H.P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West

by S.T. Joshi

The author This book began as an expansion of my essay, "H. P. The Decline of the West," in The Weird Tale , but very quickly became something quite different, to the degree that the two works have little save the title in common. I have always been interested in Lovecraft the philosopher, and in my Starmont Reader's Guide to Lovecraft (1982) I attempted a very compressed account of his philosophical views. To treat so complex a thinker as Lovecraft in a few pages was obviously untenable, even though I think those few pages at least convey the unity of his thought--perhaps better than this fuller study does. One reviewer, however, was correct in noting that I did not sufficiently integrate Lovecraft's thought and his fiction, and I have now attempted to remedy the failing. I am still not convinced that I have really written one rather than two books here. Does Lovecraft's fiction really depend upon his philosophy? I wrestle with this question further in my introduction, but here I can note that I had great difficulty deciding upon the proper structure for this book. I deal with four principal facets of Lovecraft's philosophy--metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and politics--in Part I, and those same facets as applied to the fiction in Part II. It might have made more sense to juxtapose the corresponding chapters of each part, but I finally determined that this would be both methodologically and practically unsound; methodologically for reasons explained in the introduction, and practically because it would fail to demonstrate the interconnectedness of Lovecraft's thought and because in Part II I frequently rely upon conceptions expressed throughout the whole of Part I.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Horror, Politics, Weird Fiction

172 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1990

About the author

Sunand Tryambak Joshi is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.

His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.

Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.

In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.

Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.

In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.

Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.

Reviews

[Matthew W · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book to read if you want to know about H.P. Lovecraft's philosophies, politics, racial beliefs, aesthetics, and just about everything else that influenced Lovecraft's writing. Upwards of 1/2 the book are excerpts from Lovecraft's own writings.

The reason I did not give this book 5 stars is that I was not too fond of S.T. Joshi's writing style or commentary. Joshi has a very dry academic style that seems to lack any real life. Joshi also seems to put himself above Lovecraft in quite an arrogant fashion. Throughout the book, Joshi shows his disapproval and disagreement with Lovecraf'ts beliefs which gets old rather quickly. Sorry Joshi, but you never be a Lovecraft or a Mencken.

S.T. Joshi also promotes the pseudo-science known as cultural anthropology invented by anti-western agitator Franz Boas. Seeing as Joshi is not a westerner, his bias is quite obvious. Dr. Kevin MacDonald did a swell job dissecting cultural Anthropology as political motivated and anti-scientific movement in his book "The Culture of Critique." Unsurprisingly, S.T. Joshi is a writer of his time, a cultural Marxist that bases all his beliefs on everything that is anti-Western.

Despite the title of the book, Joshi only spends about ten pages on Oswald Spengler's influence on H.P. Lovecraft This chapter also happens to be the last segment of the book and probably the best.

[Aleksandar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book! It is one of the rare ones, to date, to properly address Lovecraft's political ideas and view them as a wider manifestation of his views on culture and aesthetics. I did not give this book 5 stars, for the sole reason that the author does not frame Lovecraft's political views in a wider context, especially to look at them in relation to other authors who held similar views and who were Lovecraft's contemporaries, but rather focuses on authors and works that influenced him.

[Sylri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a dense little chunk of work.

Even though it’s around 300+ pages (kindle edition), it took me a number of months to parse my way through it.
I’m new to philosophical schools of thought/works, so I took my time to really try and retain the info the book was giving me. And I still can’t remember all the names Joshi brought up. 😅

What Joshi has done here is take a pretty thorough look at Lovecraft’s evolving thought using citations from his letters to back up those statements in part 1, and then examining how these philosophical thoughts made their way into his stories in part 2. These two sections are both broken up into subsections titled Metaphysics, Ethics, Aesthetics, and Politics.

Lastly in part 3 we get to Spengler and how he influenced Lovecraft. For the title of the book to take after Spengler’s, I’m surprised this section was the smallest. It’s still broken up into four parts, but they aren’t anywhere near as lengthy as the first two parts. Like some, I found this part in some ways the most interesting.

I have not read Spengler’s The Decline of the West , but from what I have been able to gather I feel Joshi does a good job summarizing the important points and the way in which they could have helped shape Lovecraft’s fiction. A good CliffsNote’s version if you will.

The first part of the book is quite interesting if you’re curious about Lovecraft’s personal views. I had read about Lovecraft’s coming around to socialism before, but watching the evolution in his letters from advocating a form of aristocracy to socialism is fascinating. The scientific advances of the time forcing Lovecraft to switch from a deterministic to a more probabilistic viewpoint also helped expose me to these concepts and has given me some things to chew on. Joshi also traces Lovecraft’s evolving materialism from the Epicureans and his aesthetic phases.

The fiction section analyzing the metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and politics was an easier read, since I’m familiar with Lovecraft’s work as opposed to philosophy. With Joshi taking relevant portions of Lovecraft’s works, it is much easier to examine his evolving worldviews making their way into his stories.

I know Joshi had set himself the task of analyzing Lovecraft’s stories from the lense of Lovecraft’s philosophical views, and so there’s a sharp eye out on these tales. But sometimes I felt as though Joshi would berate Lovecraft for having a story that doesn’t seem to align with his philosophy. Now, Joshi does his best to keep his dislike for stories like “The Dunwich Horror” to a professional level, but I feel like his criticism for that particular story doesn’t come from the right place.

Joshi states in the book’s introduction this was his goal: he claims that a work may be censured for either not conforming to the author’s worldview or being based on an incorrect worldview. And that he has no shame in taking Lovecraft to task for what he considers deficiencies in Lovecraft’s philosophies. Classic Joshi. 😅
Taking this into account puts all of his commentary into context, even if I don’t completely agree with his method. I feel like it is a very limiting view that an author’s work should always align with or push forward their philosophical views. “The Dunwich Horror”, to me, is just a good weird story, and it is not a lesser Lovecraft story just because good “wins” in the ending. Sometimes that might make for a better tale rather than pushing Lovecraft’s personal narrative, which is still a fine goal to me.

This criticism happens occasionally when analyzing Lovecraft’s letters too, where Joshi points out how a statement Lovecraft make would be illogical or not a good clarification of the position he’s defending. He’s chiding Lovecraft for not providing a solid debate-like defense where without context I can’t determine if Lovecraft is having more of a formal debate or if he’s just making offhand remarks in an informal conversation. Without the context I can’t tell if such criticism is warranted or not. I would judge comments made in a casual conversation differently than I would a formal statement.

But these little nitpicks don’t detract from the fine work Joshi has done here.

Definitely a book you should pick up if you’re at all interested in Lovecraft’s thoughts and how these relates to his fiction.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only attempt I know of that clearly and comprehensively lays out Lovecraft’s self-conscious philosophy. An excellent introduction to Lovecraft’s thought as a philosophical non-specialist, but still very informed intellectual. Though I don’t agree with some of Joshi’s explanations of Lovecraft’s supposed political and social philosophy, his explorations of his metaphysics and aesthetics was excellent. Highly recommend!

[Michael A. Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

4-, I would say. Part 1 - The Philosophy - is terribly dry and soporific. Parts 2 and 3 are much more readable.