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Post by GRWelsh on Dec 14, 2021 8:24:09 GMT -5
I just started this. Victor Lavalle is one of those Lovecraftian authors I haven't read before. I saw him at Providence NecronomiCon 2019, but didn't get to talk to him. It seems like all anyone wants to talk about these days is how racist Lovecraft was. So it is interesting that Lavalle is a black man identified as a Lovecraftian author. His novella "The Ballad of Black Tom" is a retelling of Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook" from another perspective, and I plan to read that next.
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Post by GRWelsh on Dec 17, 2021 12:48:03 GMT -5
While reading this, and recently listening to the VOLUMINOUS podcast, which is all about reading and discussing HPL's letters, I've been thinking about Lovecraft's racism. The two extremes in fandom seem to be that he should be disavowed as a terrible person on the basis of his racism or Lovecraft fans should dig in their heels and declare anyone who brings up his racism as a Lovecraft-hater and not worthy of being in the fan community. These seem to be the vocal elements at the fringe, and fortunately it seems that the majority of fans agree Lovecraft's racism was a bad thing yet are able to separate that from his literary accomplishments and other good qualities. It got me to thinking about the "All in the Family" TV show which was about confronting Archie Bunker's bigotry without demonizing him. We can disagree with Lovecraft's racism without feeling obligated to hate him -- there is no contradiction there.
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 17, 2021 16:15:45 GMT -5
The guy wrote horror so the context is all phobia all the time. Just some people focus on his behind the scenes methods because now its "free to use". I think they need to back away and not "rubberize" Lovecraft. It is what it is and it ain't "live on Twitter".
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 18, 2021 9:52:15 GMT -5
I have many "elder gods", that caught up in a bottleneck when I classified all of my campaign cults that I dropped into a game to have new atmosphere of the unknown, and they're Lovecraft minded but I think all the evil monsters from humanoids to regular gods that I've done owe everything to Lovecraft. To not love Lovecraft and pay any attention to him is insanity worthy of a Lovecraftian cult.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jan 1, 2022 14:10:15 GMT -5
The holiday activities plus end of year work has delayed me, but I should finish this book today. It has excellent writing, interesting twists and turns, and a likeable yet flawed protagonist with good supporting characters. It is a dark fairy tale set in New York City. Gene, I think you might enjoy the local references.
EDIT: I finished this on January 2nd. No spoilers, but it ended well and I recommend it. The writing was excellent and kept me guessing as to what was really happening until near the end. Nice mix of the modern world with old legends. I was left with some questions and if I ever meet LaValle I will ask him!
Next, I'm onto THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR, VOLUME SEVEN, edited by Ellen Datlow.
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