Spinning Lovecrft into a Feminist Dream-quest

How would you even spin Lovecraft into a feminist message? His themes deal with existentialism when faced with the extreme vastness of the universe and the inferiority of human beings. Even Randolf Carter, who is considering one of the most important and unique human beings to have ever existed, is a tiny blip on the map compared to his nemesis (Nyarlotep) teacher (Yog-Sothoth) and his other persona's (his grandfather, the chinese wizard, the bug wizard etc.).

Where in that do you employ identity politics? Just taking the racism or sexism out would do little to affect the overall story and would certainly do fuck all to make it progressive. Whats the difference between a white man reading a book of occult secrets and a black woman doing the same thing?

And why Dream Quest? You could probably spin something feminist into Dunwhich, Thing on the Doorstep or whaever, but ALL the Dream Cycle stories are completely devoid of real life reference points. Which was their entire purpose. How do you demonstrate patriarchal oppression, or "woman can do it to" in a world where when you have to be saved from the Moon people by talking cats? Or where flesh eating ghouls help you fight off faceless hopping kangaroos?

Is she going to turn Kuranes into a woman who took drugs deal with sexual abuse or something? Because that's literally the only way I can see any strong feminist affect taking place. Granted she could turn Randolf into a woman but whats the point of that when it turns out he's an avatar of one of the nine major pillars of the universe? I'm pretty sure he changes genders when he starts inhabiting different bodies. You'd just demonstrate feminism is pointless because gender doesn't matter.

Lovecraft managed to spin it into a racist message, so I'm sure someone could find a way.

Thats true, Cthulhu has a racist message but the Dream-Cycles don't (except for relying on tropes like the evil Arab merchants).

Shadow over Innsmouth, his views on race were sort of clear. He was afraid of the genes from his parents who were both in mental hospitals so

>spin
>racist

Why is it only ever Lovecraft they talk about? It's never Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, or Robert E. Howard, Blackwood, et al.
Lovecraft wasn't the only one writing in that genre.

That's true as well. So why is she rewriting a Dream Cycle Story?

Because the memes ensure he's the only one anyone knows or cares about. Although to be fair he's also the most "problematic".

I'd say Howard was even more racist.

Just goes to show women don't read anything past the popular and the surface-level :^)

>turbo robot writer from the 1930's needs to fit my numale cuck feminazi outlook because no one can deviate from the thought police

Holeeee shit. Why are these Nazis trying to burn books? Are they afraid you're going to read Lovecraft then start calling your cat Niggerman then join the KKK?

Way ahead of you desu

Should have read Howard and got bulging muscle instead

Shit I got all those recommendations in a thread a while ago. Are they really writing about the same?

yoooo, read it a few months ago for the first time, when she thinks she's holding theo's hand in the room but shes all the way over in bed. Legit goosebumps

>How would you even spin Lovecraft into a feminist message?

Simple. The strong Woman (TM) saves the weak, mentally unstable main character from going insane, by winning a fistfight with Cthulu.

A far better writer than Lovecraft.

Come on man, the only characters Howard wrote that can hold a candle to Conan are are Fantasy Jews and Arabs. Just because he wrote that one story with the ape people doesn't make him racist.

...

ITT: mad burgerpeople who can't stomach that even their last 'thing', the thing that was supposed to make them oh-so-unique, is discovered and differently interpreted by others

You idiots drown in student loans, you will never have a stable job or a house you actually own, you feel the ground slipping beneath your mediocre feet but you noticed it too late, it's already over for you

It's very easy to look at shadow over Innsmouth as fear of genetic disorders, societal corruption and globalisation.

The race connotation mostly appears because HP wrote it after finding out he was part Welsh but he's talking about a much broader idea of being damned by your own bloodline. A fairly universal fear.

I agree with you, Lovecraft's "haters" put too kuch weight on some aspects of his writings and interpret everything as racist and offensive onoy because it was written by him. If Shadow over innsmouth was written by Stephen King all the normies hating on hpl wouldn't find the novel racist at all.

also have some nice Dreamworld artwork

All she means is that it's popular right now to identify Lovecraft as "problematic" and that in a few years we'll have moved on to a social justice critique of some other writer.

She's basically saying that SJW outrage is just as much a fad as anything else but that it can also raise some good points sometimes.

The racism is there when he refers to other races as "mongrel breeds" and makes them out to be nothing more than occult terrorists and savages.
I would agree with you though that his work isn't exactly sexist so much as exclusionary to women, insofar as women aren't really present in the narratives.

