4 ms·
"Lovecraftian" is still used as a general term for an entire genre of fiction. He was a xenophobe, but that is not what he's best known for. Similarly, Aristotl
by chc 9y ago
"Lovecraftian" is still used as a general term for an entire genre of fiction. He was a xenophobe, but that is not what he's best known for. Similarly, Aristotle was a misogynist, but it would not be accurate to say that Aristotle is best known as a navel-gazing misogynist.
- scarmig 9y agoI think it's a bit more complicated than that. Lovecraft is fundamentally about confronting modernism and the inevitable decay of humanity in the faces of forces beyond our control. Central to that is the decay of the Anglo-Saxon genetic stock. Xenophobic isn't quite the right word. Racist is closer, but even that misses the mark. Every story he writes is terrified of black voodoo savages, or toothless white hill people, or inbred decadent Boston brahmin families, or fishermen that are half-white-half-Chinese-half-fish. Aristotle, by contrast, isn't that concerned with gender. He is happy to treat it as a topic, but he has nowhere near the same level of preoccupation.
- Apocryphon 9y agoUr-tribalist, perhaps.
- sooheon 9y agoWow, I just learned that I despise the prefix "ur-" far more than is reasonable. Seriously though, why not call it "tribalist"?
- Apocryphon 9y agoNot ultra- enough, in Lovecraft's case.
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoLovecraft would've added at least three more adjectives.
- chc 9y agoThe story in question, At the Mountains of Madness, isn't about any of those things. It's about an Antarctic expedition that finds the ruins of an ancient civilization, which they gradually realize wasn't built by humans. I do think you're right that Lovecraft's ability to write effective horror was largely because he himself was fascinated with terror at the world. But I don't think his weird xenophobia is what he ended up actually communicating to most readers or what he's famous for. He's more known for misshapen tentacle monsters and cosmic-scale horror. For example, Lauren Beukes' novel Broken Monsters is often considered Lovecraftian horror, and it has fairly modern sensibilities.