Lovecraft was NOT a "cosmic horror" author?

[Chrizzie Frizzie]

While sating my addiction for lovecraft discussion, I came across this fascinating discussion on another forum.
Its wonderful to see two people with such contrasting opinion debate and discuss without getting into a flame war.
I am referring to the exchange between Gavin Callaghan, Kyberian and Sverba.
http://www.eldritchdark.com/forum/read.php?1,3963,page=5

The Callaghan POV paraphrased: Lovecraft wanted to produce cosmic terror, but his horror writing relied more on xenophobia, fear of biological corruption and fear of human urges. These are the components that inspired horror writers such as Stephen King more than the cosmic nature, and therefore Lovecrafts impact on our culture has been as a source of shameless bigotry underpinning horror-writing.
The most positive impact that Lovecraft has had is in his reversal of Hellenistic imagery. For instance, how the color out of space boosts vegetation being a sign of corruption rather than creation./end paraphrase

And here is a full quote: "I think it is a testimony to Lovecraft’s power as a writer that he was able to communicate his own xenophobic fears and paranoia so seamlessly to the reader without the reader even being aware, and that he was able to elevate that mundane horror which he felt at foreigners and so-called “mongrels”/"hybrids" etc. to a seemingly cosmic level. "

The discussion that follows is fascinating. Personally I don't agree with Callaghan's overall conclusions, but his critical perspective does provide some wonderful insights on aspects I hadn't considered. Such as the parallels between the pedestals of Cthulhu and Lilith; the similarities between the description of Cthulhu and the beast in the picture in the house. I do agree that Lovecraft was incredibly bigoted, and probably more bigoted than I thought before reading through his arguments. What I do NOT agree with is that this negates Lovecraft's contribution in terms of cosmic horror.

Why do I personally not agree? The stories of Lovecraft have stayed with me for 15 years. They have played at the back of my mind. Why? Because of the cosmic horror that I remembered strongly was associated with indifferent doom. That is what I remember from the stories and why I've now come back to study his work. What is important to note here is that back then i did not have access to any literary commentary on his work, I only had my own impressions. So I am very confident that however bigoted Lovecraft was, what he managed to project his message into my being about the horror of being alone and insignificant in an infinite space.
I am sure my teenage self was horrified by the biological ickyness of his creatures- paralleling my fear of the unknown ickyness of sex at that time. I am sure I did feel uncomfortable about the threat of "otherness"- paralleling my own xenophobia, as my nordic home-land was slowly integrating refugees from various European unrest at the time. Yet none of that stayed with me, and I've been surprised to discover it now in my more enlightened adulthood. Those were simply forgettable symbols to express horror- momentary scares- reflecting the shared fears of the author and the reader, but the pay-off was always the cosmic horror. Lovecraft's mundane horrors are similar to the "sudden cat jumping out of shadows" in horror flicks, that don't necessarily have to detract from the overall payoff of the actual movie monster.

[DMcCool]

I started to read through the discussion you provided, but I found myself continuously thinking how unnecessary it all was.  By that, I mean that the discussion seemed to be being made just for conversation's sake.  Now, perhaps I didn't see the argument, but they kept making references to Lovecraft being a hybrid writer, or author of mundane horror; that only a few of his works are actually cosmic horror works.  I guess I don't see the real point of cosmic horror as they would have it presented.

It's like this.  In order for things to be truly horror, they must be relatable, hence "mundane".  If the reader can't relate to what is going on, then it loses its terror.  Therefore, we must be presented the story from a viewpoint that is grounded in our baseline existence.  Only from there can we stem further into the abyss and experience the horror.  But in so doing, perhaps we do lose some of the "cosmic" element.  Rather, our experience from the baseline point of view provides its own horrors that could be said to be outside of the cosmic element (i.e. a result of, but not actually part of).  Either way, however, we've experienced what I think Lovecraft intended.

Now, I will not fault Lovecraft, in literary terms, at least, for his specifically chosen viewpoint, which was very much as reflection of his time and place.  His social values and concerns are certainly present in his works, but I don't think that takes away from the stories that we say are cosmic horror.

[Chrizzie Frizzie]

Well, I suppose the motivation for the discussion came out Mr Callaghan's axe to grind. Joshi has been working hard to establish the literary and historical importance of Lovecraft. Callaghan is not dismissing Lovecraft, but rather arguing that Lovecrafts literary and historical significance is a corrupting one. And it is not only because of Lovecraft's silly-old-grandpa bigotry that we have all come to know and skim over. But rather, Callaghan is arguing that Lovecraft elevates this bigotry to a cosmic level, thereby setting a dark precedent for horror writers to come.
So i dont think the discussion was conducted for the sake of discussion. Callaghan is clearly upset about what he feels is an shameless xenophobia in modern horror, and Lovecraft's role in it. And while I think he mellows out towards the end of the discussion, maybe he feels a little that Lovecraft fans are complicit.

