User talk:Leo Grin

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[edit] Lovecraft/Howard discussion

Leo, I think your personalization of the discussion in regards to both me and to the sources I cite is inappropriate. You clearly have very strong feelings about this that seem to relate not to the work but to an apparent rivalry between fandoms or fanzines that I am not aware of. I honestly don't have any emotional investment in this--it really doesn't make any difference to me who Lovecraft drew inspiration from--but if Wikipedia is going to claim that Howard had a significant literary influence on Lovecraft, then we ought to be able to back that up with citations from critics who have documented that influence. And if there's a conspiracy of silence in the Lovecraft literature, which I don't believe, then surely Howard scholars have written about this connection and shown how it substantially affected Lovecraft's fiction.

I think it's hard to edit WP articles in areas where one has real-world expertise. You clearly have a strong POV about Howard that you've gained through years of close study, and that's great. When you're Leo Grim, WP editor, however, Leo Grim, Howard scholar, is just another source whose POV you need to balance with the other POVs that are out there. Can we please take a deep breath, put away any baggage we bring to this issue and deal with it with an evidence-based approach? Nareek 12:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Nareek, any inappropriateness is unintentional, and I'm fine with agreeing to disagree. I've been citing things left and right to defend everything I've said: direct quotes from both Howard and Lovecraft, quotes from HPL scholars disputing your unsubstantiated position on "critical consensus," statistics on what percentage of REH stories actually show influence, and on and on. From where I stand it is your position that has been the generalized one, filled with soft platitudes such as "most critics agree," but with little hard information backing them up.

Your initial query was whether anyone could demonstrate influence on HPL by REH, yet even a quote direct from HPL's pen saying unequivocally "I was strongly influenced by REH" isn't enough for you. I could point out things like REH publishing a story called "Thing on the Roof" a full year before HPL even began writing a story called "Thing on the Doorstep," with both stories coincidentally utilizing the exact same REH inventions of Justin Geoffrey, Nameless Cults, etc., but I'm sure you would pooh-pooh that as not enough as well, merely superficial. You seem to want proof that HPL wrote a story featuring berserk barbarians and swordplay, and anything less isn't really "influence." That would be like saying that REH would have to write stories of skinny weak professors getting gobbled by emotionless monsters, and anything less wouldn't be influence. Your bar for proof of the one is very low, and for the other impossibly high -- in fact, every time I've cleared it you move it higher and remain nonplussed.

Understand, you are more than welcome to think these things; like I said, most HPL scholars have been reinforcing these assumptions to each other for decades, and the end result of all that backslapping has been Joshi, in a bio on HPL that is likely to remain preeminent for a long time, saying flat out that Howard was an utter hack and that anyone who claims otherwise is "ridiculous." Now Nareek, I would humbly submit to you that such published critical statements show exactly where the real anger and personalization is in this field. And these — surprise, surprise — are the same published scholars who you are claiming have established the "critical consensus" on REH. Tell me, should Joshi's comments thus be the first paragraph of the REH Wikipedia page, just because it's published somewhere and can be cited? "Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) was a subliterary hack who doesn't even begin to approach real literature.[see Joshi, S. T. -- H. P. Lovecraft: A Life]"

OK Nareek, I'll play your shell game: go ahead and remove the thing on the REH page where it says HPL was influenced by REH, and leave the one up where it says REH was influenced by him. In the meantime, advise me exactly what proof you'll need to see before you will admit influence. Quotes from HPL? Similar plots to something REH wrote earlier? Declarations from published critics? How many footnotes will you need, Nareek? Ten? Twenty? (I see that the "HPL influenced REH" line has zero citations, but apparently you just consider that assumed knowledge, no citations necessary). After you have laid out what you think is fair, in print here for all to read, then we can see if any Howardists rise to the challenge. And if they do, if they come back with the published cites and examples, maybe then we can finally put the issue to rest, and once again give Lovecraft the dignity of having his own words and opinions taken seriously without second guessing them as him just being polite to a dead friend.

Of course, to be fair and neutral you'll have to come up with the same cited proofs for HPL's influence on REH. Or does the moral indignation you feel over a lack of cites on Wikipedia go only one way?

