The article mentions ST Joshi a few times, who I think deserves credit not just as the foremost scholar of Lovecraft, but possibly for bringing attention to Lovecraft in the 60s and 70s. I thoroughly enjoyed his "Decline of the West", which pores over Lovecraft's correspondences trying to get a broad handle on his philosophy and aesthetics. He strikes me as a pretty complicated individual, with his early bigotry and his later slightly less malignant cultural chauvinism always being at odds with his cosmicism. And I think his nostalgic, escapist fantasy might generally have been at odds with his uncompromisingly scientific realism, perhaps contributing to his somewhat bitter and bleak view of the sciences (each straining in their own direction).(I once owned one of those cute green Cthulhu plushies)
ndsipa_pomu|2 years ago