With Lovecraft particularly, i’d argue that at least for me, his works were worth reading because they are so infected with his perverse ideas that it just derails and jumps from disgustingly racist into plain ridiculous. I mean, come on, the guy is literally afraid of trees and soap bubbles and star constellations. He lives in a constant state of dread and disgust, and that’s what all reactionaries are like deep inside. Lovecraft lays bare the soft, vulnerable underbelly of the reaction. Cosmic horror is the inability to handle the world as it is, without mythological, purpose-simulating blinders on your eyes, the utter failure to see the beauty in life’s sprawling chaos, the common L of the Appolonian. Lovecraft shows us the reactionary mind at its most miserable, when these people cannot pretend to be the violent, muscular Herrenmenschen they dream themselves to be, but when we see them for what they actually are: terrified little men who have to roll for sanity loss when they see me walking down the street and can’t decrypt my gender.

I’m not saying this because i want to recommend the guy, i’d particularly advise anybody who’s been racialized against getting too deep into this shitshow. Being able to do a close reading of reactionary material without distress is always privilege, i know from personal experience how much of a difference it makes when all that hate and terror is aimed at people like yourself. I can’t even begin to describe the damage transphobic narratives in mainstream media did to me, and i’m dead certain that for a lot of black & brown comrades, the same applies to the demonization of racialized and indigenous communities in works like Lovecraft’s. But for the time being, this material is out there, it has shaped how our culture conceptualizes certain tropes, and when you know it already and can stomach to bring it up again, it’s absolutely worth reflecting on and understanding the thought process and especially the emotional state behind it, because it’s a good way of knowing your enemy.

I should also add that i never gained the same insight from JKR’s work as i did from HPL’s. Looking at her writing with the knowledge of its not-that-hidden-bigottries didn’t teach me anything new, i just saw into the mind of somebody who is incredibly plain and petty and has never had an original thought in their entire life.