Furthermore, and I mean this sincerely, if you ever get a jones for writing up an essay along these lines, I'd be happy to run it in TC and pay you for it. Three cents a word — that's a couple hundred dollars in your pocket for a decent length essay. You probably wouldn't know, as I'm assuming you have never read the magazine, but diverse opinions are encouraged and on full display there (many Lovecraft fans read it, and the letters column has had several debates on these sorts of issues). The Cimmerian regularly features the work of Darrell Schweitzer (editor of Discovering H. P. Lovecraft and editor of Weird Tales), Bob Price has been published there, even Joshi dipped into the letters column long enough to proclaim that most Howard fans don't have enough of an education to ever make a case for his literary standing. (no cites for that one, alas)

Again, Nareek, I'm not angry at you, and I apologize for anything that has you thinking otherwise. Wikipedia is hardly the end of the world for me, there's loads of inaccurate statements littering its pages, and I doubt that it will change anytime soon. But as you know, Wikipedia has rules and guidelines, and while I'm perfectly happy to let the HPL fans say whatever they want on the HPL Wiki Page (Howard isn't even mentioned there under the "Influenced" section, much less the "Influences" one) it's not appropriate for Lovecraft guys to impose their own personal prejudices on REH's Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia rules are very clear about which opinions deserve precedence when arguments like this occur. I have seven years of published credentials in the field of Robert E. Howard studies, while the critics that you have mentioned all have strikes against them where REH is concerned, deficiencies that have been published, cited, and footnoted. (I've already sent you to the Necrofile review of Price's Intro to REH's Letters.) That your grasp of the REH field is too shallow to know this doesn't change the fact that it's true. That it feels "personal" or "inappropriate" for your beliefs to be questioned also has no bearing on the facts on the ground.

Anyway, have no fear about this degenerating into a flame war. I fully grant that you are enetitled to your opinion, and Wikipedia isn't enough to get me riled up no matter what the Howard page says. I'm not angry, you don't seem to be either, so let's just agree to disagree. If you want to make those changes on the REH page, have at it. But in the interest of scholarly accuracy, I would apprieciate a detailed list of what proofs you require before acknowleging REH's influence on HPL, along with the same proofs justifying your own as-yet-uncited claims regarding HPL's influence on REH. No offense intended. Fair enough?

P. S. My name is Leo Grin, with a "n". Not "Grim". (I can provide citations to support this assertion if required. -- that's a joke) Care to reveal your own name, if only to confirm that you have no hidden axe to grind here that's being obscured by your pseudonym? If you don't want to make it public here, send me an email at editor@thecimmerian.com.

Sorry to get your name wrong! You seem much more like a Grin than a Grim in your latest message.

Here's what I'm looking for: If you go to Arthur Machen#Legacy and influence, you'll see that someone (not me) recently linked to a bunch of Lovecraft stories that show Machen's influence. And if you go to those stories, you'll find a section called "Inspiration" for each one that cites one or more critics who see a connection between a particular Machen story and a specific aspect of the Lovecraft story. One could do the same thing with Dunsany or Poe; to a lesser extent, you could find similar links to Burroughs or Hawthorne. From these repeated citations in critical literature, you can say that these writers are major influences on Lovecraft.

My question is, do such citations exist--either the Lovecraft literature, of which I've only read a portion, or the Howard scholarship, which I admit is unknown to me--tracing Howard's impact on Lovecraft's writing? If so, I'd love to hear about them, or better yet see them inserted into the relevant articles.

As for Howard's work the makes use of Lovecraftian models, you refer to such influence yourself in the new bio section of Robert E. Howard. For citation, I would start with Charles Hoffman & Marc A. Cerasini in Black Forbidden Things, which make a distinction between Howard's Lovecraft pastiches, which they view as minor efforts, and the more successful integration of Lovecraft as one of several influences on Howard's heroic fantasy. The influence is also dealt with in Lin Carter's Lovecraft (which calls Howard "one of the greatest writers ever to fill [Weird Tales'] pages with his surging narrative and glorious gusto") and in Joshi and Schultz's An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, snob though Joshi is. I imagine Price has relevant things to say in his Howard collection, which I don't have yet. Nareek 16:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I now understand the breadth of your request, although a glance at the Machen page shows that whoever wrote that is willing to entertain the same more general definition of influence that I am (for instance, where it says "At the time authors like Wilde, W.B. Yeats and Arthur Conan Doyle were all admirers of Machen’s works" and "In music, the composer John Ireland found Machen’s works to be a life changing experience," two statements that echo HPL's comments about REH with uncanny precision). I shall keep my eyes peeled for any such specific story revelations, and if and when I feel I've built a substantial enough case for the claim of influence to meet your standards, including all cites, I'll let you know. Until then, keep on keeping on with the fine work you do tweaking the Howard page. Leo Grin 18:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

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