NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE {A } call of destruction has issued forth from the New England coast, threatening oblivion. That’s right: There is an emerging campaign to cancel horror and fantasy writer H. P. Lovecraft. And it’s coming from his hometown of Providence, R.I.

An editorial in GoLocal of Providence takes note of a recent celebration of black artist Edward Mitchell Bannister, while lamenting that “the city continues to allow public commemorations of H.P. Lovecraft, a talented horror writer, and documented anti-Semite and racist.” For this publication, Lovecraft’s assertions such as, “The Negro is fundamentally the biological inferior of all White and even Mongolian races” and admissions such as, “Just as some otherwise normal men hate the sight or presence of a cat, so have I hated the presence of a Jew” make arguments that “Lovecraft’s writings were in a ‘place and time’ . . . disingenuous.” A previous piece in the same outlet provides ample evidence for his prejudiced mindset, citing his comments about blacks, Jews, Asians, and Latinos and his praise of the film Birth of a Nation.

The case that Lovecraft was a prejudiced man even by the standards of his own time, then, seems persuasive. But this account leaves out certain complications about the man himself. And even if all the worst accusations were true, it does not automatically make the case for his banishment from cultural honor and recognition — something that might be impossible anyway, given the justifiable extent of his influence.

Let’s start with Lovecraft’s own prejudices. It’s not really much of an argument in his favor that there was a lot of contemporary animus against immigrants and minorities, especially if the fervor of his views was unusual even for his era. He was an unusual man in other ways: raised by an overbearing mother, deeply insecure, and tending toward solitude. But such accounts tend to leave out that Lovecraft fell in love with and married a Russian Jewish woman (though their marriage later collapsed). Moreover, writers and biographers in the documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown contend that, as time wore on and Lovecraft ventured farther and farther out of his isolation, he became less xenophobic and more accepting of other cultures and races.

There’s evidence of this in his later writing. Take “In the Walls of Eryx,” published in 1936 and co-authored with Kenneth J. Sterling. This story was arguably Lovecraft’s sole sojourn into pure science fiction. In it, a crystal miner on Venus is at violent odds with the native Venusians, who are understandably furious at the main character’s incursion on their planet. At the end of the story, this main character, who is also the narrator, finds himself siding with the Venusians, stating that they should be left alone to live out their lives and practice their religion in peace. Even if we do not want to give Lovecraft unnecessary praise, this story seems to betray at least an emerging, if unconscious, sympathy for indigenous peoples. Hypotheticals may be inadequate supports for arguments. But it’s still interesting to wonder what turn Lovecraft’s stories would have taken had he survived into the ’40s, ’50s, or even the ’60s.

But let’s assume this brief fails to absolve Lovecraft of his sins, and that we choose to subject him to a modern cultural purge. There’s just one question: How? His work is not just present on library shelves. His stories have been turned into films and television movies with varying degrees of faithfulness to the original works, with some adaptations bordering on the prurient. References to Lovecraft can even be found in rock and indie songs. Traces of his work can be found in countless horror and fantasy films and books. At one time, people were even placing “Cthulhu” plaques on their vehicles to thumb their noses at those who had “Ichthys” stickers on their cars.

Lovecraft’s influence has also appeared in one of the most commercially successful contemporary American authors. Stephen King’s Danse Macabre has several references to him. In one, King argues that, at his best, Lovecraft could “make us feel the size of the universe we hang suspended in, and suggest shadowy forces that could destroy us all if they so much as grunted in their sleep.” Traces of Lovecraft appear regularly in King’s work, such as in “The Mist,” “The Graveyard Shift,’ “I Am The Doorway,” “The Boogeyman” and, in particular, “Gramma.” “Gramma,” which deals with a dead senior citizen suddenly and terrifyingly brought back to life, much to the terror of her grandson, features a spell that could easily have come from the lips of a worshipper of Lovecraft’s elder gods. His influence on King is just one piece of evidence that, Lovecraft, warts and all, is embedded in not just the horror and fantasy genres, but in the American psyche. In the documentary mentioned above, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro said that Lovecraft was part of the “fossil record” of America.

To argue for Lovecraft’s literary value, of course, is not to excuse him for his racist and barbaric views. Such beliefs have always been execrable, no matter the time or place. But what do we do with Lovecraft, whose influence has so thoroughly pervaded the horror and fantasy genres? Lovecraft, despite his racism and antisemitism, is a part of the cultural DNA.

Besides, at a certain point, this kind of self-destructive attitude starts blowing up the bedrock of the nation itself (which, unsurprisingly, is often where such campaigns end up). Pat Garrett, a legend of the Old West, was a “son of a bitch,” one woman whose father rode with him once told me. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves. In recent years, disturbing information has surfaced regarding the personal life of Martin Luther King Jr. And yet, there is no denying the effect and the contributions of Washington, Jefferson, King, and others when it comes to shaping the nation. If one scratches deeply enough beneath the surface of any hero, one will inevitably find something unsavory about their life or character. One may tear town statues, paint over murals, and excise anyone from the past who does not adhere to the latest version of America, a quest that would eventually leave us with nothing but the present moment, itself destined to be thought problematic by future generations.

