What one Redeeming feature can do...

So, I’m taking a class called Research Writing. It’s required English after expository writing (which I got out of thanks to good SAT scores). Sounds like a dull class nonetheless, does it not? Well, as a matter of fact, it’s not really boring at all and there are two reasons for this. The first is that I’m in a pilot class, which means that I only have one actual research paper. Two of my other projects, I get to choose the genre and the final project is an ad campaign. So, yeah, that’s pretty cool, but that’s not the last of it.

Every class has a theme. The theme for my class is the Modern Grotesque. Pretty cool, right? So, the first project’s come around. Not only can we choose the genre to work in, but we choose the subject as well. Anything goes as long as you can connect it to the grotesque.

So, me being me, I gravitate instantly to my man Lovecraft. I mean, he’s perfect. His stories deal with the supernatural (in a sort of cool scientific way) and horror (even though they aren’t scary). If you don’t know his fiction, you should check it out. It’s great. He’s a terrible (fiction) writer, but he’s great even so.

But there’s even more to it than that. His personal life is ripe for observation when you deal with the grotesque. 10 years of depression and reclusion. Failed marriage. Died young. And racist longer than the day is long. I mean major big time racist. Fairly equal opportunity as well. African Americans, Asians, Russians(?), Jews, although not so rabidly as others. He had many Jewish friends and correspondents. His wife was Jewish and that probably wasn’t the reason why the
marriage failed.

And if that wasn’t grotesque by itself, Lovecraft’s xenophobia was the one thing that he refused to examine and change as the evidence grew against it. He maintained, to his death, that blacks were naturally intellectually inferior, despite studies showing otherwise.

He was also an atheist. No, for those of you who know me (and those of you who don’t), this is not my main point. My only point here is that there are those who would find that ideology grotesque. He was also a Nietzsche-ist, a socialist and edited his own life to portray himself as he wanted to be. (A dignified New England gentlemen)

So, what is my point? How can you admire a guy like this. For everything you agree with or find redeeming, there’s something that you’re probably going to dislike. This is essentially universal. I’m an atheist and love his craft (sorry), I mean his writing. But I despise racism, disagree with his politics and disapprove of how he handled his marital problems. (Picking up and leaving one day, never speaking to his wife again) And yet, I have a strange admiration of the guy. And it doesn’t shrink as I learn more about him.

I think that it’s the one thing, really the only thing I can think of that nobody can really think of as grotesque. I was wondering and wondering how it was I could still admire the man so much when I read what S.T. Joshi had to say, and it just clicked.

“As an epistolarian Lovecraft was by turns friend, instructor, and wit.”

It’s simple as that. As an amateur journalist, pulp writer and literary critic, he developed a fairly broad collection of correspondences. Perhaps his most famous correspondent was Robert Bloch, who wrote the script for the movie Psycho. And in his letters, whether you agree with what he’s saying or not (his younger correspondents would often argue against his xenophobia), you have to admire what he was doing, or trying, at least, to do. He was trying to encourage and edify, to disseminate the truth and encourage intellectual and creative growth. Perhaps you disagree with his conclusions, but you can’t disagree with his goal. And, of course, there is the last, truly ironic bit to his letters, mostly meant merely as a means of communication between two people. He’s a much better letter writer than fiction writer.

So, here’s to H. P. Lovecraft. Xenophobe, Atheist, Socialist, self-editor, lousy husband and anything that someone's bound to hate.