedly attacked Christian and Jewish morality as non-masculine and weak, vs. Teutonic assertiveness. Yes, this is the same guy who leached off his mother and aunts his entire life except for the few years he leached off his wife, whom he really wasn't all that fond of anyway except as a social fixture.

I assume he imagines the Roman empire that he loved being done in by the "Jewish" sect Christianity.

You know, I'm really starting to think Joshi is mistaken in his atheist idol worship of Lovecraft. Lovecraft really should be thought of as his own eccentric neopagan. He studied Classical myth and literature as a child, had experiences regarding nature spirits that sound religious, and his mythology basically repopulated the scientific world with cthonic chaos monsters and titans (but no Olympean gods in almost all cases).

Reply
EP
9/22/2014 09:26:58 am

Lovecraft speaks of "Oriental" influences in general bringing down the Roman empire. By which, I take it, he does mean "Semitic" cults, but also decadence more generally.

spookyparadigm
9/22/2014 10:50:19 am

He probably does mean decadence too, given his weird fixation on the Decadents in some of his tales, but in his letters I do think "Oriental" can usually be read as mostly Jewish with some Christian and other meanings. He referred to Einstein as "a man with Oriental eyes" in Hypnos, though he was more respectful later on.

Shane Sullivan
9/22/2014 12:08:53 pm

I'm guessing he counted the Huns as dastardly "Orientals" as well.

CHV
9/22/2014 08:12:43 am

I wonder if Joshi realizes that better than 95% of American readers probably still have no idea who even Lovecraft is?

Reply
The Other J.
9/23/2014 09:49:59 pm

A lot of literary debates are over postage-stamp-sized chunks of intellectual geography.

Reply
Casey Allen
5/31/2016 06:28:46 pm

95% of American readers don't know who Nabokov is. And...? Guess what? Nabokov's still a good writer.

Reply
Scott Hamilton
9/22/2014 09:46:02 am

So Joshi's arguments have gone from "Lovecraft wasn't really that racist" to "Lovecraft was racist, but it's doesn't matter because he was an atheist" to "Lovecraft was a raci-nya-nya-nya-nyaaaaa!!!" You would think an omnipotent Literary Critic™ like himself would realize that the progression here isn't good.

Reply
Residents Fan
9/22/2014 10:38:36 am

"So Joshi's arguments have gone from "Lovecraft wasn't really that racist" to "Lovecraft was racist, but it's doesn't matter because he was an atheist" to "Lovecraft was a raci-nya-nya-nya-nyaaaaa!!!" You would think an omnipotent Literary Critic™ like himself would realize that the progression here isn't good. "

I was never Joshi's biggest fan, but his contradictory and
gratuitously offensive comments on this issue have really
sunk his reputation in my eyes. Why not contact Older,
Mr. Joshi, and have a polite debate about why you disagree with
his assessments of Lovecraft's opinions and work, without insulting him?

I can't imagine Jack Sullivan, Gary William Crawford,
David Punter, the late E. F. Bleiler or other scholars of supernatural horror behaving in such a overbearing and egotistic fashion.

Reply
EP
9/22/2014 01:58:32 pm

I don't know... Not to impute anything to these fine gentlemen, but every once in a whle I find myself surprised to see scholars much more respectable than Joshi going full retard (especially in their later years).

666
9/22/2014 10:05:33 am

RACE RACE RACE RACE - BLOW THAT !!!!

EVERYTIME THE STATEMENT IS UTTERED THAT AMERICA WAS DISCOVERED - THAT'S RACISM !!!

HOW CONDESCENDING THAT THE WHITE MAN DISCOVERED THE RED INDIANS BECAUSE HE WAS SUPERIOR

Reply
Only Me
9/22/2014 10:23:56 am

You managed to fit a lot of stupid into that last post. I'm impressed.

By the way, calm down.

Reply
Residents Fan
9/22/2014 10:23:22 am

Joshi's mention of E. Nesbit and her opposition to women's
suffrage is misleading- I am aware of NONE of Nesbit's
non-fiction currently being available, let alone any of her non-fiction
opposing women's rights. Whereas large amounts
of HPL's non-fiction is available, including his racist material.

"...Where exactly did Lovecraft ever make such a pronouncement?

Several parts of HPL's letters do advocate possible mass murder of ethnic groups Lovecraft considered undesirable, so he did "make
such a pronouncement" several times, like here:

"Either stow 'em out of sight or kill 'em off – anything so that a white man may walk along the streets without shuddering nausea".–Letter from Lovecraft to A.E.P. Gamwell, February 1925.

