The Shadow Over Greatness
Copyright: Sanjay Basu Loving the Art When You Can’t Love the Artist A philosophical meditation on Lovecraft, disappointment, and cultural maturity There’s a moment, subtle, irreversible, when admiration curdles into disappointment. It doesn’t happen all at once. At first, there’s a faint unease, like noticing the wallpaper peeling behind a favorite painting. Then comes the quiet reading, the letters, the historical context. And finally, a hard truth settles in your gut like cold lead. The genius whose work shaped your imagination also harbored beliefs that are vile, small, and profoundly at odds with your own. For me, that moment arrived with Howard Phillips Lovecraft, or rather, with the realization that behind the literary architect of cosmic horror stood a man whose racism wasn’t incidental but constitutive. Lovecraft didn’t simply reflect the prejudices of his time. He marinated in them, embellished them, and occasionally wrote poems so hateful they make your skin crawl. An...