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Lovecraft Country (Lovecraft Country, #1)

Matt Ruff

Start date: April 1, 2019

Finish date: April 30, 2019

Discussion: Books of the Month 2019

Why we're reading this: April 2019
Horror
[close] April 2019
Horror

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Books of the Month 2019

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What Members Thought

May 05, 2019 Auntie Terror rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-urban

There are many things that took me by surprise with this book, first and foremost: the style of story-telling.
I had expected a classical novel with a more or less (after all, this is meant to be "Lovecraftian") straight line towards a catastrophe. What I read was a collection of Lovecraft-inspired short stories which supplied little dots you could connect to form a central story. Some of these stories played out longer and in more (unimportant) detail than would have been necessary, I feel. Also There are many things that took me by surprise with this book, first and foremost: the style of story-telling.
I had expected a classical novel with a more or less (after all, this is meant to be "Lovecraftian") straight line towards a catastrophe. What I read was a collection of Lovecraft-inspired short stories which supplied little dots you could connect to form a central story. Some of these stories played out longer and in more (unimportant) detail than would have been necessary, I feel. Also, the writing was a lot more humourous than I anticipated - which wasn't a bad thing, only an unexpected element to the mix of Lovecraftian elements and racism criticism.

There are, as I have mentioned, Lovecraft elements such as doors between worlds across the universe, shapeless horrors haunting the shadows and covens of (elderly) white men trying to summon powers they don't seem to fully understand. But they don't supply the horrid and terrifying bits - that is wholly achieved by the disgusting racism the group of main chacarters encounters at every turn in a not so distant past in the US. Jim Crow definitely beats old Shoggoth in horror and ugliness here.
This book being set in the rural South of the US in the 1950s offers ways to show the effects of racism that wouldn't be plausible if the story was set in a contemporary US. While racism is still a problem there today (as in the whole world, actually and sadly), the discrimination against and segregation of people of colour in general and black people in particular is no longer written down as official state law. While people of colour still have to worry a lot more about being pulled over by cops than white people, at least the cop can no longer pull them over legally on the grounds of their skin colour and the time of day (or night, as happens to the characters in the book). Of course, the racism shown in the book reflects back on the reality of today, but the exact way racism influences Ruff's story development in his setting of the 1950s wouldn't be credible today. He'd have to tell certain aspects differently, in the same way an author telling a story the development of which is influenced by the presence of antisemitism in Germany would have to present incidents of antisemitism differently, depending on whether they set the story in contemporary Germany, 1930s Germany or medieval Germany. Antisemitism was there, sadly, in all these time periods - but the outward form it was legally allowed to take would differ greatly.

By presenting the incidents of racism as he does, Ruff enables the reader to draw the obvious conclusion that racism is absolutely wrong, and also stupid. What annoyed me at times was the schoolmasterly tone employed on top of that: "And this, kids, is why racism is bad." This just isn't necessary and might even hurt the valid point he's making because people in general are a lot less likely to consider a proposition or opinion as correct if the person presenting it gives them the feeling they think the audience is just too stupid to get it if it isn't spelt for them letter by letter. Neither Colson Whitehead in The Underground Railroad nor Jodi Picoult in Small Great Things felt the need to spell it out for their readers, and still I can't imagine anyone with even half a braincell to read the first and think "awww, the good old times in the US South" or to read the second and think "yes, of course it's right to drag that nurse to court, I wish she'd been found guilty". Both authors show instead of telling, and trust their readers to be enough of a human being to still get it.

Still, the book is a good and surprisingly fun read despite the serious issue of racism underlying the whole plot. ...more

61 likes · Like · see review

Nov 15, 2019 Denise Lauron rated it really liked it

I picked this book up because of bookclub. I had no idea what I was getting into when I started it. I ended up enjoying it a lot. I didn't have any background with Lovecraft's books, but I didn't really need it to understand the book.

The book kind of read like a book of short stories, but all of the stories actually tied together somehow. It all made sense in the end. It had well-rounded characters that I ended up caring about by the end. It wasn't too scary, even though it's tagged as horror. ...more

4 likes · Like · see review