Discussion Notes: The Street

Find this week’s story here: The Street by H. P. Lovecraft.

Next week’s story: The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.

Rated: Clean.

This week our hosts discuss H. P. Lovecraft’s The Street, a departure from Lovecraft’s infamous alien horrors. The Street’s a supernatural story dripping with a xenophobic political message. Unable to accept the politics, all four hosts struggled with how to criticize the story. Maya focused on the language and did her best to separate the art from the artist. Rammy and Anais rejected that approach on the premise that the art itself is the vehicle for politics they couldn’t support. Meanwhile, Gerald tried to follow in Maya’s footsteps, but couldn’t quite look past the story’s racism. Despite these difficulties, the hosts manage to analyze the language and craft and enjoy a fun alien personality quiz at the end.

Did we miss a crucial piece of this story? Tell us below!

Also, don’t forget to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate this story? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail.

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One comment on “The Street | H. P. Lovecraft | Literary Roadhouse Ep 88

  1. Todd says:

    I was interested to hear you folks tackle this story and unsurprised by the outcome 🙂 The Street is probably one of the worst examples of his body of work (I would say it barely qualifies as fiction) and the best example of his personal worldview and, as such, is ripe for a discussion which focuses too much on the latter, as so many do these days. Sadly a fair discussion of HPL’s work is almost impossible to have if you are aware of his personal opinions. I could recommend a number of his stories but the inevitable focus on the man instead of the writing results in anything he wrote being viewed through the hyper-sensitive lens of modern equality. The famous saying “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” has never been more applicable than when examining his complete collection of works.
    No offense to the others, but I have to commend Maya on being able to most successfully set aside the author’s personality in her assessment of the story.

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