Dear Julian,
This series of postings for some reason has expanded greatly.
I believe "Ludde" began by responding to something as number
20. This series begins with my first posting after I had
discovered the existence of the site. If you read through,
you will see that my knowledge of, and interest in, CAS is
entirely based on my deep and intimate friendship with him
during the last few years of his life - my first contact with
him was as poet. For me, poetry is to prose as chess is to
checkers -- and I love checkers. My good friend of many
years ago, poet John Ciardi (founder of now defunct
Saturday Review) wrote an excellent book called "How
does a poem mean?" Clark and I discussed this and the concept
therein on several occasions, because it is the crux of
what makes poetry function - if all that matters was
the "what" of meaning, then verse or prose is adequate. But
there are, as I am sure you know, depths of experience for
which ordinary language is inadequate, and it becomes the
task of the true poet to wrap that experience in language
in such a way that the combination of sound, sense, rhythym,
and structure elicit that for which words otherwise do not
fulfill the task. For example (among many others), my own
experiences awaking 12 hours after surgery to find
myself alive with the heart of a 23 year transplanted into
my chest, and the first thing I see is a monitor with
even beats after 5 years of chronic atrial fibrilation --
an unutterable joy combined with the realization that someone
somewhere is burying a son - imagine attempting to find words
for that family that go beyond "thanks." I have not yet
succeeded, yet scholars raised in Elizabethan England
hit the nail on the head --"O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory."
Dr. F

Dr.Farmer:

Hmmm..., my excuse about english not being my native language showed a bit of false humbleness. I am actually quiet happy over, an confident in the vocabulary I have in store (thanks to hours of slowly reading CAS... and also Vance, my "close love" Lovecraft, and others, with Websters Encyclopedic Dictionary within close reach). Live conversation is another matter, which I don't practice very often. With a little digging I can find suitable words to put together a text expressing most of what I want to say, but the words don't come spontaneously (well, maybe a bit more now than they used to do... it improves all the time).

I read in some biography that CAS one night had seen an enormous object passing overhead, which he speculated possibly could have been a spaceship.
Did he ever talk about having had encounters with the paranormal, or about very strong spiritual experiences?

Ashton did indeed see a large object passing overhead in the
early dusk once - a dirigible. We did not discuss the
paranormal or spiritual matters as subjects in themselves, but
rather these phemonena existed for him as a given.
Clark's spiritual experiences find expression in his poetry.
The poem's tell nearly all you want to know; note carefully
and you will find that his deepest experiences involve
a beloved - the solitary life (odd to say for one who lived
so long as a bachelor) was not his ideal. One of my favorite
poems of his ends "...where time shall have none other
pendulum than the remembered pulsings of thy heart." All
things of real depth are without meaning unless shared
intimately -- even if only in memory. The "remembered thing"
for CAS was not an experience of nostalgia, but a real place
where one could have a contemporary, living experience
at will; he truly lived "out of space, out of time."

Dr. Farmer:

Quote:

The poem's tell nearly all you want to know; note carefully
and you will find that his deepest experiences involve
a beloved[...]

Don't you think, though, that some of CAS's deepest spiritual experiences are also reflected in The Star-Treader And Other Poems, a book that is remarkable for the fact that human relationships are almost entirely (and, to my taste, refreshingly) absent from its subject matter? On the evidence of this volume, never was CAS farther from the "human aquarium". Complacent, blinkered types as Harriet Monroe and others of that ilk may see such a disregard for the primacy of the human as evidence of "callowness", but that attitude reveals far more about their mindless socialization into herd values than it does about Clark Ashton Smith and his work.