Joshi's complaints that Older's criticisms of past racism but not sexism means he is being "curiously selective" is also inaccurate, given Older is on record as being a
opponent of sexism and domestic violence:

http://www.nicoleclarkconsulting.com/post/20841110395/ally-alert-daniel-jose-older

Something else that I haven't seen mentioned yet in the debate on
H. P. L's racism, is that there are people - White Supremacists
neo-Nazis, and members of the " Neo-Reactionary " movement-
who admire Lovecraft for his racist views as much as
his fiction.

This essay here notes that "Lovecraft circulates
widely on the racist Internet" and "Some of Lovecraft’s racist fans embrace his extremes".

http://intensitiescultmedia.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/e-claverie-lovecraft-fandoms2.pdf


Reply
Residents Fan
9/22/2014 10:57:36 am

Small error- I said "NONE of Nesbit's
non-fiction" is currently available, but her essay
"Wings and the Child" is available on Createspace.

Reply
madhatter
9/22/2014 06:01:55 pm

I had to stop reading. I know where the whine of the weak is going.

Look, The man knows lovecraft more then you do. He also is a minority and a scholar and is against bigotry but he is(As he should be) against hypocrisy more so.

Quit pretending you are better then you are would be the first step X or Ghandi or anyone with half a brain would tell finger pointers.

Look, People who win the WFA are people who benifited greatly from Lovecraft. It will be the same when Stephen King is honored decades from now and lib tards will come out screaming "He was Racist" and yes those same authors against the Lovecraft Bust have already came out and said such things.

The question is. Are you a Racist and are your papers in order.

If you don't like people complaining about people complaibubg,
Then the best thing to do would be STFU.

Course that is self censorship and today's progressives think it's others that need to be censored and not them.

So Censor away. I see John Joseph Adams has done so on his site(though he didn't mind having approving a racist comment about whites)

Reply
EP
9/22/2014 06:50:08 pm

Yours is "the whine of the strong", then?

Reply
Only Me
9/22/2014 09:16:04 pm

Let's see, you don't like liberals and obviously don't understand the meaning of hypocrisy.

Pointing out the fact Joshi is being an asshole in defense of a man that would classify him as one of the "Orientals" he held in contempt is an irony that you also fail to comprehend.

You don't actually have an argument to make and you want Jason to keep quiet because, uh oh, he better be perfect, or else we'll see what skeletons are in his closet!

And "people complaibubg"?! What the hell is that? Is it something people can actually do? Or is this a case of "Dew knot trussed yore spell checker"?

Reply
Residents Fan
9/23/2014 09:01:39 am

Kevin J. Maroney of "New York Review of Science Fiction" weighs in and favours a change to the WFA:

" I urge the World Fantasy Convention to decide quickly on a replacement that can fairly represent all of fantasy and all of its audience and creators, whether it be a iconic creature such as a dragon or chimera (Mamatas’s suggestion); a map (my own preference) or a book; or something more abstract still. HPL’s head should be retired as soon as possible, not out of disrespect for Lovecraft as a writer or as a central figure in fantasy, but as a courtesy to generations of writers whom the WFA hopes to honor."

http://www.nyrsf.com/2014/09/issue-312-august-2014-editorial-chance-of-face-change-of-heart.html

Author Carrie Cuinn agrees, and suggests a sea serpent
as the new WFA symbol:

http://skiffyandfanty.com/2014/09/11/secret-option-c-a-more-inclusive-world-fantasy-award-statue-isnt-a-person-at-all-by-carrie-cuinn/

Reply
Vague Pseudonym
9/26/2014 12:02:14 pm

"I hate it, but it’s the author’s choice."

So...it's the old: I like this guy over that guy. Any valid complaints (even if I agree) about the first guy don't really matter. But the other guy, evidencing the same (or less) negative qualities is stupid, a jerk, and bad at what he claims to be good at.

You're right. It's the author's choice. It's Older's choice. It's Joshi's choice. Unless your mad at one of them, then it's intolerable.

Is no one on the Internet able to objectively look at their own actions to see the hypocrisy?

Reply
Jason Colavito link
9/26/2014 12:51:46 pm

I have no idea what you are accusing me of. I defended Older's choice to use a style I personally dislike against Joshi's condemnation of that style because he personally disliked it. That isn't hypocrisy, since I advocated the right of all the authors to use literary styles I don't like for their purposes.

Reply
Vague Pseudonym
9/26/2014 01:28:56 pm

Then clearly you do have an idea what I am accusing you of.

Louis Manzato
12/1/2014 11:16:02 pm

This is all very odd; Joshi now has a sideline in social/cultural-commentary books (pro-atheist and anti-conservative books, in both cases needlessly strident; especially for a fellow determined to pretend Lovecraft's extreme racism was nothing that need concern anyone not on his approved list). But frankly....? - watching blowhards who insist we must all believe the same things and hold the same opinions (else face immediate expulsion from polite society and public life) trip up on their own pompous hypocrisy is - dare I say it? - deeply satisfying.

