Im curious your thoughts on older authors. As a kid I was extremely intrigued by Robert E Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and HP Lovecraft. But within the last ten or so years, as information is more easily available with the Internet, Ive discovered their xenophobia and down right racism. Its conflicting and especially tears me to pieces, particularly in regards to Howard who basically shaped everything I loved as a kid. ERB has been known to be a follower of the thought of eugenics, and has been quoted with many racist remarks. Howard also has been quoted with racist rants. His feelings towards Mexico and Mexicans is very mixed from my history, and thats what affects me directly. I read several quotes where he talks down about Mexicans as spicks, etc. But I also read he loved visiting Mexico(hes from Texas so it was only a short trip) as an escape and different culture. He is expected that his first intimate encounter was there as well. In his Conan novels the Zamorans are definitely inspired by Mexico. He also wrote about Mexicans sympathetically in his tale The Horror From the Mound. In regards to Lovecraft, he was a straight up xenophobia afraid of his own shadow and all things alien and different to his New England heritage. Not surprising how his fiction shadows that idea but with supernatural. What does one do with this dichotomy? Love the work but not the writer? Chalk it up to the era they lived? Burn all my beloved paperbacks?
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 06:58:14 +0000
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