I got into lovecraft around 10. As a kid with severe unchecked anxiety, his horror spoke to me in ways nothing else did. He was also my first case of death of the author. Finding out his eldritch inspiration was just “color people scary” was a world shaking thing for me as someone who couldn’t understand why racism was a thing.
Having read and reread every word he put to pin, I genuinely believe he could have been rehabilitated. He comes off as the end result of a sheltered child raised to fear the world in isolation and he was very much exactly that in the historical record. His issues actively decreases when he started experiencing the world. He genuinely reads as someone who would grow to be an ally if he had a better way to be part of a community outside of his very small world.
I got into lovecraft around 10. As a kid with severe unchecked anxiety, his horror spoke to me in ways nothing else did. He was also my first case of death of the author. Finding out his eldritch inspiration was just “color people scary” was a world shaking thing for me as someone who couldn’t understand why racism was a thing.
Having read and reread every word he put to pin, I genuinely believe he could have been rehabilitated. He comes off as the end result of a sheltered child raised to fear the world in isolation and he was very much exactly that in the historical record. His issues actively decreases when he started experiencing the world. He genuinely reads as someone who would grow to be an ally if he had a better way to be part of a community outside of his very small world.
I agree entirely. He was terrified. It doesn’t excuse what he said at all but I truly believe he could have turned a corner as well.
And full disclosure, I got into him for the same reason. I get it.