Dear Kevin - I cannot go into detail for you on this
forum, however, I suggest you might re-read the poems
chronologically- when you have the opportunity to see the
earliest juvenile poems next year, then recall that Ashton's
first published works are those of an adolescent - Star-Treader,
of a young adult; then reflect on the regular course of
sexual maturity. I stand by my observation, but do not limit
the concept of "beloved."
I will stop here; I was about to expand on that idea, but
I think you will be more deeply rewarded doing that from your
experience. A starting place might be think of the mind's
explosive experiences thrust deeply into the womb of space
and time as generative of both the sublime and the deformed.
The cosmic symbology of sexuality suffuses our most exalted
spiritual experiences -- unavoidable.
Dr. F -
PS: I feel this may be an inadequate response to your very
serious interest in this matter. Let me simply assure you
that, as I am sure you know, as we age and change (hopefully
deepen), the same works we thought we once understood will
acquire new dimensions. I was the age Clark was when he
began to publish when I spent weeks and months in close
conversation with him; he was then the age I am now. My
perceptions are therefore tuned by more than 40 years of
reflection. Nevertheless, I make no claim to having more
or less insight into Clark's work than anyone else - that
is the glory and mystery of fine poetry - it is ultimately
personal and transforming. If a poem merely underscores
or endorses our pre-conceived ideas (or seems to), we have
probably missed something in it -- or were not yet at a
point in life where we were intellectually or spiritually
equipped to receive it. I am delighted to exchange
thoughts with you on this subject.
Dr. F

Hello, Dr. Farmer.

Thanks, as always, for your thought-provoking reply.

In my reference to The Star-Treader, I meant simply to supplement, not to contradict, your point about the theme of the "beloved" as a source of inspiration. I agree with you that the "beloved" may be a protean mistress, indeed. The more polemical points of my post were directed principally at the fatuous humanistic smugness of Harriet Monroe, whose review of The Star-Treader you've likely read on this Web site, if not elsewhere.

I agree as well that what we typically term sexual energy (and that which other religious traditions, not being limited by Freudian or other materialistic classification systems, call "chakras", among other nomenclature) is closely related to feelings of poetic elan. What the Harriet Monroes of the world cannot fathom is that it is possible, even desirable, to divert such energies into, for lack of a better (or at least a less dichotomous) term, spiritual pursuits. Such has been the mystic path for millennia; in a non-metaphysical context, it has even been endorsed by Nietzsche. I confess to finding great value in such a perspective, and if my "recognition" of it in the poetry of CAS colors my perspective of his work to the point of distortion, then so be it. I feel that, in the end, we all take from artists whatever suits our deepest needs and desires. When one is young, it is wise to have a very open mind, for--aside from the occasional precocious illuminatus, such as CAS--one knows very little. If, however, one is middle-aged or older, as we are, then I think that it is sign of maturity to commit to a perspective, or, following Nietzsche's terms, to embody fully the type of life that one represents, and to defend its interests, or "will to power". That, I hope, will explain a little better the attitude I take to the works of CAS and of those few others that have meant much to me over the years. Sometimes, as a corrective to the received "wisdom" of the day, it is necessary to appear to endorse extreme positions. Because anthropocentrism and humanism are enshrined today as sacred, unquestionable truths, I, who hold a strongly contrary view, have no hesitation whatsoever in using whatever weapons happen to be at hand, including the work of CAS, to combat them. Of course, the work of CAS means far more than merely that to me, but it is a powerful expression of an attitude that most today, like Ms. Monroe, find utterly incomprehensible. Of course, equally many might see this perspective as a mere teapot tempest, or a joust at windmills. To each his own Kulturkampf, I say--or none at all, if one's perspective is that poetry should remain forever confined to the pages of books. To me, it is an activity of mind, even a way of life. So yes, I do take it rather seriously, for better or for worse!

My apologies if this post has strayed too far from the topic of the thread (or even that of the forum), although I suppose that a thread headed "CAS" can encompass a variety of ruminations!

Dear Kevin - excellent riposte. And you have my hearty
anti-humanist endorsement. I did not react to your mention
of Monroe because, frankly, I ignore such types unless they
get in my face - if a person can demonstrate to me that they
have read and mastered to some extent the "Golden Bough" (however
flawed), and/or "The White Goddess" then I would pay serious
attention to a critical comment - my experience is that those
who have understood such works, understand and love CAS. The
majority of critics would rather be provocative than insightful,
the latter requiring profound education or wisdom, and a
recognition that higher realities may be known myths than
in our machines.
Dr. F

Dear Dr W.C. Farmer,

Did you and CAS ever talk about films? Did he go and see films like The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (or other less commercial efforts)? I imagine sitting in a theater, being part of a large crowd of people laughing, applauding, and screaming together at the same time, wasn't his idea of entertainment, but still.

Ludde

Clark and I never attended any films together - I do know that Clark had
seen the silent "Nosferatu" - however, even at .25c, a trip to the movies was
generally beyond his sense of need. More on this later.
Dr. F