But in terms of how I see it, yeah i agree with you, we experience what Lovecraft intended. The mundane is needed to bring the horror home close, to give us some way to relate to his more cosmic themes. So, what you said. And I find the mundane easy to shrug off, while the cosmic horrors have stayed with me at the back of my mind, and after a 15 year hiatus stirred me to re-discover his writing.

The reason I posted the link is that it threw light on several interesting symmetries and connections that I had not considered. I often find that the people who disagree with you for intellectual reasons can teach you a great deal.

[TransconaSlim]

There is this book I've wanted to read, called H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life by French author Michel Houellebecq.   From the discription, Houellebecq argues that HLP was an Existentialist, who had a profound hatred of life and philosophical denial of the real world.  According to wikipedias blurb, "Houellebecq notes that his works include "not a single allusion to two of the realities to which we generally ascribe great importance: sex and money." He posits Lovecraft as an American existentialist for whom both life and death are meaningless."

Houellebecq says, Lovecraft learned to take "racism back to its essential and most profound core: fear." He notes the recurring image in Lovecraft's fiction of a mammoth, hideous city teeming with terrifying beings.

[DMcCool]

One more thing I am not grasping that the discussion seems to suggest.  It's being presented like Lovecraft is sort of "warping" cosmic horror.  The question begs to be asked, perhaps out of ignorance, but what "cosmic horror" existed before Lovecraft started writing it? 

Was there some other author who popularized the sub-genre?  I mean, I like Poe, and he was certainly influential on Lovecraft, but his works were really just gothic horror with a lot of the supernatural (as opposed to Lovecraft's almost science-fiction).  As far as Dunsany is concerned, admittedly I haven't read much, but it seems his stuff tends toward the fantastic (read "fantasy") horror (if horror, at all). 

I realize that there were a plethora of writers dabbling in the field around Lovecraft's time.  Algernon Blackwood is presented as an example.  But aren't all those early 20th Century guys just playing off each other, anyway?

[Chrizzie Frizzie]

@DMcCool To my knowledge, the invention of cosmic horror is universally attributed to Lovecraft.

@TransconaSlim - Yeah, i'm waiting for my next paycheck and then I'm buying it. There's a great review of it, arguing that Houellebcq is satan himself and that his book celebrates Lovecrafts darker side in the book rather than condemning it. http://www.curledup.com/lovecrft.htm
(There's also what appears to be an amateur translation here: blog.urbanomic.com/dread/archives/houellebecq-lovecraft.pdf) (?)

--

Now, after reading Callaghan's arguments, it sent me off thinking. The idea of mundane/cosmic/dream strands in Lovecraft is useful to spark new ideas. And something occurred to me, namely Lovecraft's view of psychology.
Think of either Poe's "black cat" or Stephen King's "Shining" (Lovecraft connections on either side of time). Both stories show from within the descent into madness, something that I think is a very popular horror trope.
But can you think of any story where Lovecraft's characters break down psychologically due to human pressure? You know: from grief, greed, disappointment, torture- whatever?  Did Lovecraft ever engage in the study of the human mind? I cant. In Lovecraft's pieces, madness and evil is explained instead as either inherent in biology, or caused by exposure to cosmic horror.

And that helps me understand his dream stories better.
Those stories suggest that Lovecraft viewed that the mind of healthy individuals was not only sane and good, but awesome in power. The psychology of Carter once we probe it is that of a demi-good.
To me, it seems that Lovecraft cannot consider the possibility that a healthy man of English decent to be evil or go mad, unless through a heroic-but-doomed encounter with the great powers.
There seems to be a contrast in his mind between the sanity of the isolated, pure mind and the horrors of the materialistic world lacking in humanity and aesthetics.
While Lovecraft expresses his fear of biological causes of evil and madness through racism, this view puts Lovecraft himself in the spotlight. Didn't his father go mad? If "bad stuff" is biological and genetic, doesn't that mean that Lovecraft had "bad stuff" in HIS genes? It's almost as if his racism is a way to express his own worst fear in what he felt was a less personal, less subjective way. He is shameless in his racism, so it seems like he was absolutely sure his audience agreed with him. Maybe he tapped into what he saw as an accepted, universal fear of biology, but which was really only reflecting his own fear of his own destiny.