/lit/ - Literature

>>19057925
Just detached from reality, like the average, heartless 4chan poster.

imagine how much better new york would be if this had happened

Just look at how he described New York

>We walked—at my suggestion—in the middle of the street, for contact with the heterogenous sidewalk denizens, spilled out of their bulging brick kennels as if by a spawning beyond the capacity of the paces, was not by any means to be sought. At times, though we struck peculiarly deserted areas—these swine have instinctive swarming movements, no doubt, which no ordinary biologist can fathom. Gawd knows what they are—Jew, Italian, separate or mixed, with possible touches of residual Irish and exotic hints of the Far East—a bastard mess of stewing mongrel flesh without intellect, repellent to eye, nose, and imagination—would to heaven a kindly gust of cyanogen could asphyxiate the whole gigantic abortion, end the misery, and clean out the place.

H. P. Lovecraft to Maurice W. Moe, 18 May 1922, Selected Letters 1.181, Letters from New York 14

>the facts are plain. I’m no bigot

In a 1933 letter to Vernon Shea

Hilarious how even back then he was annoyed about being called a bigot while talking about how he wanted to gas minorities.

>>19057925
Fucking based. Always knew Howard was Gigachaddian.

>>19057971
>he wanted to gas minorities.
>giving masks to the few remaining people of Aryan culture
He rejected hard biological determination, like most people do.

who is this hitler fella?

>>19057971
>possible touches of residual Irish
This is a pretty funny observation since New York was majority Irish for half a century until the other waves he's describing arrived at the end of the 1800s.

What was the date of the circa 1930s letter he wrote to some woman renouncing his racial views, and embracing or half-embracing socialism? Specifically, how long between the 1933 Shea letter and that (later?) letter?

Lovecraft's racism is really just one aspect of his eccentricity, if he wasn't so terrified of so much of the actual world he wouldn't have it in him to produce what he did. But the weird part is how people feel they have some moral imperative to hold this against Lovecraft and keep bringing it up, as if he's some symbol of institutional power himself, and not just an eccentric guy with a difficult life who is connected to this whole modern culture war thing by a narrow thread. Surely people other than me realize Lovecraft's racism doesn't matter, right?

Reminder that while visiting a baseball game, when the stands started their pre game pledge of allegiance to the flag. Lovecraft shouted instead that he pledged allegiance to the rightful king George.

When writing of it later he also said the British empire and the Anglo Saxon race should rightfully rule America

>>19058214
New Englanders have to go back. America belongs to the MacDagoberg

>>19057925
>>19057971
I don't endorse mass murder of any kind and I don't hate other races/ethnicities but as someone who does have an attachment to that old Anglo-America, it is heartbreaking and very frustrating to see the current state of things. We have lost our country. Most of us don't even have a sense of racial identity and many of those who do hate our own people. We could have built a paradise but instead we get this. It's sad. It can make you spiteful. I don't agree with Lovecraft and I don't like Hitler but I love MY America and I hate that it's being killed. I hope someday we recover. Maybe some part of the country will break off or something. I don't know. I'm just going to try to have a large family and raise my kids right.

>>19058356
Imagine the insecurity of having to squeeze every drop of identity out of something as un-earned and inconsequential as race/birth place.

>>19058468
It's not my whole identity but like most people throughout history, my collective is a part of my identity. I've never understood why people say this. Most great men throughout history considered their nation, ethnicity, tribe, or something of that nature a huge part of who they were. Also, the only people I ever say this stuff are White. Maybe you're not but for the most part, it seems like most other races understand the importance of the collective.

>>19057925
>be me
>2021
>would not give out a single mask
>include all other urban hubs
>great plan!

>>19058203
I usually just find it amusing and I think it can be a useful tool to understand the very nature of fear and otherness. Houellebecq’s book on Lovecraft explores Lovecraft and psychoanalysis.

>>19058159
How could he do such a 180? That doesn't seem right.

>>19058475
It would be beneficial if it was obligatory for burgers to visit Europe, just once. To get perspective about just how meaningless their nativity of 233 years is.