Mature minds can sift the good from the bad, and the art from the artist. Immature minds would not rest until virtually every aspect of our culture is destroyed. Where would it end? After Roald Dahl’s antisemitism received renewed posthumous attention, his family issued an apology for the “lasting and understandable hurt” caused by Dahl’s statements. A representative from the Campaign Against Antisemitism was disappointed that the family waited 30 years to apologize. But if Dahl’s views hung in the air that long, why was there a remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and a film adaptation of Matilda? Surely our cultural gatekeepers should have been aware of this and taken the necessary steps to ensure that Dahl faded into obscurity and the accompanying shame.

Maybe children’s literature is harmless. What about the still-living Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale? A 2021 USA Today article accused Atwood of “passive transphobia” because of a tweet that read, “Why can’t we say ‘woman” anymore?” Of course, Atwood is hardly a patron of the patriarchy. So perhaps her transphobic transgression might be overlooked. After all, if we canceled Atwood, how could women demand the right to abortion and dress up in Handmaid’s Tale outfits?

Or how about Alice Walker, the author of The Color Purple? Walker, The Atlantic reports, found some common ground with David Icke and his book And the Truth Shall Set You Free. In it, the article asserts that Icke repeatedly references Jews and the Rothschilds, the family that is supposedly a keystone of the “New World Order.” Icke holds that the Jews helped finance the Holocaust and that the Klan is secretly Jewish. Walker, moreover, “is a fierce critic of the state of Israel,” and she has refused to allow The Color Purple to be translated into Hebrew. Walker has held that any attempt to label her as antisemitic is a reaction to her support of the Palestinian people. But in a poem, she refers to the Palestinians as victims of “ancient evil” which has been done “with impunity, and without conscience, / By a Chosen people.”

Those who would cancel Lovecraft would not dare do the same to Walker. So we have already established that the political views of a writer can be ignored in favor of their accomplishments. If that courtesy is to be extended to Walker, Atwood, or even Dahl, it should also be extended to Lovecraft.

If we were to judge Lovecraft not by his work, but solely by his worldview, it would be tempting to leave him to brood among the crypts, caves, distant worlds, and alternate dimensions he created, keeping a lonely vigil with his ghouls, demons, monsters, and demigods. Part of Lovecraft’s mystique is that he spends so much time in death, decay, and phantasmagoria, things that we would eschew for the comfort of the daylight. But Lovecraft, with his prejudices, makes the reader visit those places and converse with the residents. While King’s comment above focuses on Lovecraft’s overwhelming outside evil, Lovecraft perhaps unwittingly turns the focus inward.

Oddly enough, while demons and ghouls populate many of Lovecraft’s stories, Satan himself never makes an appearance. The nightmare denizens of Lovecraft’s mind are not depicted as evil per se, but rather as residents of a parallel world, one that also resides within everyone. Lovecraft offers a controlled release of the terror and disgust that comes with that part of the human soul. Like the mirror that startles and then devastates the protagonist of “The Outsider,” Lovecraft’s works offer us a look at our inner demons and our basest fears.

One of those fears is, of course, helplessness in the face of a danger against which we cannot defend ourselves. The monstrous Cthulhu who rises from the depths cares nothing for the human beings who have the misfortune to encounter him. He and many of Lovecraft’s elder gods and forces from beyond the stars pay little, if any, heed to the tiny occupants of Earth. They have greater plans, and mankind is not even worth taking the time to acknowledge. Humanity, with all of its achievements, has no more significance to inhabitants of Lovecraft’s bestiary than a cloud of gnats or a stray mosquito.

Lovecraft’s protagonists frequently break under the knowledge that the things they have known to be true about the world and its history are not true at all. Or that the world is about to be inexorably altered by forces that they cannot comprehend or control. Even in the stories that do not deal with monstrous creatures from another dimension, Lovecraft’s characters tell their tales after having succumbed to the horror in question or after having narrowly escaped with their worldview shattered or with the knowledge that the horror in question will search them out. In some stories, the forces of evil are mere steps away.

Lovecraft wrote during a period in which the horrors of the First World War were still raw and fresh, even as a second global conflict began to stir in Europe. Technology was continuing the march that began during the Industrial Revolution. The nation and the world were changing. The tumult and churn that marked his time may help explain why his work remains relevant. Today, increasingly greater amounts of power are ceded to a decreasing number of people. We live in the shadow of constant warnings about pandemics and the idea that AI may replace humanity on every level. Gender ideology creates chaos for its acolytes and opponents alike. There is economic and political uncertainty on every level of life. Fewer and fewer places offer safety and security. On a visceral level, people can relate to Lovecraft’s characters since they see their fears mirrored in the narrative. There is comfort, if not safety, in numbers.

And besides, Lovecraft’s stories are also just good, escapist fun, albeit fun that can keep one up for several hours after setting the book down. Because Lovecraft’s work speaks to his enthusiasts on a very personal level, and is so thoroughly embedded in our popular culture, it is doubtful that he can be canceled soon. Or that he should be. The oblivion that his detractors today promise for him alone could be aimed at all of us someday, if we are not careful.