# Cthulu? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 7, 2003, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cthulu/167020 "2003-04-07T07:55:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![hebesphenomegacorona](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b9e5f3/32.png) [@hebesphenomegacorona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hebesphenomegacorona)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2003, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cthulu/167020/41 "2003-05-07T13:18:06Z")
Well, what on earth do the other Elder Gods look like? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2003, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cthulu/167020/42 "2003-05-07T13:47:50Z")
Lovecraft’s racism is something I wouldn’t really hold against him, in view of his time and place and class and upbringing, and the fact that he did (briefly) marry a Jew. But I wouldn’t ignore it, either, because it’s a key to understanding and appreciating his fiction. Lovecraft seems to have shared the attitude held by Thomas Jefferson: that any non-Anglo-Saxon was subhuman. He wrote a poem about “The Fall of New-England,” lamenting how it was once the land of the “noble SAXON race” and is now polluted with “base foreign boors.” The attitude translates into his horror fiction: The batrachian, puffy-lipped Deep Ones who breed with humans in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” represent fears of race-mixing. “The Horror at Red Hook” shows up his horrified fascination with immigrant communities, with strange, furtive ways, worshiping strange, incomprehensible golds. In many of the Mythos stories, particularly the classic “Call of Cthulhu,” the Cult of Cthulhu is kept alive by ignorant, primitive, low-class persons of swarthy complexion. And so on, there are countless examples. There was class-prejudice to go with his race-prejudice. Lovecraft came from a shabby-genteel New England family, and was always very conscious of his origins, and mournful of the fact that, by the time he was born, the clan had more ancestors than money. In “The Dunwich Horror,” the small town of Dunwich, Massachusett, is peopled with poor “armigerous families,” who can trace their lines back to English gentry. Many of these families, such as the Whatelys, have spiritually, mentally and biologically “decayed” over the centuries, finally producing old Wizard Whately and his slatternly, deformed, albino daughter, Lavinia. Lovecraft was rather obsessed with the theme of human degeneracy and decadence. (Not in any sexy sense, no.) ---
**Author:** ![WILLASS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/54ee81/32.png) [@WILLASS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WILLASS)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2003, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cthulu/167020/43 "2003-05-07T16:26:46Z")
I don’t think the fact that Lovecraft married a jew has anything to do with whether he’s a nazi or not - Hitler was part jewish and it didn’t stop him! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2003, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cthulu/167020/44 "2003-05-08T16:40:10Z")
This is getting way off topic but I feel obliged to correct Willass. Hitler may have been part Jewish. Or he may not have been. Cecil did a column on this, you can find it in the SD Archives. There is some evidence that one of Hitler’s grandfathers might have been Jewish, but nobody knows for sure. Hitler himself felt some anxiety on this point and had the rumors investigated, but his agents couldn’t find any clear evidence one way or another. When the Reich’s racial purity laws were drawn up, the legal definition of “Jew” was crafted to expressly exclude “our Lord Jesus Christ and our Fuhrer Adolph Hitler.” But Hitler apparently developed his antisemitism, and gave it a central place in his thought, long before he learned he might have Jewish blood. And at that point, what would you expect him to do about it? Lovecraft, on the other hand, as an adult, who most people of his acquaintance had been unthinkingly anti-semitic his whole life, made a conscious, informed decision to marry a Jew. (Jewess. Whatever. I think the PC term is “Shebrew.”) And no, there’s no evidence whatsoever Hitler was a Nazi, or a member of any Nazi group or bund, or in any way active in fascist, racist or anti-semitic politics (or in politics of any kind). It’s possible he sympathized with the Nazis in some ways at some times, but so did Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh. We can’t judge such people by modern standards. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2003, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cthulu/167020/45 "2003-05-08T16:54:59Z")
There’s a French author, Maurice Lévy, who, in his 1972 essay _Lovecraft ou du fantastique_, mentioned that Lovecraft was the first one to translate _Mein Kampf_ in English. Can anybody confirm or deny it ? ---
**Author:** ![FabioClone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5f8ce5/32.png) [@FabioClone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FabioClone)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2003, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cthulu/167020/46 "2003-05-08T16:55:11Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally Posted by BrainGlutton_ > And no, there’s no evidence whatsoever Hitler was a Nazi, or a member of any Nazi group or bund, or in any way active in fascist, racist or anti-semitic politics (or in politics of any kind). No evidence that Hitler was a Nazi or a fascist huh? Any he wasn’t in politics at all? Damn. I guess I should have paid more attention in history class. Yeah, I know what you meant.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Stephi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Stephi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephi)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2003, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cthulu/167020/47 "2003-05-08T17:07:48Z")
I’ve always pronounced it as “Kuh thoo loo.” Just chiming in. 🙂 Also, minor hijack; Many modern authors have written stories about the Cthulhu mythos, including one by Neil Gaiman, called “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” which was very well done. Read it if you can find it. I highly recommend it! ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2003, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cthulu/167020/48 "2003-05-08T18:29:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\*(Jewess. Whatever. I think the PC term is “Shebrew.”) > \*\* As a Jew, I had a very stong emotional reaction to this. It’s hillarious! Shebrew! hehhe. Trapped In The Walls Of Eryx What about this story? IMHO, the subtext is the most obvious of all the HPL stuff I’ve read. The message is-the Indians are equal to the white man and should be left alone. Rats In The Walls Here we have a cat named N_gg_r man. But, the DeLaPoer family is a twisted group. Is it possible that HP’s characterizations of the DeLaPoers were meant to apply to all slave owners EG Slavery is no better than cannibalism? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cthulu/167020.md?page=2)