It's been said before, but it bears repeating: as a social critic and cultural commentator, Joshi's a helluva Lovecraft biographer.

Reply
Ralph E Vaughan
8/11/2015 01:00:18 pm

Lovecraft was good with racism in theory, but rather inept putting it into practice. He never met anyone he didn't like, people liked him even if he was prudish and aloof to strangers, and as he traveled and widened his experience, he began to understand that his upbringing had left him a mess. Had he lived longer, he might have become a regular guy.

Reply
Casey Allen
5/31/2016 06:32:08 pm

I thank God every day he DIDN'T become a regular guy, Ralph, because then he wouldn't of written his damn cool horror tales...

Reply
Michelle Benoit
11/15/2015 10:56:51 am

Why is Joshi ranting about Lovecraft and race? Is it only Joshi who can't stop ranting about Lovecraft and race?

My expertise surely pales in comparison to those of Mr. Colavito and Mr. Joshi. I think that my perspective as but an interested layman might shed some light on this seemingly endless mud-slinging contest between Lovecraft critics on the issue of his racism.

It has been established, beyond any doubt (and I think Mr. Joshi would agree), that Lovecraft harbored a number of views that -- through the lens of our society today -- would be called "racist." The evidence abounds. There is also a considerable body of evidence, as Joshi is keen to point out, that Lovecraft's views on race shifted and developed throughout his life and career, and were far from "black and white" (please forgive the pun). In some writings, his vitriolic xenophobia is undeniable; in others, he exhibits -- in stark contrast -- an air of thoughtful appreciation.

I'm neither keen to condemn figures of history for holding historical views, nor to ignore the importance of modern perspectives in the interpretation of historical works. Was Lovecraft a racist? I think by modern standards, the answer is "yes." Did his racism and xenophobia influence his work and style? I say: undeniably so; I also think his anxious tendencies, social insecurities, difficult upbringing, and any number of such circumstantial factors left an indelible mark on his work, life, and legacy.

So I return to my opening line of questioning. Why is Joshi ranting about race? I suggest a simple explanation: Joshi is among the foremost experts on Lovecraft's life and work, and he feels that other critics simply place undue weight on Lovecraft's views on race. I think this is a fair argument for Joshi to make -- though I'll not say whether he's right or wrong, as I feel wholly unqualified to make such a determination -- when opinion columnists like Miller quote Joshi's critical works (largely without context, as he points out in his defense) in lengthy, highly politicized essays to make a point of Lovecraft's racist views.

Meanwhile, Mr. Colavito cannot help but fire back with rants in kind, stooping to unflattering ad hominem nonsense, out-of-context quoting, and conflationary rhetoric as he admonishes Joshi of all of the same.

I don't mean to pick sides or point fingers, but it's all so unproductive from my point of view. Just this bit, for starters: "...by his own autobiographical admission [Joshi] became a self-described literary critic at the age of 17..." In reality, Joshi's autobiographical "admission" reads like this, "When I was seventeen I decided to abandon fiction-writing and become a literary critic." Then he went to Brown University where he received his BA in classics in 1980, was first published in '81, and received his MA in '82 before enrolling in a Ph.D program on scholarship.

How does his writing "when I was seventeen I decided... to become a literary critic," and his subsequent receipt of a BA and an MA from Brown, reasonably permit a fair-minded individual to say that Joshi "became a self-described literary critic at the age of 17 (when he clearly had a comprehensive grasp of the history of prose expression!) and later dropped out of a Ph.D. program in philosophy without receiving a degree to become a book editor."

Joshi isn't innocent by any means, but I think it's fair to describe his Lovecraftian expertise as being somewhat greater than that of Ms. Miller, who nevertheless penned an essay for Salon in which she dismissed his comments with neither context nor qualification.

If Joshi is ranting about Lovecraft and race, so are Miller, Colavito, and half a dozen other critics. One side says that Lovecraft's body of complex, deeply symbolic work is best understood in the critical context of his life as a whole, and the other side says that his views on race are present throughout his work and offer critical insight. Which is to say, nobody is disagreeing with anybody; the two views aren't mutually exclusive. Things only get messy when Joshi's comments regarding the World Fantasy Award get thrown into the mix, and only then because he expressed those comments poorly and opposing commentators jump too quickly to personal attacks to realize that his opinions about the WFA and his critical interpretation of the Lovecraft corpus are, in fact, entirely separate issues.

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        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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