"yet who shall declare the dark theme a positive handicap? radiant with beauty, the cup of the ptolemies was carven of onyx." h.p.lovecraft, supernatural horror in literature.
"i repeat to you, gentlemen, that your inquisition is fruitless. detain me here forever if you will; confine or execute me if you must have a victim to propitiate the illusion you call justice; but i can say no more than i have said already.
"everything that i can remember, i have told you with perfect candor. nothing has been distorted or concealed, and if anything remains vague, it is only because of the dark cloud which has come over my mind--that cloud and the nebulous nature of the horrors which brought it upon me."
i always had read , and even to this day read what people write about reading h. p. lovecraft's weird tales and not having been aware of the racism in lovecraft's weird tales with a grain of disbelief , especially if they be a person of race . it remained a print phenomena for me until one day when i was talking to an acquaintance and she brought up out of the outopia of the moment the subject of h. p. lovecraft's writing . she told me how her brother had read all of lovecraft's writing when he was a teenager and had gifted her with some of lovecraft's weird tales . familiar with lovecraft's writings from reading his fiction and nonfiction and because the person i was talking to is canadian by birth though of asian heritage , the first thing that came to mind was the racism of lovecraft's writing . both what i had noticed in his writing and what i read of mentioned in criticisms and biographical works .
when i voiced the question "can i ask you something? , with you being of japanese background what do you think of the racism in his writing?" , i got an uncomfortable look from her ("what does he mean racism in lovecraft's writing?, is he talking about the same author as me?") , and then the response "no" she hadn't noticed it and she couldnt think of any sample at the moment . no , i thought that interesting and said it wasn't only my opinion, there are critics of his oeuvre who have written of his literary racisms and mentioned realistic examples and figurative ways lovecraft introduced races in to his tales and then showed those races in a negative way compared to characters of euroese races in his stories , specifically characters of british euroese decent . she said she would have to reread some of the stories and maybe ask her brother if he noticed it and would let me know . i can not recall if she ever got back to me about it .
all of the excerpts from h.p.lovecrafts fiction and nonfiction were found in editions of his writings published by arkham house, delrey books or penguin books. except where noted.
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