A fascinating article by the always readable Laura Miller for Salon.com explores the fact that there are those uncomfortable with author H. P. Lovecraft’s racism, and whether that should impact one’s feelings regarding his well regarded works of horror:

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/11/its-ok-to-admit-that-h-p-lovecraft-was-racist/

Ms. Miller has broached a topic that has intrigued me for many, many years: How do you -or even should you- separate the artist from the art they’ve created?

When one explores more deeply the writings/letters of Mr. Lovecraft, one quickly realizes the author did have some strong racist ideals.  One can attribute at least some of them to the times in which he lived in (Mr. Lovecraft died in 1937), but there are those who note that even for that era, his hateful views were very strong.

So again the question arises: Can you separate the artist from the art?

I happen to love, for the most part, H. P. Lovecraft’s stories.  I believe he was a giant in the field of horror, second only to Edgar Allen Poe (high praise indeed!).  Yet I can acknowledge that Mr. Lovecraft was a man whose world views are very contrary to mine.  It is entirely possible that if he were alive today and I should meet him, I may well find him hard to take.  For that matter, given some of the things I’ve read about Edgar Allan Poe, I might well feel the same about him, too!

Moving along, I love the music of The Doors, yet much of what I’ve read about lead singer Jim Morrison makes me cringe.  He was a man of many vices and, again, I suspect that if I could somehow meet him I might not have all that much to talk to him about, other than to praise his work.

More recently, Hollywood has turned on actor Mel Gibson because of his “extracurricular” activities.  Like most others, I found these episodes cringe-worthy, though it has been a few years since he’s made it into the news in any negative way.  Does his highly questionable behavior make it impossible for me to continue loving The Road Warrior, the movie that made Mr. Gibson a superstar and one of my all time favorite action films?  Not really.

But for others, the real life of the artist has an impact on how and whether they like the art, and I can totally understand that.

Returning to H. P. Lovecraft, I suspect its easier to accept/ignore his racism while still enjoying his literary work because, let’s face it, the man has been dead for nearly eighty years.

But looking at what has happened to Mel Gibson, I can’t help but wonder: What if there was a huge literary figure out there today, one admired for their work and who has sold many copies of their books, and it is discovered s/he is a racist who has views similar to those of H. P. Lovecraft?

Would accepting his/her racism while still enjoying their works still be an option?