All this racial dissatisfaction stems from a simple fear of change. Now, I'm not saying it's a baseless fear, just one that you should seek a cure for within yourself, not within a mas gassing of people who came to rob this continent of its resources at a later date than your folks. There's no dibs as far as migration is considered.

tl:dr
Don't be racist, guys, just gas people indiscriminately.

>>19059205
I clearly stated that I oppose anything like gassing people. I would never support genocide. Also, how would a visit to Europe change anything? Europe has not undergone a population shift as dramatic as what the US is experiencing since...I don't even know. The Huns and Mongols never settled in Europe in large numbers. Are you talking about different Europeans conquering each other, wiping other groups out, merging, splitting apart, and so on? That's still unfortunate but it's not quite the same as what the US is currently undergoing. What's wrong with wanting one's people to survive and keep our country? In 500 years there will likely still be Japanese people and the Japanese will remain 90+% of the population of Japan. I can't be so sure the same applies to Americans. I'm not saying Japan is perfect. They have plenty of problems. I'm just pointing to them as an example of a people who will survive because of their resistance to immigration.

>>19058468
>as un-earned and inconsequential as race
Spoken like a true genocidal maniac.

>>19057925
Kek, he was a fucking troll. Nobody believes in this shit.

>>19058053
an odd looking duck

Lovecraft was unironically right about everything, and like all great visionaries and geniuses, he will only be vindicated when it's too late.

>>19059238
There is nothing unnatural in wanting to maintain a desired state. It's just that USA is a different cookie whatsoever, with its Wild West history. By mentioning Europe I tried to suggest that the disproportion of the heritage between Old and New World perhaps could make an American aquire a different outlook on things.
I'm not talking from a high horse here - I just assume that time is the biggest factor in determining cultural ties to a region.
That considered, I see this need to keep good times in suspension as the result of fear of change. Understandable, I have it too. And since I do, I can't see any ethical backbone behind nativity claims of your peers.

>>19059401
It's already too late though. This is what everyone in the thread is missing: you're all like 100 years too late, the gears that put us into the situation we're in were already in motion long ago.

>>19059376
There's something about his eyes...

>>19059436
We're still here, aren't we?

>>19057936
>Just detached from reality, like the average, heartless 4chan poster.
thread/
It reads like shitposts, I'm not impressed.

>>19057925
>He said some legit insane things
Go ahead and list them.

>>19057949
/thread

you people must be sheltered to be so easily scandalized, old guys drinking at the bar say stuff like this daily, "nuke africa" is a mainstream public opinion.

>>19059648
It's metairony my tourist friend. All anons are playing along.

>>19057925
>>19057971
He writes so badly. Here's the formula:
- Use big words (i.e., adopt a polysyllabic vocabulary) which don't even stand for any difficult concept, they just happen to have too many syllables for the natural speed of the English language (heterogenous, imagination, cyanogen, asphyxiate). Isolated, they're OK. Put together one after the other, they sound like you're an amateur trying to write Victorian pastiche inspired by Carlyle or some random Miltonian.
- Use journo clichés to connect the big words (fresh start, shed no tears, at my suggestion, spilled out, not by any means, which no ordinary x can fathom, gawd knows, a bastard mess, end the misery etc.)
There you have it.

>>19059401
>>19059436
>"As a result of the Great Depression, he shifted towards socialism, decrying both his prior political beliefs and the rising tide of fascism. He thought that socialism was a workable middle ground between what he saw as the destructive impulses of both the capitalists and the Marxists of his day. This was based in a general opposition to cultural upheaval, as well as support for an ordered society. Electorally, he supported Franklin D. Roosevelt, but he thought that the New Deal was not sufficiently leftist. Lovecraft's support for it was based in his view that no other set of reforms were possible at that time."

>>19059689
Sounds Reddit.

>>19059741
Yes and?

>>19058468
So homosexuality is a conscious choice now?