>I can't understand historical context: the post

Well, Howard at least is writing about a big strapping nihilistic fellow who goes around with a sword and kills Lovecraft-style monsters, while also romancing naked women and harassing meddlesome sorcerers.

many such cases

I never got really interested in Conan because of the movies. Are the books good? Is it similar to Berserk? Are there some horror elements or lovecraftian mood?

>re-addressing Lovecraft
Well that aside, what's a good compilation/anthology book set that gets all of his works together? I'd prefer one where the writing isn't altered or cut like most reissues of older literature often succumb to, the worst one I've come across is an edition of Don Quixote where the editor heavily rewrote every passage in the book so it was like you were reading TV-Nihon subtitles.

>Lovecraft's "haters" put too much weight on some aspects of his writings and interpret everything as racist and offensive only because it was written by him
I'd say it's more because these kind of people only ever think in the extremes when it comes to works such as this. There's no in-between or leaning towards one side, simply a positive or a negative result being made in their minds, and if it's negative there's always gonna be one hell of a backlash coming out from them.

There is sorcery and eldritch horrors, but Howard is pretty "fuck yeah humanity" on the whole.

A mountain walked is good. Lovely art too.

>it's not X if it happened N years ago
You're dumb.

>sexist
where exactly is this in any of his work? not asking a loaded question, want to know if it's in a story i haven't read or something.

>racist
yeah, no arguing this. however, i heard he abandoned his racist ideas close to his death. need a citation for this though.

howard is very pro-humanity as opposed to lovecraft's idea that we are insignificant and helpless. however, Howard has written some very eerie stories on the same level as lovecraft. my favorite one has got to be "the god in the bowl."

also, it's got some similar themes to berserk. actually some scenes from stories that wouldn't fit if you replaced conan with gutts. however, the story is more an anthology as opposed to Gut's story being one long struggle.

god, i'm retarded. let me fix that.
There are scenes in stories where conan could be replaced with guts and it would make sense with regards to their character and personalities.

>judging by the same scope things that happened and the present
Hello Dawkins, how is the judging of Old Testament God by 2000 standarts going

i wouldn't say there was really a racist message. Are we to gather from Cthulhu that no blacks are to be trusted because the cultists were black? If anything, a lot of what people seem to be linking to racism in this thread are either tropes or stereotypical descriptions
>mysterious arab traders with links to the old ones
>the people of shem being described as long nosed penny pinchers (aka jews)

Wouldn't call it racist really. to me it comes off more as cartoonish.

not trying to condescend, i wanna know where you're coming from.

the closest thing i get to racist or problematic with howard is the shem and the blacks.

>shem are crooked nosed jews
>blacks are spear chuckers

it's not like his descriptions held no basis.

i don't hate black people or think i'm superior to them, but be fair i am going to name my cat nigger man.

the complete fiction of h.p. lovecraft is good. it's that big ass book you see in booksamilion with the purple cover.

4u

I'm not a feminist, but I suppose it could be argued that Lovecraft's work is male-centric simply because he didn't have very many female characters.

I agree with other posters, though: it really wouldn't have mattered at all if Randolph Carter was a woman. It barely even mattered that he was a human being.

Did you have an aneurysm writing this post? Whew.

I heard that one had innumerable typos but I'll look into both of these you guys posted.

Nobody but feminists gives a shit about anything involving feminism.

Everyone else just rolls their eyes and skips over it.

Lovecraft was a mediocre writer and still wrote circles around every affirmative action snowflake gifted into prominence in modern fiction.

Go fuck yourself.

Yes. They are in full-on Authoritarian mode.

World Con ejected a Hugo-Nominated editor this year for being a white male and disagreeing with PC hysteria. And they're all patting themselves on the collective back for punishing an evil white male for the crime of wrongthink.

Disagreement. That is what qualifies as "dangerous" to these Nazis.

Where did he? Isn't Lovecraft's racism mostly on the surface?

Yeah there are some stories which can be called clearly racist, but that isn't the substance of Lovecraft, nor his overall, innermost message. Cosmic horror doesn't require racism, nor does his obsession in the difference of things as they are and as they are seen by us (and can be described, etc - the way he always gives us lengthy, paradoxical descriptions of his monsters and such, only to further conclude with how the descriptions really aren't the truth)

From this we can conclude that having some politically correct version of this kind of fiction wouldn't be bad. There could be representation of any kind of people and there would be no harm done.