I Am Providence”: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft – Chris Thayer

Book Review >>> Chris Thayer “I Am Providence”: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft

S. T. Joshi. New York: Hippocampus Press, 2010. 1,148 pp.

I Am Providence, S. T. Joshi’s latest offering on American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, could be considered his masterwork. While the text itself suffers from a number of significant shortcomings, it offers the summation of everything Joshi has done for, and to, Lovecraft. This text draws heavily from a wide variety of Joshi’s older works—not only is it an updated and expanded version of his 2004 H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, it clearly incorporates material from his philosophical-political H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West, his literary-analysis-oriented Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, and even somewhat from the front matter presented before each story in the fiction collection H. P. Lovecraft: The Fiction, which S. T. Joshi edited. There are even minor insertions from a number of his approximately seventy-five other books (mostly edited/compiled editions, though some are pure analysis) and over 150 articles/reviews relating in some way to Lovecraft or scholarship thereof. The work truly serves best as a concise introduction to Joshi’s contributions to the field of Lovecraft—though, for a work weighing in at two volumes (over a thousand pages between them), ‘concise’ is clearly a relative matter. H. P. Lovecraft, the book’s subject matter, was an early 20th century American horror writer. He is best known for his concept of “cosmic regionalism,” connecting the expanse of space and the atmosphere of New England to complementarily engender horror, and his pioneering the field of “science horror,” advocating a hyper-realistic style in horror fiction, contrasting known science with plausible extraterrestrial ‘monsters’ (such as the widely popular, octopus-headed Cthulhu) in order to convey his vision of the godless, uncaring expanse of the universe and humanity’s comparative irrelevance. I Am Providence traces his life story, from his 1890 birth in a declining aristocratic family in Providence, Rhode Island, to his nearpenniless 1937 death (of intestinal cancer), and includes discussions of almost all of his short stories, in chronological order. The title originates in a quote from one of Lovecraft’s letters (which are estimated to number near the hundreds of thousands), expressing his connection to Providence, RI, and his joy in returning there after living unhappily for several years in New York City, and is also Lovecraft’s epitaph. While Joshi’s sources are inarguable and his gravitas as a (perhaps the) definitive voice on Lovecraft lends authority to the ‘story’ being told, the text itself suffers from a number of serious problems—all of which end up affecting readability and audience. One major hurdle is simply its length. Any two-volume biography is going to be somewhat daunting to the average reader, and this instance is no exception. Even more so, Joshi seems to have added material without actually adding anything new or worthwhile. More material does not always a better biography make, and the additions rather hurt I Am Providence. Furthermore,

this book is exactly as linguistically pretentious as its rather hackneyed title. Just as “the life and times of ___” is a tired cliché from the days of hyper-formalized biographies, Joshi seems to need to reassure himself that he’s a “real academic” with unnecessary jaunts into unnaturally complex language, completely at odds with his informal tone and frequent digressions. Stylistically, Joshi’s prose is mostly smooth and well-paced, but he sometimes indulges in a level of vocabulary which sharply limits the potential readership from any person interested in Lovecraft’s life to someone with a high education, a handy dictionary, and serious dedication to the topic. The second category of trouble Joshi’s work suffers from is in tone. One issue is the pervasive snide remarks about other, later writers in the ‘Cthulhu Mythos.’ These are especially common against August Derleth, Lovecraft’s primary successor and champion, and someone to whom all Lovecraft enthusiasts must be grateful, in light of his hard and constant work in seeing Lovecraft published and widely distributed. Fans have Derleth to thank for H. P. L.’s enduring popularity and literary appreciation—appreciation which has let Joshi become so well-respected a critic and author—and the constant sniping feels disrespectful. The trend of inserting his own opinions continues throughout the text, resulting in a lot of “I, I, I” for a biography, and ensuring Joshi’s presence is clearly felt. This is perhaps not as great a sin for him as for other biographers, given his position as the preeminent scholar of Lovecraft currently extant, but it can feel somewhat jarring to hear so personal a tone from a man who never met Lovecraft, and knows him only from fiction, letters, and essays. It is understandable that Joshi feels some measure of ownership or affiliation with one of the subjects of his life’s work, but the extent to which he has invested himself and his own personality in the work further detracts from its value to a reader outside of the field. Moreover, this informal tone seems to shift in mood over time, resulting in multiple moments of inappropriate jocularity when discussing serious subjects, or odd over-sobriety in regards to lighter matters, further limiting readability. Joshi serves as a capable apologist throughout, from managing the damage done by Lovecraft’s pervasive racist attitudes and language to attempting to justify his occasionallyhackneyed, adjective-ridden prose style. Nevertheless, including such long discussions of his fiction, its style and its contents, seems out-of-place in a biography. The trend may be in part explained by the great length of the work, which might have made Joshi feel more at-liberty to digress, and to digress at some length, from the content of Lovecraft’s own life. In any case, I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft remains fairly engaging and readable if one has a taste for hyper-detailed biography or an interest in Lovecraft. Its primary utility is as an excellent starting place for any serious Lovecraft student who wishes to get a well-rounded sample of the major dominant voice in the field.