>>19059715
Roosevelt's economic policy was just more radical version of what Mussolini did in Italy. Even if it was wrapped up in different ideological package.

>>19057925
Lovecraft is the anon who claimed to have a time travel machine

>>19058468
Your identity is by its very nature arbitrary and immutable, pseud

But everything he's saying here is correct. If anything he's being merciful by suggesting there's anyone left in the rat's nest known as New York City worth saving. What it really needs is an especially large nuclear bomb.

>>19058468
>un-earned
Perhaps
>inconsequential
That's where you're wrong. Humans are 90% nature over nurture, cope and seethe.

To be blessed with the intense self-awareness that leads to great art, one must also be cursed with a myopic, hateful resentment of anyone not in possession of the gift.

>>19059045
Someone posted it on here, at least once, a couple of months ago. It appeared to be straight from a published collection of his letters. I just don't feel like digging into warosu for it atm. It was definitely a shocker to me.

>>19060769
No such thing exists no matter how hard you try to invent this narrative.

>>19060775
Whatever. I concede that someone may have trumped up a fake letter, but it certainly had many indicia of being the real thing. In particular, iirc, it appeared to sourced to volume available on b-ok.

>>19058356
There never was a country kek, the US is an economic zone like all overseas British colonies. The closest thing to "carriers of American culture" are the people who want to ban accelerated math classes for being racist.
>We have lost our country. Most of us don't even have a sense of racial identity and many of those who do hate our own people.
Anglo-Americans should be hated.

These were private letters. Who are we to judge? He was probably exaggerating somewhat for comedic effect

>>19058468
So everyone except whites is insecure?

>>19058356
just go move to maine or something dude

>>19061746
We can't run forever. Every state is becoming less American. If nothing changes, Maine will eventually become minority White too. This is happening everywhere.

>>19057925
>he was clearly a monster
hilarious! the real horror coming from lovecraft arent his creatures or nihilism, but his racist views.

>>19061965
I don't think you can truly appreciate Lovecraft unless you are at least kind of "racist" or concerned about cultural decline. You don't have to hate other people but when you are concerned about the decay of your civilization, when you look around you and you see the creatures described in his work, when you have a fear of contamination, his stories are far more relatable. You can enjoy his work regardless of your beliefs but I don't think progressives will ever really get it.

>>19057949
Yup, /thread

>>19059205
One great thing about racial mixing is that it will destroy people like you!

>>19059695
No, I'm sorry. No matter how much people accuse him of being verbose or cliche (the two most brainlet criticisms of any author) his writing was unique and interesting.

>>19058475
>It's not my whole identity but like most people throughout history, my collective is a part of my identity.
A lot of white people who moved to America came there to get away from countries that were organized like that. "Roots are for vegetables." In America, you could make a buck and make a life for yourself as a free agent. The classic architecture of Chicago looks old-fashioned today, but that stuff's only 100 years old, and back in the 1920s, it would've probably looked to some old-fashioned European aristocratic types like a gaudy, money-grubbing and business-oriented town. Maybe if you were Irish or Italian, you'd clique up a bit, but this idea of white people all getting along back then is a bunch of horseshit.

https://youtu.be/cUROTH3ENnI?t=276

>>19062056
I know there was conflict between Americans and European immigrants as well as between Catholics and Protestants. I never said White people all get along.

>>19058356
the post that killed my romaticism for anything

>>19062056
Yes, that state of affairs has led to the modern day.
Also, the instant everybody came over, they ganged up with their own group assuming they weren't a tiny outlier ethnicity. Even the Greeks ganged up together. "muh free agent" is a total meme that applied only to those outliers and the early-birds from each country

>>19057971

The fact that Italian and Greek immigrants in Providence and New York inspired the great old ones and the The Shadow Over Innsmouth will never not be hilarius.

>>19057925
Italians and jews ruined the northeast

>>19062371
Why?

>>19058356
Perhaps it's an Anglo thing?

I experience similar feelings of alienation when I navigate around London. I don't actively hate other races and am even friends with a few, but walking around I cannot escape the feeling that I am a foreigner in my own land. I feel like a relic that isn't supposed to be in this multicultural melting pot. I look at old buildings and feel a sense of consanguinity with the English communities of old which once resided there and no longer do. It is like we are a forgotten people, written out of our own national story. It is greatly distressing and many have similar feelings to me.

>>19062699
stop being racist. problem solved

>>19061999
You offer no reasons.

>the two most brainlet criticisms of any author

The two most intelligent ones, by far. They expose the frauds instantly. Any ape can tell a good story or invent a funny monster, but in order to write well you need to master the craft.
Lovecraft was a shit author and you only like him because of your teenage sympathies for 'dark' writing or whatever.

>>19062709
You can't even think. Your brain does not work. Your thinking process is clouded by years of popular media immediately shutting down your critical faculties and forcing you to regurgitate the mantra of the state.

I don't even think you are human anymore. You exist now only as a limited mind.

>>19062782
ok

>>19062775
You'll rediscover him when you leave your early 20s and stop trying to convince others of your maturity.

>>19058497
Had no idea he wrote a book on Lovecraft, that sounds fantastic. I want to read it.

>>19063164
Again, no arguments. Lovecraft is a bad writer.

>>19063445
Lovecraft himself actually agreed. He wrote many times about how he thought his writing style was shit and how no matter how much he tried to refine it it didn’t seem to improve.

Goes to show that good ideas can be more important than just being a good writer I guess

The WASP cabal in America is far more pernicious than any Jew.

>>19063481
>He wrote many times about how he thought his writing style was shit and how no matter how much he tried to refine it it didn’t seem to improve.

He was entirely correct.

>Goes to show that good ideas can be more important than just being a good writer I guess

It depends on what you're looking for. Most people are looking for entertaining stories. I have no problem with that, although I personally am bored by it.
One should not, however, mistake good story-telling or even abundance of original ideas for good writing. These are very different things. Einstein had many ideas, but was a mediocre writer; Keaton and Chaplin told us great stories while barely using any words.

>>19057949
based, /thread

>>19057925
He was a neurotic basement dweller, but his hatred of New York is understandable.

>>19057925
I agree with him but only if he gave Harlem and the dago slums masks and didn't give the aryans any

>>19057925
>and he was clearly a monster
kek he was a harmless shut in incel, does he terrify you just because he said some mean things about black people?

>>19061530
Sincerely, yes.

>>19058053
But the real joke of course is, that all this isn't a matter of choice anyhow! Capitalism is dying from internal as well as external causes, & its own leaders & beneficiaries are less & less able to kid themselves. I'm no economist, but from recent reading I've been able to form a rough picture of the dilemma—the need to restrict consumers' goods & to pile up a needless plethora of producing equipment in order to maintain the irrational surplus called profit—which has caused orthodox economists like Hayek & Robbins to admit that only starvation wages & artificial scarcity could stabilize the profit system in future & avert increasing cyclical depressions of utterly destructive scope. Laissez-faire capitalism is dead—make no mistake about that. The only avenue of survival for plutocracy is a military & emotional fascism whereby millions of persons will be withdrawn from the industrial arena & placed on a dole or in concentration-camps with high-sounding patriotic names. That or socialism—take your choice. In the long run it won't be the New Deal but the mere facts of existence which will be recognised as the real & inevitable slayer of Hooverism. Nobody is going to "destroy the system"—for it has been destroying itself ever since it evolved out of the old agrarian-handicraft economy a century & a half ago.

>>19058159
>>19059045
All this from an antiquated mummy who was on the other side until 1931! Well—I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today ... & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections. Flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with the humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well .... I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showings-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 ... only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snonbish, self-centered, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get out more around 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done ..... except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all. Here's hoping that Henneberger (quite a get-rich-quick Wallingford in his way) won't try to blacken me with the letter!

https://github.com/punchmonster/Lovecraft-Letters/blob/master/19370207-Catherine-L-Moore.md

>>19064506
Wow

>>19057925
Literally me